I was spending some time with a good college friend of mine. We were screwing around, debating where to head that night after one of those unexpected, nearly unwelcome humid spring afternoons. I picked up a copy of a large book from the apartment table. World War II for Kids. My friend, an elementary-schoolteacher-in-training, had picked up the book for an assignment that dealt with how to teach the war to young students.
I playfully launched in to a mock exam, using the small images of each of the war’s principals from the front cover. “Okay, who’s this?” I demanded, pointing to the visage of Winston Churchill.
From my friend, silence. And a blank stare. ”Uh, alright,” I hesitated unevenly, “how about him?” I pointed to Stalin.
“Oh, Franklin Roosevelt, I think,” offered my friend earnestly.
Mental panic was setting in. “And this?” I pointed to Hirohito.
“ . . . Gandhi?”
Our impromptu exam ended with howls of laughter from my chair, and a red face in the other.
You don’t need to be a history fanatic to recognize most of those men. And if you’re, say, an elementary-ed student expected to teach the subject, it’s helpful to know the subject, right? And preferably before you pick up a book on it . . . “for kids.”
But here’s the thing: my friend is smart. An “A” student, attending a respected university.
For all the talk about lesson planning, creative learning, compassionate engagement, etc., from the education reform crowd, how often is it asked: Do our teachers know their subjects?
If not, it’ll show. The students will immediately recognize it. No amount of lesson planning can succeed in engaging students on a subject when they notice that not even their teacher was curious enough to learn about it.
Lesson planning and presentation are a core focus of the elementary-ed instruction my college friend receives, all while the specific names — and here, literally, the faces — of the subject are neglected.
Rarely has the vituperative slur ”style over substance” been made so real.
I come from a family of public school teachers. All of my female relatives teach elementry school. They are reasonable smart people, good teachers, and do their jobs well. But I have to say, their knowledge of history and politics is...ummmmm....minimal. Granted, they all teach in lower grades, but still.
I think about my elementry school teachers (1970s). They were all older ladies (just about to retire back when teachers didn't retire until age 65 or older) who got their starts teaching in one-room schools. I think back about what they knew, not just about history, but science as well. I didn't find kindergarten very challenging, but I can honestly say that I learned more in grades 1-5 (5 yrs) than I did in 6-12 (7 yrs) when the teaching quality (and my motivation) dropped.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusenot sure an anecdote about your prosopagnosic, or perhaps simply stupid, friend's ignorance really constitutes an indictment of the ed industry....nice try though.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think you realize that the author's anecdotal friend is not suffering from prosopagnosia (great word, btw, bet you don't get to trot that one out often!) and it only takes a semi-conscious individual to support his thesis of shabby knowledge history with personal observations.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis would only matter if, "if", the students your friend is going to teach is going to learn history properly. Chances are they aren't.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseStudents .... Is?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry to say this doesn't surprise me at all. In (public) high school in the late '90s I took mostly honors and advanced placement classes, but due to a scheduling conflict I had to bump down to the so-called "high" class for my 11th grade 20th century history course. There we spent most of our class periods - I kid you not - coloring maps and making collages meant to somehow illustrate the subject matter. We also spent huge amounts of time on trivial episodes like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping while skimming over whole wars.
Keep in mind this wasn't a remedial course. This was a class of above-average students in what's considered a very respectable suburban public high school.
So as to your friend the future teacher, this is probably the kind of class where he was educated AND the kind of class he's preparing to teach.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot a surprise. Few college students take any history. Maybe that's not so bad, a good portion of college level history is taught wrong anyway.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBack in my college days, I was a math major who decided to become a teacher. In one of the obligatory "education" classes, I asked one of my classmates (an aspiring elementary school teacher) how much math she'd taken. "Oh, the absolute minimum. I hate math!"
