In response to the ALEC-inspired legislation to allow uncertified, unlicensed people to teach, Paul Lauter–Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English at Trinity College–poses a simple question:
I think we should propose doing away with dental licenses. After all, there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a piece of string and a door knob.
Why not?
Why do doctors need to be licensed? Why do lawyers have to pass the bar exam? Why do airplane pilots need a license? Why do drivers need a license?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s an open question to me whether the pros of a certification program outweigh the cons. What I experienced in ed school was indoctrination in doctrines that my experience has proven false and invidious –e.g. that lecture is a terrible form of pedagogy.
Were ALL of your courses boring. Did all of your professors just lecture? I am truly interested.
I remember a long time ago going to University of Hawaii and being AWED at how those professors were able to lecture and make me feel like I was the ONLY one even though there were hundreds of students in those huge lecture halls. Of course, other classes weren’t this way. Foreign language, literature, and composition were smaller classes. But boy did I LIKE the anonymity of being just a number. I was being judged by my sex, my family’s economic status, or other things. I just soaked up the information and LOVED it all.
I thank my professors who taught me about pedagogy, child development, and ways to engage my students in learning.
When I went on to earn graduate degrees, AGAIN, I LOVED all of my experiences and courses. I applied what I learned and often adapted lessons based on principles and pedagogy as well as who the students are as well as the school, and the community.
Yvonne, I wouldn’t say my ed school courses were boring, but, in retrospect, they seem to have been largely useless or downright harmful. Cooperative learning, including jigsaw, was the method du jour and several professors tried to practice what they preached by have us work in groups and “learn” cooperatively. These were the most deadly, dull and fruitless classes. In one class for teaching mainstreamed special ed kids our groups were given little slips of paper describing hypothetical classroom scenarios and we were asked to brainstorm how to handle them. As none of us had taught before, we just pulled ideas out of our butts. After we discussed with each other, we were then subjected to hearing every other group “report out” on the equally hapless ideas they had generated. Far from demonstrating the merits of their pet methodology, this experience planted a seed of skepticism about the validity of these professors’ doctrines. If I hated and got nothing from this class, what would cause me to believe that such an approach would be good for MY students? Since then, almost every cooperative learning class or professional development session I’ve ever had has confirmed for me the deadliness of most group work. Upon reflection, I realized that the best classes I’ve ever had have been those with a smart, knowledgable teacher who told us stuff. E.g. my seventh grade science and history teachers –notorious lecturers –and wonderful. This is just one example of how I’ve come to question the authority of these soi-disant authorities.
You do know that there’s actual research demonstrating (over and over and over again) that people retain best what they learn for themselves through hands-on discovery and small group discussion/problem solving rather than what is told to them through direct instruction/lecture, right?
The annoying problem though, is that if you let those pesky students learn on their own what they’re most interested in learning, they have a nasty tendency not to learn the specific things you want them to. For some crazy reason they tend to learn what they find interesting and relevant. How odd.
BTW, Ponderosa, you complain more than anyone on this board about student behavior. Have you ever thought about the possibility that your students’ behavior is a direct comment on your teaching style?
I’m happy to say that many students tell me they love my class, in part, precisely because I lecture well and clearly with lots of visuals. From a card I got last week: “I am so grateful for you teaching the class and about old civilizations and learning things I never knew.” Yesterday I got a note from a parent telling me her son has loved my class and now wants to study the Middle Ages in college. To these kids my eccentric style is a breath of fresh air in a world of deadly, dry, content-free Common Core skill drill. I don’t have many behavior problems, but even a few acute behavior problems can blow up a class.
Is it indoctrination if you disagree with it, but insightful pedagogy and innovative methodology if you like it?
Just wondering…😉
I’d be interested to know if your professors/instructors who “indoctrinated” you had any research to back up their “doctrines.” You might like the following: One pro lecture and one con…
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/dont-give-up-on-the-lecture/281624/
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-boring-theyre-ineffective-too-study-finds
I love the Atlantic article. Thank you. The anti-lecture piece doesn’t convince me that lecture is bad. From what I could gather, the study concludes that lecture mixed with forays into “active learning” (vague term; doesn’t listening to a lecture constitute mental activity?) leads to slightly better results than pure lecture. The study does not compare pure lecture to pure “active learning”. The Atlantic piece cites a study that shows that in such a comparison, lecture wins. This conforms to my own experience both as a learner and as a teacher. The attack on lecture has been going on for a century, but it’s really under assault today –Common Core, the Next Generation Science Standards, and, here in the CA, the new history frameworks, all disparage teacher talk and fetishize student talk and student “inquiry” and “constructing knowledge” on their own rather than hearing it from the mouth of the baleful teacher.
