Study: Math teachers a chapter ahead of their students.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081125/ap_on_re_us/qualified_teachers;_ylt=At3oY3S.RzX47qev8LhwAIqs0NUE
I know! I really didn't like this part either! Teachers should not be blamed for out-of-field teaching, the report said. It can happen anywhere there is a teacher shortage in a particular discipline. It can also happen where there is no shortage but where school administrators have planned poorly. Congress tried to fix the problem in the sweeping 2002 No Child Left Behind Law. The law insisted that all teachers in core academic subjects be "highly qualified" by 2006. But the most well-known aspect of No Child Left Behind is its requirement for annual state tests in reading and math, and the penalties it imposes on schools that fail to make progress. The teacher requirement is less well-known, and also less onerous. States were allowed to come up with their own definitions of "highly qualified." As a result, most teachers in the U.S. today are deemed highly qualified.
Hmm. But how can we put a stop to it. If the definition of highly qualified gets changed I'm sure there are some other loop holes districts can finagle in order to get a body in the room. I live near a district that used permanent subs. There were classes that would have a sub from the first day of school to the last day of school. And subs don't have to even have a degree in anything, just some college and a background check.
The answer is to make teaching in general, and teaching in high demand areas in particular, an attractive alternative to those people who DO have the qualifications. But that's not likely to happen, particularly in the current economic climate.
You see on paper the teachers were highly qualified teachers but many do not have the time in the classroom to be highly qualified.
What we're being told here is that 42.6 percent of core classes in Arizona were taught by people teaching out of field. That's unacceptable, no matter how good the teachers are as pedagogues.
Passing a test is not the sign of a teacher that can teach. I'm sure we are all aware of the teachers that can pass that test but not the classroom test. I'm with IrishDave on this one.
My private secondary school in Canada used to score significantly above average on provincial examinations in English but slightly below the provincial average on mathematics, even though English was a required subject in twelfth grade and math wasn't. The same teacher taught all eleventh- and twelfth-grade math classes. When I was in grade eleven, and still forced to take mathematics, we once had a university student considering teaching sit in on our class. As the math teacher was explaining a problem the uni student suddenly looked all puzzled and muttered something to the tune of 'what, that's not right'. A minute later when the math teacher finished the problem he suddenly realised he had the wrong answer and looked at it with the same expression, going back to try to see what went wrong, with the uni student wondering if he should speak up. The expression on the uni student's face was just priceless, as if to say WTF is this guy doing teaching math? It couldn't have possibly been more obvious where the source of the problem lay, even to someone like me with absolutely no aptitude for classroom maths. Yet there seemed to be little the school could do that wouldn’t make a public mockery of this teacher for his incompetence (which the release of provincial exam scores every year basically did anyways). They couldn't very well sack the old fart or make him the school librarian, admit that they had been employing a fool for the past two decades, and face a lawsuit. What it comes down to is that no one wants to pay money for skill and knowledge at the secondary level - not school districts or unions or teachers' associations. Imagine if secondary school teachers' salaries were tied to their undergraduate GPAs in their major field; you'd probably see teachers going back to get a second bachelor's degree and demonstrate the knowledge of their subject that they should have the first time round instead of looking for whatever MA programme will move them up a pay bracket. Imagine if salaries were tied to annual tests in which teachers had to demonstrate their knowledge and research skills in what they're teaching. Imagine if salaries were also tied to SAT scores. You'd likely see a hell of a lot of the brightest young university graduates thinking, hmmm, you know this looks like an attractive and rewarding career instead of thinking 'how I pity them ' when they meet middle and high school teachers. But of course the powers that be would probably freak out at the idea of not holding teachers to the same pathetically low academic standards that their students are.
No, but NOT being able to pass the test isn't a sign of a good teacher either. You CAN'T teach math well if you're one chapter ahead of the kids. You can't explain concepts that you're not solid on yourself. And if you can't pass a test on the material, it's not a strong indication that you know it.
The tests are needed, but shouldn't be the ONLY thing required. I've said before I think teacher certification tests should include more free response and higher order thinking questions. In fact, I think they should have ONLY free response questions on the content area exams. I like the idea of a residency program, where newly graduated teachers must teach under the direction of veteran teachers, like what doctors go through. There should be at least a one year residency requirement.
