Teaching
So I read this instead of studying:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/teaching-no-fallback-career/
It got me thinking... Why is there such a dearth of science/math teachers, as opposed to humanities teachers? Are the humanities innately easier to teach, or do we just have lower standards? A lot of college grads I know - including those from highly selective colleges! - would not meet my grammar standards (it's/its, anyone?). So I'm assuming that most humanities teachers also aren't too strong on grammar - and yet they're teaching kids this stuff?? It's hard to believe there are more people qualified in the humanities than there are in the sciences; I think we just set a lower bar for acceptable humanities teaching.
Also in that vein, I definitely had better middle and high school teachers than college teachers. Why is there no outrage about the lack of teaching ability among college faculty (and med school faculty)? Seems like in secondary education, the job of the teacher is to inform, not to help you learn; you do the learning on your own. They just organize it for you. But I guess it's a little difficult to decry secondary education when we have such problems in primary education.
Hey, I just took a test. I'm a little bitter about education =).
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/teaching-no-fallback-career/
It got me thinking... Why is there such a dearth of science/math teachers, as opposed to humanities teachers? Are the humanities innately easier to teach, or do we just have lower standards? A lot of college grads I know - including those from highly selective colleges! - would not meet my grammar standards (it's/its, anyone?). So I'm assuming that most humanities teachers also aren't too strong on grammar - and yet they're teaching kids this stuff?? It's hard to believe there are more people qualified in the humanities than there are in the sciences; I think we just set a lower bar for acceptable humanities teaching.
Also in that vein, I definitely had better middle and high school teachers than college teachers. Why is there no outrage about the lack of teaching ability among college faculty (and med school faculty)? Seems like in secondary education, the job of the teacher is to inform, not to help you learn; you do the learning on your own. They just organize it for you. But I guess it's a little difficult to decry secondary education when we have such problems in primary education.
Hey, I just took a test. I'm a little bitter about education =).