This question and the need for teacher certification and a license should make us think about what education would look like without the appropriate license…..and this would not be fair to students in the classroom. There are valued and time honored techniques in pedagogy. To address the comment by Ponderosa and the experience of indoctrination in the school of ed, there are good reasons to know the entire range of teaching techniques. I agree that there is room for lecture and students should be expected to know how to listen to a lecture and take notes. I have gone with the approach of using part of the class time for lecture.I know that expecting all teachers to use the latest techniques is not always fitting either. One thing I oppose is developing homogeneity in teaching, which leads to boredom for students. Everyone has a unique style and way of interacting and presenting/sharing the knowledge and skills that students need to learn. I strongly support the need for a license in teaching. I am opposed to forced compliance to a narrow range of pedagogical styles. Teacher autonomy, when the teacher has the background in training, is a beautiful thing in the classroom.
This question and the need for teacher certification and a license should make us think about what education would look like without the appropriate license…..and this would not be fair to students in the classroom. There are valued and time honored techniques in pedagogy. To address the comment by Ponderosa and the experience of indoctrination in the school of ed, there are good reasons to know the entire range of teaching techniques. I agree that there is room for lecture and students should be expected to know how to listen to a lecture and take notes. I have gone with the approach of using part of the class time for lecture.I know that expecting all teachers to use the latest techniques is not always fitting either. One thing I oppose is developing homogeneity in teaching, which leads to boredom for students. Everyone has a unique style and way of interacting and presenting/sharing the knowledge and skills that students need to learn. I strongly support the need for a license in teaching. I am opposed to forced compliance to a narrow range of pedagogical styles. Teacher autonomy, when the teacher has the background in training, is a beautiful thing in the classroom.
Because otherwise they would roam the streets and bore us to death?
Sorry, couldn’t let that one pass by.
My education courses were useful and helpful. The courses provided the background and theory as well as offering opportunities to link the learning to a practicum during each semester. We also had lots of group work, not just lectures. We had to observe and tutor at an urban school and direct a group of young people prior to student teaching. I worked in an after school program in the city at a settlement house. It was a great way for us to understand how to work with students in groups. By the time we got to student teaching, we were comfortable and ready to work with an entire class. The same could not be said for some of the other student teachers from other colleges. One student from an ivy league school left after the second week of student teaching saying, “This is not for me.”
I think ed reformers will regret the push to end an objective measure of basic qualifications.
It allows all kind of subjective bias into hiring teachers and since so many teachers are public employees, it will become political patronage and “connections” that carry the day.
They’re really just reckless people. They consider absolutely no downside before they launch one of these experiments. I don’t know if they’re naive or just stupid.
Chiara,
I love your comment! Thank you.
Today students in Chile rioted today because they want better free, public education and cancellation of student loans. It seems this is where we are heading with all the market based garbage being forced on students and communities.
I vote for both, naive and stupid.
Many of them (eg, Bill Gates) are neither naiive nor stupid.
They won’t regret this any more than they regret any of their other actions (Common Core, standardized testing, VAM and the rest) because they and their families don’t have anything to lose — and many of them have something to gain.
It’s easy to do experiments on other people’s kids when you know (as Bill Gates does) that your own kids will not be guinea pigs.
“I think ed reformers will regret the push to end an objective measure of basic qualifications.”
Well considering that most people regret doing something that is wrong, that is based in lies and falsehoods, one would hope that the edudeformers (and all the GAGA Good German teachers and adminimals) would eventually recognize the insanities and harms involved in the malpractices that are based on falsehoods.
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
That supposedly objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
C’mon test supporters, have at the analysis, poke holes in it, tell me where I’m wrong!
I’m expecting that I’ll still be hearing the crickets and cicadas of tinnitus instead of reading any rebuttal or refutation.
Because there is no rebuttal/refutation!
This is my serious question.