It's worth pointing out that the licensing/relicensing/board certification exams that doctors take and retake (every five years or so) involve a good deal of multiple choice. That is, multiple choice questions as such aren't deficient - and there are certainly questions on teacher tests that involve higher-order thinking skills, in that one is applying knowledge in ways one may not have thought about before encountering the question. The explicit point of teacher tests, by the way, is not to weed people out: it's to goad them to shore up their knowledge base. There's no shame whatsoever in needing some help to do that. But there is a difference between struggling to pass teacher tests and literal inability to pass. I will respectfully submit, having walked this turf, that those who truly CAN'T pass teacher tests even after skilled and sensitive intervention probably don't belong in the field, if for no other reason than than they'll find it impossible to model successful test-passing for their students - and there's no reason to believe that standardized tests are going away any time soon.
I find this subject ironic because my current grad professor is SUCH AN EXPERT on English that he is highly critical of our papers. Most of the errors he grades are not graded correctly. I'm confident enough that I'm right that I will feed you an example. "There are a variety of factors that influence the outcome." He decided that "are" should be "is." I can tell that English is his second language (deaf) and he probably over applied the rule and saw that "a" is singular and thus it should be "is" instead of "are." I found too many mistakes. I wanted to scream, "GET SOMEONE ELSE TO GRADE OUR PAPERS." If he holds us up to high standards, his must also be held up to the same standard. English is hard for deaf people, especially those without residual hearing. I'm okay with that but not when you are either TEACHING English or GRADING English. Then you need to have the qualifications for the first one and at least some feedback or someone else for the second scenario.
That's really frustrating. The example is also something that involves idiomatic and even regional knowledge. Someone from England would likely say 'England are likely to beat Brazil in the World Cup match' but someone from America would likely say 'America is going to beat Brazil at basketball'. Actually most realistic Englishmen propably wouldn't think it likely that England would beat Brazil at soccer, but you know.
I'll be honest here - I'm only one chapter ahead of my students (or so to speak). I did not major in math; I majored in a media-related field. When I decided to get my teaching credentials to become a studio teacher, I was told that I needed to have a Single Subject and a Multiple Subject. I originally planned to go for Social Studies, as I minored in History, but realized that a math credential would be more desired, so I went for it. Why? I like math. I'm a smart person. And I like challenging myself. I did not have to take additional math classes; I only had to pass the CSET, and this was done easily with "prep courses" (which pretty much gave you the answers). The highest level of math I've ever taken is Pre-Cal and that was my senior year of high school. I'm not a master of the subject, YET. But I strive to be. I've only recently "fallen in love" with math. I'm still learning a lot, and even as I'm teaching now, I run into some things I've totally forgotten about. I do have to reteach myself. But I think I'm doing a pretty good job as a math teacher and I don't think my students are suffering too much. Sure, I could explain some things in a less confusing way, but I attribute this more to being a first-year teacher than not knowing what I'm teaching. I DO know what I'm teaching...I just might not know exactly what I'm teaching in two months. I'm planning to take classes this summer (or in the spring, if I can juggle it) to raise my credential through Calculus level, as I can only teach to Algebra 2 now. Maybe I'm weird, but had I been required to take a couple years of math classes before being allowed to teach, I probably would never have chosen to teach math. I learn so much better through teaching myself than I ever would from a class. And one thing I love about math is that if I'm asked a question that I don't know the answer to (this has happened a few times in Geometry), then we explore the solution together. I feel smart enough to logically deduce it instead of just being clueless. Anyways - I just wanted to chime in.
Actually, in this example, the prof is right. Variety is singular, therefore the verb needs to be singular. "Of factors", is a prepositional phrase and therefore has no bearing on the tense of the verb.
