Judging from my e-mail inbox, my posts on teacher certification over the weekend have struck a nerve. Here are two more dispatches from the frontlines:

When I decided to teach at the high school level, I had to take certification courses and decided to do so at a nearby well-regarded school of education. I was quickly disappointed. … all but one of my professors were professional academics who either had never been classroom teachers or hadn’t been one in the past 10+ years. They existed on nothing but fads, educational research, anecdotes from actual teachers, and experiences from when they parachuted in on classes for a week or two to conduct a study. These academics proceeded to teach their students information and imbue them with ideals that are impractical and/or non-applicable for actual classroom use. Since they’re not in classrooms, though, they often honestly don’t know any better.

And:

In Kansas, secondary certification in history was abolished a few years ago and replaced by general certification in social studies. My sense is the change was driven by the perceived need to have somebody as a Jack-of-all-trades in tiny rural Kansas schools.
The effect is that high school history teachers get a two-semester survey of US history, a two-semester survey of world history, one semester of Kansas history, one other US history course, and one other non-US history course.
That makes seven courses total in history, compared to twelve for real history majors. Secondary history teachers can graduate without taking a single course on European history.