I knew my job plans of teaching high school math just got a lot harder. If a teacher hates a subject, the kids will pick up on it no matter how much she tries to smile. "Math is icky."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI get the impression that the purpose of K-12 is to get through it; that education is not expected to begin until college.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat we have to ask ourselves is, is our teachers learning?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis anecdote raises a number of fascinating issues, but the author needs to develop a couple of them further. I can suss out a couple possibilities:
1) "Teacher training" should be abandoned in favor of just hiring folks to teach subjects that they study or have expertise in;
2) "History" as a discipline ought to consist of teaching "facts", or as the author terms it, "substance", rather than skills, approaches, etc.
In each case, my friends, the problem could presumably be solved by dismantling the state-sanctioned teacher certification programs that have come to dominate the teaching industry. That would mean leaving hiring decisions up to local school districts, and trusting them to make the right calls when it comes to determining qualifications for teachers.
Any takers?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseStandardization is dangerous when the standards are flawed. It spreads the flaw to all corners. It used to be do not trust anyone over 30, now it is don't trust anyone under 30. They are just not educated.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCraig -- The best way I could say it is that I think our educational leaders have built and now are almost thoughtlessly maintaining a system focused on tactics rather than strategy.
Your insight about certifications is the key. If we can agree that centralized education is not an ideal approach (or perhaps even say that it's often evil), then we can recognize how we've hamstrung local schools, prohibiting them from hiring locally qualified, cheaper labor in the form of retired business executives, scientists, artists, etc. who would all happily teach at least part time, for less pay, and have the added virtue of bringing local knowledge to the classroom.
Designing alternate means of credentializing a school other than the Middle States model would go a long way toward de-centralized education, both public and private.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a public school teacher for three years who just left the profession, I can tell you that only about half of my former colleagues truly knew their subject at an acceptable level to teach it.
The truest and easiest solution to improving education isn't vouchers (which is what conservatives focus on) or spending more money (which is what liberals focus on). If you want to improve education, simply raise the certification standards. The scores that aspiring teachers can make on their Praxis II exams and still pass are ridiculously low.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI got a K-12 math & science teaching credential a few decades ago based on my major in Geography. That most of my time over those four years was spent rock climbing in Yosemite might have qualified me for teaching geology (philosophy?), but not math / science. Didn't matter in CA if you could fog a mirror.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen my wife was studying to be an elementary English teacher, during her student teaching, a professor told her that if she was here to teach a subject, she was in the wrong place. "We teach students." She immediately dropped out of the profession. Instead, she homeschools our children, and even the 9 year old would recognize all those faces.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour history lesson reminds me of a quote from P.J. O'Rourke. I could not find the direct quote, so I paraphrase.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Anyone who does not understand the problems of the US education system has never dated an elementary education major."
I had a similar jaw-dropping moment in a Masters level Science Methods for Elementary Education class. The instructor asked, "Does the moon have it's own gravity?", and at least half the class raised their hands to say it didn't. When she asked how they explained the fact that the Astronauts could walk on the moon without flying off, it was suggested it might have something to with the moon's rotation and "centrifugal force." Talk about mental panic setting in...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot a surprise. Unions protect bad teachers, Affirmative Action has forced lower standards, organized sports requires coaches win before they teach. In Iowa, a high school coach can be fired because the team has a losing record. Colleges of Education are bastions of politically correct thinking, interested in promoting "social justice".
There are studies which show Teach For America teachers can do as well or better than traditionally prepared teachers. So why are we still doing the traditional preparation?
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I tutor high school students in Boston. The week of president's weekend I decided to have my group of five read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. None of them heard of Paul Revere, Longfellow or of North Church, which is mere miles from their school and despite the fact that the Boston Marathon traces the ride of Revere. What bothered me though is that none of them knew the War of Independence and only one knew that the U.S. was originally a British colony.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBasically, if it isn't on an MCAS state test, there is no need to learn it. Which is why the ace college student/future teacher can't recognize Churchill- it isn't on the teacher licensing test