Take no offense, but I DO find this to be a problem. Students need an expert in such an essential subject. Mathematics is NOT a subject in which to cut corners. The teacher in front of the room needs a firm foundation not only in the actual content, but in the "hows and whys" of mathematics. That means a teacher should have some knowledge of at least basic abstract algebra, analysis, number theory, set theory and topology. There's so much more to what's being taught than just the process. Having an understand of WHY things work allows the teacher to present different ways of doing a problem and give him or her the ability to more thoughly answer questions. For example, do you know why, in the abstract sense, the order of operations works? How about some of the divisibility rules or the standard algorithm for division. Do you know that there really is no such thing as subraction of division and what they "really" are? These are things, that if known, allow you to be a better teacher. Teachers who lack that knowledge, even if they, like you, are striving to gain it, are less able to give students a comprehensive foundation which will allow the student to get away from the procedures of arithmetic and actually learn "real" mathematics.
Okay, you have my head swimming now!! I'm eating my own words. Microsoft likes my way better but of course their grammar check isn't accurate. I tested my husband but he isn't a grammar whiz either. My teacher friend chose "are" as well. I'm not taking your word for it YET but I'm willing to hear more feedback from others and I'm insanely curious. Even if I'm potentially wrong eek in this situation, I still don't really trust this professor's ability to really critique papers. I wish he would get someone to cross-check if he is going to take a lot of points off papers. I've never felt that way about a professor but in this case he needs one. Otherwise he is far more brilliant than me! Even if I questioned it, I let it go since I am making a good grade even without the points. He is getting a good survey from me since he is highly informed, passionate and cares about students. I've seen evidence of him adjusting his presentation or approach based on the feedback from the class instead of just sticking to what he decided to teach. He's demanding and I may not take another class under him anytime soon (worn out) but I can't say he isn't any good.
Well that depents on whether you'd consider 'variety' to be a countable noun or not. Would you say 'There is a number of factors / There is a lot of factors / There is a group of factors / There is a miscellany of factors / There is a range of factors / There is a multiplicity of factors'? For some 'is' sounds right and for others it doesn't, just like as an American 'Liverpool are coming on strong and are likely to score' sounds wrong to you because you conceptionalise 'team' as a singular, countable noun, but the Queen and any Oxford professor would think it sounds fine.
A google search of "is a variety of" got about 12.5 million hits and "are a variety of" got about 5 million. "there is a lot of" and "there are a lot of" came out close to 50 million each. There are some words for which English grammar can be flexible. I'd be interested to see what other kinds of 'corrections' your professor's made.
Yesterday we were finishing up factoring with my Algebra Honors classes. We came to the expression "x squared plus 4." I explained that they couldn't factor that because it was the sum, not the difference of perfect squares. They know me well enough to listen carefully. "So are you saying that YOU can factor it, but WE can't??" "Yes. Once you learn about the imaginary numbers in 11th grade, you'll have the background to factor the sum of perfect squares in Precalculus. It's kind of like my 8 year old daughter. Right now she knows that she can't subtract a large number from a small number. Her older brother realizes that things called negative numbers will make that possible when he learns about them." I think teachers should have enough content knowledge that they know what's coming. I hate having to "unteach" things that other teachers have thought was true, simply because they didn't know their stuff. I think that content knowledge needs to be the absolute basic requirement for teaching. WE NEED TO KNOW OUR MATERIAL. Otherwise we can't teach it well. As nice as we are, as much as we love kids, as much as we love learning and respect education, we CAN'T teach what we don't KNOW.
The issue with your example is that the syntax and the semantics don't agree. Let me quote the original: There are a variety of factors that influence the outcome. The classic way to test this is very much the way one tests for subjective vs. objective forms of pronouns: if the confusing bits weren't there, what would sound all right? In the case of this sentence, cover up "of factors", which mmswm correctly noted is a prepositional phrase. What's left is There are a variety which doesn't sound very good: variety is singular, so the verb should be is, not are. So far, it seems straightforward - except that it isn't. To begin with, the place where we expect to find the subject of the sentence is occupied by the presentative there, which can take a verb that's either singular or plural. For purposes of number agreement, subjecthood in a there-sentence defaults to the first noun phrase after the verb. In this case, it's the phrase a variety. The trouble is, though, that a variety is not what this sentence is really about: what the sentence is really about (that is, the logical subject as opposed to the grammatical subject) is the factors. Notice also that the only reasonable interpretation of the subordinate clause that influence the outcome is that it modifies factors, not a variety - but the plural verb influence has an effect on our judgments as to whether the main clause should read There is or There are. If it's any consolation, English isn't alone in struggling when the grammar and the meaning conflict. One thinks, for example, of the German word for 'girl' or 'young woman': it's Maedchen, or to be precise das Maedchen - grammatically, that word is neuter gender, so the adjectives that agree with das Maedchen and the pronoun that refers back to das Maedchen all are supposed to be neuter gender (it) rather than feminine (she, her). But there's not a German speaker born, I think, who won't simply revert to the grammatically incorrect but semantically unimpeachable feminine pronoun sie 'she' in whatever text follows.
