They Are Not In The Classroom
Some administers, at two-year colleges, have a romanticized perception of students. They constantly make excuses for many of these students, who from the get go, should not be in college in the first place. Several of these administers, along with many elected officials have pompous ideas about what is suppose to take place in the classroom. Even though they themselves have either very limited or no teaching experience at all, and if so, they have never taught a hardcore subject such a psychology, history, political science or government, mathematics, or any other core curriculum requirements. Yet, they think that they are authorities on what needs to be taught in the classroom environment. This to me, is the number one problem with America’s educational system, from K-12,up to the college level. We have too many unqualified and non-educators setting the agenda for educators who do not know what the hell they are doing or talking about. One would not have a plumber setting the curriculum for medical doctors, or a school teacher setting the agenda for pharmacists. Yet, everybody and their mother are setting the techniques and strategies for those of us within the educational system. This should not be. However, the reasons for America’s educational system operating this way is because of the followings:
(a) There is a notion in our culture that anyone can teach, which is not true. Teaching is a gift like anything else:
(b) Many people believe that educators teach general knowledge material that everyone already knows and therefore, does not require any serious expertise:
(c) Educators from K-12, up to the college level, do not have the respect that they once had about 50 years ago.
(d) America as a nation pretends she values education and she really does not. America lets us know how much she values something by placing a price tag on it. For example, America values sports and we know she does, because there are very high price tags on athletes and coaches. What does America pay her teachers or professors?
(e) Finally, many believe that teaching as a profession, is really an easy laid-back job which does not cause a great deal of stress, when in reality it is just the opposite.
Administrators, elected officials, parents, and the general public, are not in the classroom, and therefore, need to sit down somewhere and be quiet, because the educational system in the U.S., has gone through a serious transformation that many of these individuals and groups do not truly understand.
The Bowtie Professor Speaks!
Tags: Two-Year Colleges
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 at 9:35 am and is filed under Individual Experience, Politics And Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
They’re not in the classroom is just about spot on!
I agree that previous educators should be deciding curriculum, not elected officials. Education is a type of art form in my opinion and should be held in the same regard.
Yes, there are way too many unqualified teachers educating our children. I myself ran into this problem with my youngest daughter while in elementary school. I didn’t even mess with fighting the system, because that is not my cause, but I did pull my daughter out for the rest of the year and home schooled her. She was able to test back in a grade ahead too. I was surprised by this fact. First off, we only did four hours of classroom instruction a day and secondly, we used 10-15 year old books. How could this be? I have formed the opinion based on this experience that children are inundated with state mandated testing materials way more than core curriculum.
I believe that teachers should be paid on a performance basis, not tenor. There was a case where teachers chose tenor over performance based salaries, despite the raise of 25,000-75,000 per year. That is absolutely silly to me. This caused some hard feelings for me. I understand the importance of tenor in many institutions, but k-12…not a great idea.
Teachers don’t have respect for the same reasons that many parents can’t gain the respect of their children. Every discipline technique has been taken away from parents and educators alike. Without something to back it up, the instruction is barely noticeable to kiddos today. I also blame permissive parenting. Many parents defend their children to the teacher instead of focusing on what their children have done and how to correct that.
In the WECM state teaching guidelines it states that Dean over a certain subject matter should have the ability to teach at least one of the subjects that they manage. Yet this aforementioned rule is not enforced. Many rules put on the books in the previous two decades both by federal and state mandates are just more lines on a page without anyone taking notice.
I believe all administrators should have taught as a teacher or assisted a teacher in the subject field in which they have chosen to help manage. Many administrators in their hearts truly do wish to make difference, however, because of inexperience and lack of political skills they undermine the system, more especially the teachers they attempt to correct.