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From friends that have suffered through education degrees, it doesn’t sound like the field sees itself as a part of the scientific community at all. There’s a

From friends that have suffered through education degrees, it doesn’t sound like the field sees itself as a part of the scientific community at all. There’s a disproportionate focus on, frankly, ideological indoctrination. Even if you agree with the underlying ideologies that doesn’t seem like an ideal system for producing excellent educators. The little methodological trainings that do take place are often grounded in fads or cults of personality rather than scientifically proven effectiveness research. It sometimes feels as if the US as a society delegated the design of k-12 education to a few hundred experts, that turned out not be experts, and never checked back to see whether we had made a mistake.

Retric 4y ago
There are mountains of education research out there. Some collages actually do focus on it, but the real goal is to prepare people for the workplace by jumping though whatever hoops are mandatory. Research is largely ignored because what actually determines what’s used is politics not some rigorous validation of what works. We do a lot of standardized testing in the US not because it’s particularly useful, but because it’s been privatized and the only way for those companies to make even more money was even more tests. Which meant they needed to convince people more testing was needed, which worked. Luckily it’s shocking easy to educate most people, almost like young kids brains where setup to learn stuff…
- jerry1979 4y ago
  I plan to do some volunteer work in teaching. What's the best way to find "the good stuff" in terms of educational research?
  - Retric 4y ago
    In general literature reviews are the best starting off point. However, I don’t know what if anything would be relevant to you. If you’re helping kids with dyslexia learn to read then that’s very different than normal tutoring etc. Really though research tends to have really narrow focus such as classroom lighting.
dwater 4y ago
In my education degree program, in the intro class we spent time every week discussing recent research papers we had read. I was interested in practicing, not doing research, but when selecting schools there were clearly some that had a research focus and some that had a practical focus.
humean_being 4y ago
This was something that I and a friend found surprising when he was studying to become a primary school teacher in the UK. A lot of the education for teachers in the UK is effectively 18th century philosophy taught uncritically - the likes of Rousseau, etc... We both have a university background in philosophy (we both did the US equivalent of "majoring" in it, and I went to graduate level) and what we found disturbing was how uncritical and non-evidence based the teaching of teachers was. It seems like a fair bit of non-practical teaching of teaching, at least in the UK, is ideological indoctrination. They aren't "doing philosophy" in the sense that you would in a philosophy course where you are meant to be critical in your engagement, but are being told to accept philosophical arguments as doctrine. So in a way its not surprising to me that teachers fall for other doctrinal ways of teaching. You go to linguistics departments and they actually do stuff around evidence based child language acquisition, meanwhile teaching colleges ignore that and teach an unreflective centuries old ideology about how children learn. There appears to be a big cultural gap between say linguistics departments and education departments.
- AlanYx 4y ago
  In North America, Rousseau has given way to Paulo Freire and successors, but it's the same thing for the most part.
allknowingfrog 4y ago
This was exactly my experience. I had to pass a review board before I began my senior year, and it was essentially an "ideological indoctrination" examination. I said what they wanted to hear. What else was I going to go with the 3 years of education that I had already purchased? I was fortunate to study at a college that emphasized field-based experience, because it was the only degree-related value that I left with. In the end, I spent more hours earning my degree than using it. I work in software now.
- jerry1979 4y ago
  What's the easiest way for me to learn about this ideology? Is there a test prep or similar?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rahimnathwani 4y ago
    I'm guessing it's combo of: - equity and social justice - culturally-responsive teaching - student-centered learning - learning styles
    - allknowingfrog 4y ago
      Yeah, pretty much this. It's all part of the "it's a mission" mentality that leads to teachers being over-worked and under-paid. Everyone else has a job. You have a calling!
  - allknowingfrog 4y ago
    Oh, it's not a stated set of requirements. I would describe it as more of a culture. The review board didn't hand me a standardized test or anything. They just asked a lot of questions about my personal outlook on the field of education. I already mentioned this in another comment below, but what they really want to hear is "it's a mission".
    - 4y ago

Retric 4y ago

There are mountains of education research out there. Some collages actually do focus on it, but the real goal is to prepare people for the workplace by jumping though whatever hoops are mandatory. Research is largely ignored because what actually determines what’s used is politics not some rigorous validation of what works. We do a lot of standardized testing in the US not because it’s particularly useful, but because it’s been privatized and the only way for those companies to make even more money was even more tests. Which meant they needed to convince people more testing was needed, which worked. Luckily it’s shocking easy to educate most people, almost like young kids brains where setup to learn stuff…

jerry1979 4y ago
I plan to do some volunteer work in teaching. What's the best way to find "the good stuff" in terms of educational research?
- Retric 4y ago
  In general literature reviews are the best starting off point. However, I don’t know what if anything would be relevant to you. If you’re helping kids with dyslexia learn to read then that’s very different than normal tutoring etc. Really though research tends to have really narrow focus such as classroom lighting.

dwater 4y ago

In my education degree program, in the intro class we spent time every week discussing recent research papers we had read. I was interested in practicing, not doing research, but when selecting schools there were clearly some that had a research focus and some that had a practical focus.

humean_being 4y ago

This was something that I and a friend found surprising when he was studying to become a primary school teacher in the UK. A lot of the education for teachers in the UK is effectively 18th century philosophy taught uncritically - the likes of Rousseau, etc... We both have a university background in philosophy (we both did the US equivalent of "majoring" in it, and I went to graduate level) and what we found disturbing was how uncritical and non-evidence based the teaching of teachers was. It seems like a fair bit of non-practical teaching of teaching, at least in the UK, is ideological indoctrination. They aren't "doing philosophy" in the sense that you would in a philosophy course where you are meant to be critical in your engagement, but are being told to accept philosophical arguments as doctrine. So in a way its not surprising to me that teachers fall for other doctrinal ways of teaching. You go to linguistics departments and they actually do stuff around evidence based child language acquisition, meanwhile teaching colleges ignore that and teach an unreflective centuries old ideology about how children learn. There appears to be a big cultural gap between say linguistics departments and education departments.

AlanYx 4y ago
In North America, Rousseau has given way to Paulo Freire and successors, but it's the same thing for the most part.

allknowingfrog 4y ago

This was exactly my experience. I had to pass a review board before I began my senior year, and it was essentially an "ideological indoctrination" examination. I said what they wanted to hear. What else was I going to go with the 3 years of education that I had already purchased? I was fortunate to study at a college that emphasized field-based experience, because it was the only degree-related value that I left with. In the end, I spent more hours earning my degree than using it. I work in software now.

jerry1979 4y ago
What's the easiest way for me to learn about this ideology? Is there a test prep or similar?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  I'm guessing it's combo of: - equity and social justice - culturally-responsive teaching - student-centered learning - learning styles
  - allknowingfrog 4y ago
    Yeah, pretty much this. It's all part of the "it's a mission" mentality that leads to teachers being over-worked and under-paid. Everyone else has a job. You have a calling!
- allknowingfrog 4y ago
  Oh, it's not a stated set of requirements. I would describe it as more of a culture. The review board didn't hand me a standardized test or anything. They just asked a lot of questions about my personal outlook on the field of education. I already mentioned this in another comment below, but what they really want to hear is "it's a mission".
  - 4y ago