I found myself today adding another article by Rebecca Birch to my iMac’s ‘reading list’. I recommend it be read.
Why? Because it challenges the current status-quo, and more importantly perhaps current thought. Status-quo is often challenged, but swimming against the tide is for the strong and brave.
We live in a society today that appears to scorn the tenets of the past.
The common sense of these last few decades rejects the common sense of the decades prior. I suspect however that today’s tenets cannot all be defined as progress. Perhaps at seventy-eight, you’d expect me to take this line of thought, especially when not having entered a classroom for over thirty years.
To keep this controversial piece short I shall limit it to one observation and one proposal.
Observation
Of the many very good educators I met in my years of teaching, neither the number of years they spent gaining qualification, nor the college/university they attended, were apparent.
Some had done a post war, six month course, I’d call an apprenticeship; some had more degrees than a Fahrenheit thermometer. It mattered not one iota, for they were either excellent teachers or abject failures. The excellent taught their subject and at the same time inspired enthusiasm for learning to many. The abject were unable to pass on either their significant knowledge or the interest, except for a few fortunate students.
Proposal
Shorten the teacher training courses. I gained a Bachelor of Education, initially a Certificate of Education (two years), then later a further four years of part time study. I might well be annoyed that an equally well paid teacher had skipped through in less then half that time. However had my teacher education been meaningful, purposeful and efficiently delivered, I suspect two years of classroom experience and wise counsel would have been adequate.