“Why on Earth that Presidential candidate can get away with the BASIC certified license of being altruistic, decency, and caring for humanity?
Yes, we respect democracy, but don’t we need certain basic requirement for people who want to run for government official positions? Back2basic
Is there a link to this ALEC legislation?
Top result. Google. Use it. It can be a wonderful thing. https://www.alec.org/model-policy/alternative-certification-act/
Thanks 🙂
Thanks for the link, Ray. I just cannot believe that ALEC is so out there–right in our faces, all culprits listed.
Of course, not the dark money propping them up.
But–by now–most readers on this blog know who they are.
Make sure all your friends, family, neighbors & colleagues are informed, as well.
&–for those of you in ILL-Annoy–be aware that just a few, short years ago that some of the unions (including the IEA & IFT) GAVE $4 million to the Republican Primary rival–rather than find & fund someone to primary our incumbent Dem Governor (who chose Paul Vallas to be his running mate!!!). This Republican rival was…the ILL-Annoy CHAIRMAN of…ALEC! (Well, he promised to resign that position…& did…which lent him SO much credibility w/the rest of us, so of course we ran out & voted for him!!)
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
“Dentists (and poets) don’t need no stinking license”
A license ain’t required
To pick and scrape and drill
A dentist should be hired
For web-acquired skill
Cuz YouTube has the vids
To learn the dentist trade
And practice on your kids
Is how you make the grade
“Poets don’t need no stinking license neither”
A license ain’t required
To write some goofy verse
A poet should be hired
For better or for worse
In sickness and in health
Til death — and then beyond
The poet has a wealth
Of nonsense to be spawned
I’m going to leave a well informed comment; this is not an ‘off the cuff’ response.
I was certified first through an alternative certification process. My classes to prepare me were brief and insufficient. After many years of teaching, I’m returning to do it the right way, at a university. I’ve completed about half of my classes and I’ve found them to be extremely useful and relevant.
I’m worn out on all of this “education classes are useless” rhetoric. Being an educator is a profession that requires substantial knowledge, none of which is obvious.
Many of the classes that I took in college for my major were completely useless.
A bunch of stuff about the nature and behavior of electrons, quarks and other subatomic particles that I have never used ( and never will)
At least the stuff i learned in my year long teacher cert program about the nature and behavior of children was useful in the classroom.
Even outside the classroom, the child psychology stuff that i learned is indispensable — eg, in understanding school Deformers like David Coleman, Bill Gates, Arne Duncan and Betsy DeVos.
I graduated with a secondary SS degree. The courses taught me ed theory, and the 1 semester of student teaching was invaluable. Still, teaching was tough. The country is heading toward a severe teacher shortage because of reformer policies. Putting untrained, unlicensed teachers in the classroom will only contribute to the shortage. An untrained teacher will be eaten alive by students and overwhelmed with the expectations put on them.
You make a very good point about expectations.
As in all professions, there is an expectation that a teacher entering a classroom will possess some minimum skill level – eg, for classroom management — in addition to knowledge in their subject area.
All bets are off with uncertified teachers and their colleagues certainly don’t have time to babysit them while they learn to walk.
Also, one of the things I think most people get out of a teacher certification program that has a student teaching component is the realization that teaching is hard and you can’t expect to be Jaime Escalante the second you walk into class.
And didn’t Jaime Escalante have heart trouble after only a few years?
In my ed program, I was constantly searching for wisdom from my professors and mentor teachers. The most frequent thing I heard was, “You’ve got to learn by doing it.” Gee, thanks. Aside from their pet theories (often deeply flawed), they had little practical advice for day-to-day operations. I’m glad others here had more useful programs.
Late to the party (so you might be the only one to read this, Diane), but I enjoyed almost every Ed. course I took, as well as the profs. who taught them. Our Education Dept. was very progressive for its time (early ’70s) in that they believed in our going into the trenches early–we were pre-student teaching starting sophomore year, and they had us all working in under served schools. Still in lecture halls & classrooms, yet also “learning by doing” in the trenches.
Thanks to the Education/Art Education Dept. at the University of IL, Chicago, for a great
(& reasonably priced–it was one of the few public, commuter universities at that time)
education.
Retiredbutmissthekids,
Thanks for your comment. Knocking people who teach education is a not very subtle of knocking teachers and their profession.