Adding to the idea of asking stupid questions and mwengler’s smartest guy in the room anecdote (upvoted btw), I’d say that what I hated about school was that so many of the teachers seemed to suffer from numerous delusions of their own intelligence or other personal malfunctions that made learning (or even bothering to show up at school) a painful experience. Something that could have been solved if they’d simply practicised a bit more humility (or if the school had managed to afford better qualified teachers, either way...)
Just as examples I had:
A pretentious art teacher who claimed, “Art is a talent and thus can’t be taught”
A married couple of music teachers who thought no child could truly appreciate music
A dysfunctional English teacher who would rant about her failed stint in journalism (-her only qualification to teach English)
A vegan Biology teacher who’s lessons were an endless cycle of “Don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, don’t cook your food”
A French teacher a German teacher and a Spanish teacher (three seperate people) who shouted at younger children for failing to understand new concepts
An religious ed teacher who once gave me and two of my peers books to read after she determined us as ‘intellectually gifted’. All three books were poorly argued dissertations on the benefits of becoming a Christian which tried to achieve this by villifying Judaism and secularism in particularly unsavoury ways.
Anyway to bring this back on-topic, having characters like this that search out for ways to show up students, put them down or at least distract them from the joy of learning can really stop people from asking questions that might make them look silly later in life. And then they equate asking questions that are silly with asking questions that they don’t know the answer to, and then they never find out!
(I should add that the best loved and respected teachers consisted of the physics, maths and computer science teachers. Perhaps even though I was “identified as smart” when I was a child for my linguistic ability, am lucky to have had such poor support in areas I was originally interested in (that now leave a lingering distaste) and have now been pushed into a world of physics, maths and computer science (which I feel will lead me to a much more satisfying life than any notions of romanticism I had would have done.)
My worst teacher was a science teacher who insisted that the sun isn’t a star because the sun is the sun.
My school wasn’t nearly that bad in general.
This being said, teachers who don’t know the material isn’t all that rare a problem, and doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention compared to topics which seem like more fun (unsolvable issues which can be related to morals, perhaps), like arguing about class size, teachers’ unions, or whether poor educational outcomes are the fault of the parents, the students, or the schools.
This is where I think the prevailing attitude on Lesswrong that politics is a pointless activity is particularly unfortunate. In the US, education policy is largely set at the state and (except for CA and TX) the local level, and a small group of highly motivated individuals can have a meaningful impact on hiring and curriculum policy.
This seems to pass unnoticed except when people complain about creationists and the like doing it.
Number 1 on my list is probably demanding that teachers above, say, the 3rd grade level, have degrees (or equivalent certfiication of some sort) in their subject area rather than in education or child development.
I recognize that the signalling theory of education means that a degree in mathematics isn’t a perfect yardstick, but a degree in education already sends a relatively bad signal, so I would still expect improvement over the status quo.
Also, I realize that relying on academics to do research about academic policy creates certain issues (on top of the general mind-killing problem), but it appears that the ball is now in the court of people opposed to simply paying teachers more to get better results to make the counterargument.
I would expect your first proposal to lead to a serious shortage of math and science teachers unless paired with a commensurate increase in incentives, and possibly with other systemic changes.
If the school administrators that I’ve talked to are to be trusted, there’s already a shortage severe enough to pretty much guarantee employment for people with even a modest math or science background (read: a few classes, or a major in a tangentially related field) who have teaching credentials. That’s probably not a situation where you want to be introducing stricter qualifications.
Requiring a math degree seems like overkill for math teachers up to grade 9 or so. What’s actually needed is a solid understanding of the math they’re teaching plus a few years ahead so that they can recognize and help bright students.
Teaching really is a different skill than knowing the subject matter. If education courses aren’t good, that’s another problem to be solved, not a reason for giving up on teaching how to teach.
