5 ms·

Hard disagree. My partner is an educator with a degree in it, and a lot of the degree is the important “how to teach” as much if not more than the actual conte

Hard disagree. My partner is an educator with a degree in it, and a lot of the degree is the important “how to teach” as much if not more than the actual content they’re teaching. It’s evident by any research professor, for example, who is sent to teach a course that just knowing the subject doesn’t mean they can adequately communicate or educate on it.

nverno 4y ago
If additional education, in general, made teachers significantly more effective, it should be fairly easy to measure that outcome. But, it seems many people have tried, and continue to try, but have failed to reach much of a consensus [1]. Just reading through a few of the first search results, some find negative effects, some positive, but nothing particularly significant afaict. Personally, I liked teachers that were enthusiastic about their subject matter more than anything else. Learning how to teach must be important, but someone that has enthusiasm and a skillset could surely pick that up as they go. 1. https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherprep1_20170301_2.pdf https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherpr...
- jltsiren 4y ago
  Measuring the outcomes of primary/secondary education is not easy. The purpose of such education is not giving kids measurable skills but preparing them for their lives as citizens. You can't measure that with standardized tests. You must follow the kids over their lives and see how they contribute to the society.
  - nverno 4y ago
    What does it mean 'preparing them for their lives as citizens'? School is for learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Learning how to be part of society is something everyone learns in the theater of life, not from school teachers specifically (as much from school teachers as from all the other important people in their life).
    - jltsiren 4y ago
      It means being prepared to use political rights such as voting and freedom of speech. It means being responsible for your own life, finances, and social interactions. And other things like that. When a kid turns 18, they suddenly have many rights and responsibilities. The primary purpose of education is preparing kids for those. A 18-year-old has typically spent 20-25% of their waking hours in formal education, depending on what you count. That's a substantial fraction of their life so far. Formal education is particularly important for less fortunate kids who don't learn many useful things from their friends and family. If you want such people to have rights and responsibilities, they must be given a chance to prepare. Otherwise the society will suffer.
- thelock85 4y ago
  > someone that has enthusiasm and a skill set could surely pick that up as they go. Sounds like the early days of Teach For America where enthusiasm will mostly get you between a few days and few years of service. I think it’s pretty complicated to measure the effect of teachers in lots of context, let alone with respect to educational attainment. The exception is at the intervention level: Teachers who learned X technique for improving Y skill improved Y skill at a higher occurrence than teachers who did not learn X technique. Even for interventions you need to develop understanding of childhood/adolescent cognitive and emotional development in order to communicate effectively. Maybe enthusiasm gets you there organically through experience, maybe you quit. Certainly in an otherwise pristine learning environment, enthusiasm for learning itself is a baseline desirable trait.
legitster 4y ago
I think there is a selection bias here though. My experience is that the people with the best natural teaching ability are not teachers. They end up in random industry jobs because dealing the career ladder of teachers is super unappealing. In contrast, the teaching profession is full of people who were good students. So requiring more degrees does not do a good job of separating the wheat from the chafe. In my experience, the best teachers are people in their 50s or 60s who have a ton of diverse experience and still chose to teach. But the median teacher is someone in their 30s who has only ever been a teacher.

nverno 4y ago

If additional education, in general, made teachers significantly more effective, it should be fairly easy to measure that outcome. But, it seems many people have tried, and continue to try, but have failed to reach much of a consensus [1]. Just reading through a few of the first search results, some find negative effects, some positive, but nothing particularly significant afaict. Personally, I liked teachers that were enthusiastic about their subject matter more than anything else. Learning how to teach must be important, but someone that has enthusiasm and a skillset could surely pick that up as they go. 1. https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherprep1_20170301_2.pdf https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherpr...

jltsiren 4y ago
Measuring the outcomes of primary/secondary education is not easy. The purpose of such education is not giving kids measurable skills but preparing them for their lives as citizens. You can't measure that with standardized tests. You must follow the kids over their lives and see how they contribute to the society.
- nverno 4y ago
  What does it mean 'preparing them for their lives as citizens'? School is for learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. Learning how to be part of society is something everyone learns in the theater of life, not from school teachers specifically (as much from school teachers as from all the other important people in their life).
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    It means being prepared to use political rights such as voting and freedom of speech. It means being responsible for your own life, finances, and social interactions. And other things like that. When a kid turns 18, they suddenly have many rights and responsibilities. The primary purpose of education is preparing kids for those. A 18-year-old has typically spent 20-25% of their waking hours in formal education, depending on what you count. That's a substantial fraction of their life so far. Formal education is particularly important for less fortunate kids who don't learn many useful things from their friends and family. If you want such people to have rights and responsibilities, they must be given a chance to prepare. Otherwise the society will suffer.
thelock85 4y ago
> someone that has enthusiasm and a skill set could surely pick that up as they go. Sounds like the early days of Teach For America where enthusiasm will mostly get you between a few days and few years of service. I think it’s pretty complicated to measure the effect of teachers in lots of context, let alone with respect to educational attainment. The exception is at the intervention level: Teachers who learned X technique for improving Y skill improved Y skill at a higher occurrence than teachers who did not learn X technique. Even for interventions you need to develop understanding of childhood/adolescent cognitive and emotional development in order to communicate effectively. Maybe enthusiasm gets you there organically through experience, maybe you quit. Certainly in an otherwise pristine learning environment, enthusiasm for learning itself is a baseline desirable trait.

legitster 4y ago

I think there is a selection bias here though. My experience is that the people with the best natural teaching ability are not teachers. They end up in random industry jobs because dealing the career ladder of teachers is super unappealing. In contrast, the teaching profession is full of people who were good students. So requiring more degrees does not do a good job of separating the wheat from the chafe. In my experience, the best teachers are people in their 50s or 60s who have a ton of diverse experience and still chose to teach. But the median teacher is someone in their 30s who has only ever been a teacher.