Peez

I might have had trouble believing that before teaching a non-majors biology class, but I know better now.

Peez

Godless Dave

I think a huge part of the problem in the US is how public school teachers are certified. They have to take all kinds of education classes but are not required to know much about their field. They don't have time to take advanced classes in their field because of all the required education classes. I agree it's important to learn how to teach and manage a classroom, but you also have to know your material.

pz

This is a real dilemma. At my university, education majors have a major problem: it is the most demanding major here, and the program requires a minimum of five years to complete, because we have tried to force a fair amount of rigor into it. In order to get a biology teaching certificate, they have to complete the full biology major, on top of all the education courses.

On the one hand, it's good: if you hire a biology teacher from this university, you know you've got someone with a solid background.

On the other hand, it's hard to find students willing to suffer that much for a degree that will get them a mere teaching job. I wouldn't have done it, if I'd had the option.

Nialler

... I'm not so sure that the standard of education is any lower in the US than it is here.

I wonder what the figures would be like if there were to be a concerted push by the creationists in Europe? True, they would probably never get past the syllabus framers, so it's highly unlikely that they would be allowed to peddle their crap in the schools, but if they were allowed, and if they managed through churches etc to spread their message, my guess is that lots of kids would absorb their message. It's so much easier than real science, and the stories are rather entertaining...

Aside from anything else, we don't tend to have such fundamentalism in our churches, and the sight of an evangelist would lead to hilarity rather than a considered effort to listen to him/her.

As with everything, I reckon that the best of American is as good as the best anywhere else. Unfortunately, the worst is also as bad as it is anywhere else - and is far more inclined to use the internet!

RufusAtticus

I think there was/is a push in my state (Georgia) to require all middle school/high school education majors to get at least a minor in their subject area.

Godless Dave

My ex recently left her job teaching English as a second language at a private school. IMO she is highly qualified to teach ESOL in a public school - she has a BA in linguistics and a master's in TESOL, she taught ESOL for two years in the US and a year in Japan. But she has no teaching certificates so she would have to go back to school for at least another year to teach in public school. And even then she might not get a job. We have a lot of low-income immigrants in Minnesota, especially refugees, who have little or no schooling and no English. There is a huge demand for ESOL in Minnesota public schools - but no funding.

Claudia

Here, to teach in high school, you must have at least a Bachelor degree (in Biology to teach Biology, Maths to teach maths, English to teach English...). And roughly equivalent to master degree if you want to have the nice lasses (Advanced maths senior for a math teacher...)

Godless Dave

I'm going to assume you meant the nice classes, although I am aware that regulations against sexual harassment are weaker in France than in the US.

beausoleil

Just to stir the pot, an American colleague of mine likes to hire foreign postdocs because they tend to be better and work harder than the homegrown variety, he says.

My theory is that the postdocs who are willing to risk a move abroad tend to be among the best on offer from any country. Certainly the American postdocs we get in Europe tend to be very high calibre, incidentally showing the traffic is by no means one-way.

SLD

I ran into a H.S. Biology teacher at my reserve center the other week and asked him about teaching Biology in Alabama High Schools these days (naively assuming he might be a fellow freethinker); and he responded that he did teach the material but that he always told his students that he could disprove evolution with the second law of thermodynamics.


:banghead: :banghead:

I did a double take. The said part of it was he actually has a masters in Marine Biology. I just couldn't believe it and changed the subject. I bet the kids really pay attention to his lectures on evolution.

SLD