Adding to the idea of asking stupid questions and mwengler’s smartest guy in the room anecdote (upvoted btw), I’d say that what I hated about school was that so many of the teachers seemed to suffer from numerous delusions of their own intelligence or other personal malfunctions that made learning (or even bothering to show up at school) a painful experience. Something that could have been solved if they’d simply practicised a bit more humility (or if the school had managed to afford better qualified teachers, either way...)
Just as examples I had: A pretentious art teacher who claimed, “Art is a talent and thus can’t be taught” A married couple of music teachers who thought no child could truly appreciate music A dysfunctional English teacher who would rant about her failed stint in journalism (-her only qualification to teach English) A vegan Biology teacher who’s lessons were an endless cycle of “Don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, don’t cook your food” A French teacher a German teacher and a Spanish teacher (three seperate people) who shouted at younger children for failing to understand new concepts An religious ed teacher who once gave me and two of my peers books to read after she determined us as ‘intellectually gifted’. All three books were poorly argued dissertations on the benefits of becoming a Christian which tried to achieve this by villifying Judaism and secularism in particularly unsavoury ways.
Anyway to bring this back on-topic, having characters like this that search out for ways to show up students, put them down or at least distract them from the joy of learning can really stop people from asking questions that might make them look silly later in life. And then they equate asking questions that are silly with asking questions that they don’t know the answer to, and then they never find out!
(I should add that the best loved and respected teachers consisted of the physics, maths and computer science teachers. Perhaps even though I was “identified as smart” when I was a child for my linguistic ability, am lucky to have had such poor support in areas I was originally interested in (that now leave a lingering distaste) and have now been pushed into a world of physics, maths and computer science (which I feel will lead me to a much more satisfying life than any notions of romanticism I had would have done.)
Man, you must have gone to a really shitty school. My teachers were usually more subtly unhelpful or dumb, and rarely in such condemnable ways.
My worst teacher was a science teacher who insisted that the sun isn’t a star because the sun is the sun.
My school wasn’t nearly that bad in general.
This being said, teachers who don’t know the material isn’t all that rare a problem, and doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention compared to topics which seem like more fun (unsolvable issues which can be related to morals, perhaps), like arguing about class size, teachers’ unions, or whether poor educational outcomes are the fault of the parents, the students, or the schools.
This is where I think the prevailing attitude on Lesswrong that politics is a pointless activity is particularly unfortunate. In the US, education policy is largely set at the state and (except for CA and TX) the local level, and a small group of highly motivated individuals can have a meaningful impact on hiring and curriculum policy.
This seems to pass unnoticed except when people complain about creationists and the like doing it.
What do you think would be good things to lobby for?
Even making sure that math teachers actually understand math seems like a rather subtle problem.
Number 1 on my list is probably demanding that teachers above, say, the 3rd grade level, have degrees (or equivalent certfiication of some sort) in their subject area rather than in education or child development.
I recognize that the signalling theory of education means that a degree in mathematics isn’t a perfect yardstick, but a degree in education already sends a relatively bad signal, so I would still expect improvement over the status quo.
Also, I realize that relying on academics to do research about academic policy creates certain issues (on top of the general mind-killing problem), but it appears that the ball is now in the court of people opposed to simply paying teachers more to get better results to make the counterargument.
I would expect your first proposal to lead to a serious shortage of math and science teachers unless paired with a commensurate increase in incentives, and possibly with other systemic changes.
If the school administrators that I’ve talked to are to be trusted, there’s already a shortage severe enough to pretty much guarantee employment for people with even a modest math or science background (read: a few classes, or a major in a tangentially related field) who have teaching credentials. That’s probably not a situation where you want to be introducing stricter qualifications.
Requiring a math degree seems like overkill for math teachers up to grade 9 or so. What’s actually needed is a solid understanding of the math they’re teaching plus a few years ahead so that they can recognize and help bright students.
Teaching really is a different skill than knowing the subject matter. If education courses aren’t good, that’s another problem to be solved, not a reason for giving up on teaching how to teach.