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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^Early childhood education is a specialized area of expertise just like Math/English/Science/History are.[/quote]

I just disagree with this model.

It puts all the risk on the future early childhood educators. If the career works out, great. If you find out you don't enjoy teaching young kids as much as you thought, you're screwed because your education doesn't help you in any other way.

The school systems themselves should be able to train people with degrees in math, science, etc to be able to teach young children.

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1st graders don't care if their teacher has an in depth knowledge of Calc 3.  They care that their teacher knows how to lead circle time, gets their classmates to share, keeps them safe on the playground, knows when to schedule their potty breaks, knows when to refer them for special ed, knows how to teach them basic math and language arts, etc.

Teaching a HS kid AP BC Calc is a whole other ballgame.[/quote]

Yeah I understand completely. I just think it's asking a lot for students to learn this all on their own before their first job offer and before they know for sure how much they like the career considering that the profession itself is not really high paid and the degree won't be good for much else if it doesn't work out.

That being said, how much of those things you said apply to 5th math in the OP's case?[/quote]

It's a steady job with decent benefits.  Students should be encouraged to look at the 8 semester plans for the majors they are interested in.  If they want to keep their options open they are going to need to knock out some prerequisites.  Ex: Early childhood education might have a minimal math requirement but nothing is preventing an EC major from taking Calc if they place in to Calc.  Nothing is preventing them from taking General Chemistry instead of Intro to Science - if they place into Gen Chem/have the prerequisite math for Gen Chem.

But nothing is preventing them from taking the lighter science/math/English/History courses, either, if they know that what they want to do is focus their time/energy/talent on EC courses.  Like I said before, passing those courses is not the same thing as being to able to apply what is learned during fieldwork.  That is where the gifted EC teachers shine.
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