What's more, I'm not sure we can teach what we dislike, and I'm pretty sure we can't teach what we hate and fear, or at least not as effectively. (There's a fairly obvious corollary having to do with standardized tests, given that the vast majority of the good people who post on A to Z seem to regard tests and testing with fear and loathing, but to draw it will only get me in worse trouble.)
I knew you would chime in! I don't completely follow though. I get the point that it isn't as easy as it seems but in the end, how would you have written it? I'm reading that you said that it should be "is" but because of semantics, most people would revert to "are" but it isn't grammatically correct. Is that what you meant?
(Ooooo, she knows me too well.) Took me a while, though, didn't it? Yes: most people will revert to are but, strictly speaking, it's grammatically incorrect. The rules that cover this case may even be in some flux (in several spoken dialects, presentative there seems to be becoming invariantly singular, at least with a contracted present-tense verb, so one hears There's lots of reasons) though any resulting shift won't move far enough or fast enough to help you. How would I write this? I'd recast it into something more manageable: Many factors influence the outcome.
So would you say 'There are a lot of factors' or 'There is a lot of factors', and if the former, why would it differ from 'variety'?
I know you said not to take offense, but of course, I can't help but be a little sad at this. Do you not think I should be a teacher then? I know it probably sounds like I can't possibly have a deeper understanding of math without having passed years of college courses - but I do 'get' math at a more abstract level than just the "procedures of arithmetic" I'm teaching. I'm an intelligent, out-of-the-box thinker, and better at teaching myself than being taught. No, I don't have all knowledge yet, but this doesn't make me unaware of mathematical connections. Either way, I'm still teaching this year, and doing a pretty darn good job helping my students understand. I'll do even better next year and the year after, but right now, I don't think I'm doing that bad. Maybe you'd have to know me and my teaching style to know for sure, but I don't feel that, as a newer teacher to math, that I'm as much of a problem as it would seem...
It's not that I don't think you should be a teacher, it's just that I don't think you should be teaching High School math until you get more of your own education in the subject completed. If you told me you were teaching middle school math with the credentials you have and the drive and obvious brain power you have, then I wouldn't have objected. Does that make sense? I do think that if you keep up your own education in the way you've described, you'll make a fantastic high school math teacher once those other courses are taken. It really isn't fair to the kids. As alice said, it's not so much that you know how to do what they're doing right now, or even in a few months, but do you know what's coming a few years down the road.
I totally agree. But keep in mind that MDs during their internship do make a salary. This would be an additional cost, and with school districts having as much a problem with their own budgets and I don't think that they would go for this additional cost.
I think that's probably the intent behind programs such as California's BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) - though, judging from some posts here, that's not necessarily how it plays out in practice. It's also worth pointing out that, strictly speaking, the intern year for a doctor is the first year out of medical school, and darned few doctors spend just one year as interns before going into practice. Most go through a residency program that lasts three to six years; during those years, the salary is a fraction of what even a family practitioner will be paid in her first job out of residency. Somehow I can't imagine a beginning teacher putting in three years for $8000 or so a year. Ultimately, though, there needs to be some way to ensure that the teachers who need support in order to become good can get it, the experienced teachers who are good can be treated as the professionals they are, and those whose malfeasance or incapacity contributes to the public perception of teaching as babysitting at best can be moved out of the field efficiently and effectively.
