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I am in California, and my understanding is that teachers-in-training normally put in a certain number of hours of time in an actual classroom before they earn

I am in California, and my understanding is that teachers-in-training normally put in a certain number of hours of time in an actual classroom before they earn their teaching credential. Perhaps teachers in other states have a different experience, but I think California does a reasonable job with preparing teachers. Still, if a teacher does their classroom training in an affluent neighborhood but then take a teaching job in a low income school, I would not be surprised that their be an adjustment period. But preparing the teachers for local issues seems best handled by the school district.

weland 13y ago
I'm not in the US, but a (fairly long) while ago when my mother decided she wanted to be a teacher, being a primary school (first four years here) either required a university degree and some fairly serious examination, or enrolling in a special high school. They did have pedagogy classes (4 hrs/week, I think?) and 1 or 2 additional hours of psychology compared to other high school programs, but this was otherwise a regular high school and at the wonderful age of 18, you were a primary school teacher. My mother later decided she also wants a degree in Psychology (she got back to school for her BSc and an MSc -- quite bravo for someone who was, at that point, in her forties), but she often tells me how much of what she learned was in the job, not in school. It helped that she had to put on several hundreds of hours of supervised teaching. On the other hand, she reckons that she was doing it wrong in many aspects that did not have directly to with pedagogy. She has now come to realize that for long time -- her first ten, fifteen years on the job even! -- the way she handled a lot of aspects involved in working with kids outside the matter of teaching them this concept or that method were wrong. Unfortunately, no amount of study can prepare you for that. Having a well-paid, secure job, a safe family life and a frustration-free existence is even more important. A lot of her colleagues (she doesn't live in quite the most pleasant place of this world, albeit it's in the better half) vent a lot of anger and misery on the kids they teach, wrecking generation after generation. I'm actually one of their byproducts -- I passionately hated going to school, and the whole thing was so stinky that even my parents, while not actively encouraging me to skip classes, were at least not making it harder.

weland 13y ago

I'm not in the US, but a (fairly long) while ago when my mother decided she wanted to be a teacher, being a primary school (first four years here) either required a university degree and some fairly serious examination, or enrolling in a special high school. They did have pedagogy classes (4 hrs/week, I think?) and 1 or 2 additional hours of psychology compared to other high school programs, but this was otherwise a regular high school and at the wonderful age of 18, you were a primary school teacher. My mother later decided she also wants a degree in Psychology (she got back to school for her BSc and an MSc -- quite bravo for someone who was, at that point, in her forties), but she often tells me how much of what she learned was in the job, not in school. It helped that she had to put on several hundreds of hours of supervised teaching. On the other hand, she reckons that she was doing it wrong in many aspects that did not have directly to with pedagogy. She has now come to realize that for long time -- her first ten, fifteen years on the job even! -- the way she handled a lot of aspects involved in working with kids outside the matter of teaching them this concept or that method were wrong. Unfortunately, no amount of study can prepare you for that. Having a well-paid, secure job, a safe family life and a frustration-free existence is even more important. A lot of her colleagues (she doesn't live in quite the most pleasant place of this world, albeit it's in the better half) vent a lot of anger and misery on the kids they teach, wrecking generation after generation. I'm actually one of their byproducts -- I passionately hated going to school, and the whole thing was so stinky that even my parents, while not actively encouraging me to skip classes, were at least not making it harder.