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[Disclaimer: I've been teaching computer science at the high school level for nearly eleven years now. My B.S. is in computer science from the University of T
by teach 19y ago
[Disclaimer: I've been teaching computer science at the high school level for nearly eleven years now. My B.S. is in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin, and I set the curve in some of my courses.]
I hesitate to disparage the analysis of an anecdotal person I've never met, but I disagree with the claim that statistically teacher quality doesn't affect student outcome.
The current leading meta-statistical analysis of teachers and teaching methods and their effect on student learning is "Classroom Instruction that Works", by Marzano, et al. They have statistics on good teacher/bad school, good teacher/good school, bad teacher/good school and bad teacher/bad school and the effect on student performance. The average effect size when comparing multiple studies shows that good teachers do make a significant and measurable difference in student achievement.
I think leaving teaching to "people who can't do anything else" is a cop-out. I've taught the basics of programming to over 1000 students in my career thus far. I know of at least a dozen who now do it for a living, including some who say that a career in programming never crossed their mind before taking my class. Do you think I've had a net positive effect on the industry? I can write a lot of code, but teaching others to code eventually produces more. "Teach a man to fish" and all that.
I do agree with Prrometheus below that a lot of public education is "an inflexible, pathological bureaucracy."
I also agree that if you don't enjoy working with young people, don't bother. Further, if you can't set healthy boundaries, you'll eventually get burned out. Also, if you're a hacker at heart, you'll need to keep coding somehow, or you'll go mad.
Of course, I don't know anything about Teach for America either, but I do know that I really enjoy teaching, and I'm glad I went that route rather than industry or starting something of my own.
Just my two cents.
- yummyfajitas 19y agoWell, keep in mind what I'm describing is one special program in math. Also, everything I know I heard over beers, while complaining about our advisors. Regarding teacher quality, he found the best fit was a failure model. Most teachers perform adequately, and these teachers are statistically indistinguishable. Some teachers fail, with varying degrees of failure. Basically, think hard drives. Most work, and these are all the same. Some fail, with varying degrees of data loss. If the sample in the study you mention comes from the partially failing region, they could easily find an increasing relation. Or possibly this program was special, that I don't know. However, I do stand by my statement to leave teaching to those who aren't great at other things. That's just basic comparative advantage. You are comparing your students with you as a teacher to your students with no teacher. The proper comparison is "you program, joe blub teaches" vs "you teach, joe blub programs." If joe blub teaches almost as well as you, but you program much better than him, then it's far better if you leave the teaching to him. Of course, if you enjoy teaching, you certainly are not obligated to do the most economically efficient job. I'm certainly not (postdoc in math here).
- teach 19y agoYes, but the number of students in my program is higher than the other two (wealthier) schools in my district, and a lot higher than schools with comparable demographics. Even if Joe Blub teaches nearly as well as I do (and I'm willing to accept that he may), I recruit a whole lot better than he. But if I teach my students Java (as the AP exam requires), does that make me Joe Blub?!? :)