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>I’ve gone through a postgraduate qualification and nine years of experience to get to where I am, so don’t presume to know more than me about how to teach chil

>I’ve gone through a postgraduate qualification and nine years of experience to get to where I am, so don’t presume to know more than me about how to teach children - and if you do, expect that I will be justifiably miffed. This is the thing about teachers that just irritates the hell out of me. I had plenty of teachers who went through postgraduate qualification and had 20 years of experience who couldn't teach for shit. Getting trained as a teacher doesn't mean you're going to be automatically good at it, just like getting trained in CS doesn't mean you're going to be a good programmer. I've been taught by plenty of people who didn't have the title Teacher, who taught me way more than my Teacher ever did. I've also talked and taught plenty of people who thought they were stupid because their formal University Teacher, armed with postgraduate qualifications and years of experience, couldn't communicate a simple concept to them. They go through life thinking they're dumb because this trained teacher made them feel that way because the teacher failed at teaching and passed that failure to the student. So to see this person talk about their qualifications and how she thinks these qualifications confer teaching ability leaves me quite a bit miffed, because it comes off as just an arrogant dismissal of criticism.

vacri 12y ago
The important word is 'presume'. She's not saying that you can't know more than her, but that she gets miffed when an armchair quarterback dismisses her lengthy experience in the field. Hackers are constantly telling each other war stories of the weird, naive impressions people outside their industry have of them; why should it be different for teachers? If you have zero experience teaching, then there's a ton of pitfalls that you're almost certainly unaware of, particularly when teaching minors. And yes, there are some terrible teachers. But there are a lot more terrible armchair quarterbacks.
fredophile 12y ago
Elementary and secondary (high school) teachers usually have training in how to teach. This will often include specific training in how to teach children. Where I went to school teachers needed a two year teaching program that included practical experience in addition to their degree. They know how to teach well but may not be current in the latest advances in their field and may teach subjects outside of their specialty. University professors do not do this kind of training. They hold a PhD in their field and probably did several post-doc research positions before finding a position as faculty. This makes them experts in their field but doesn't necessarily make them very good teachers. Her qualifications are in teaching, not in CS. It makes sense for her to assume that she is generally a better teacher than someone with qualifications in CS and not teaching.
- radiac 12y ago
  It may be of interest that the author actually has a degree in CS, as well as her postgraduate teacher training (I was at university with her). As you say, I think her point was that because she now works in education, she may not have kept up with the latest specific developments in the industry (new languages, libraries, tools etc), but she has a lot more knowledge about how to teach general CS skills to students, so that they are able to go out and learn modern specifics themselves (which of course will have changed significantly in the time they finish their education). I think a lot of HN readers are missing the background to and context of this article though, which is that the author's talking about the UK secondary school system (11-18 year olds), which has been going through significant changes in the way computer science is taught. When I learnt IT/CS at school, the correct answer to "How do you secure a computer" was "Make sure it isn't near the edge of a desk and there are no cables trailing across the floor" - answers involving passwords and firewalls were actually marked as incorrect. Formal education before university provided very little information which was actually relevant. In the past year or so though, the government has changed the curriculum to be more practical and relevant. However, my understanding is that a lot of IT teachers didn't have a background in CS, so although they were happy at the level of tidying cables, they lacked the technical knowledge required to explain the new syllabus. That's insultingly simplified and generalised of course, but you get the idea. Because the new syllabus was brought in in a rush following much political fanfare, questions were raised about how to bring these teachers up to speed in a short amount of time. I haven't followed the situation closely, but I believe that one solution which was pushed by government was that the industry should step in to save the day, despite the fact that they know sod all about teaching, and that their skill sets are often too topical and transient to be of any actual use to students. I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but I think that's a large part of what has led to this post, and re-reading the article in this context may shed a different light on it.

vacri 12y ago

The important word is 'presume'. She's not saying that you can't know more than her, but that she gets miffed when an armchair quarterback dismisses her lengthy experience in the field. Hackers are constantly telling each other war stories of the weird, naive impressions people outside their industry have of them; why should it be different for teachers? If you have zero experience teaching, then there's a ton of pitfalls that you're almost certainly unaware of, particularly when teaching minors. And yes, there are some terrible teachers. But there are a lot more terrible armchair quarterbacks.

fredophile 12y ago

Elementary and secondary (high school) teachers usually have training in how to teach. This will often include specific training in how to teach children. Where I went to school teachers needed a two year teaching program that included practical experience in addition to their degree. They know how to teach well but may not be current in the latest advances in their field and may teach subjects outside of their specialty. University professors do not do this kind of training. They hold a PhD in their field and probably did several post-doc research positions before finding a position as faculty. This makes them experts in their field but doesn't necessarily make them very good teachers. Her qualifications are in teaching, not in CS. It makes sense for her to assume that she is generally a better teacher than someone with qualifications in CS and not teaching.

radiac 12y ago
It may be of interest that the author actually has a degree in CS, as well as her postgraduate teacher training (I was at university with her). As you say, I think her point was that because she now works in education, she may not have kept up with the latest specific developments in the industry (new languages, libraries, tools etc), but she has a lot more knowledge about how to teach general CS skills to students, so that they are able to go out and learn modern specifics themselves (which of course will have changed significantly in the time they finish their education). I think a lot of HN readers are missing the background to and context of this article though, which is that the author's talking about the UK secondary school system (11-18 year olds), which has been going through significant changes in the way computer science is taught. When I learnt IT/CS at school, the correct answer to "How do you secure a computer" was "Make sure it isn't near the edge of a desk and there are no cables trailing across the floor" - answers involving passwords and firewalls were actually marked as incorrect. Formal education before university provided very little information which was actually relevant. In the past year or so though, the government has changed the curriculum to be more practical and relevant. However, my understanding is that a lot of IT teachers didn't have a background in CS, so although they were happy at the level of tidying cables, they lacked the technical knowledge required to explain the new syllabus. That's insultingly simplified and generalised of course, but you get the idea. Because the new syllabus was brought in in a rush following much political fanfare, questions were raised about how to bring these teachers up to speed in a short amount of time. I haven't followed the situation closely, but I believe that one solution which was pushed by government was that the industry should step in to save the day, despite the fact that they know sod all about teaching, and that their skill sets are often too topical and transient to be of any actual use to students. I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but I think that's a large part of what has led to this post, and re-reading the article in this context may shed a different light on it.