Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
Absolutely. I mean, probably the worst thing about standardization in teaching is the suppression of intelligence, which brings us back to the original post, and its most valid criticism: should teachers be evaluated by an administration that is corrupt?
Honestly, my public school education did virtually nothing for me, and I was often bored. The sciences, because of their rigour, maintain an element of seriousness that I enjoyed, but the humanities were brutal, except for a few scraps of Shakespeare.
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As a public teacher I am torn on the topic, but not on this panel review. The Panel is unfortunately incorrect. Most people are ignoring the first three sections of their report regarding mentoring processes, evaluations, professional development and consistency. The unfortunate part is these are very expensive activities. The fourth part is about certification regarding conduct and competency. Unfortunately the panel starts with a basic misunderstanding of how the ATA works. Thus, their suggestions are flawed at their core and the recommendations are redundant and incorrect.
However, the topic of teacher competency is not really one of the profession but one of a union. All unions protect all members. I am in support of unions but not when they get so large they take their power for granted. I am a supporter of the ATA but it needs to revisit the intention of it's policies. It seems that the union's first response is to protect all members, even bad teachers. Now this should be the case, as a union. The next step is incredibly tedious for any principal and is tied up in so much bureaucracy that it rarely is seen through to the end. The process of "firing" a teacher is difficult and needs to be revisited. That being said the PC party is looking to push through a number of crazy ideas in education. One way to ensure that is to make themselves capable of removing any opposition.
This allows them to standardize teachers, this has been their goal for years. If you standardize education you dissolve free thought and remove any chance for individualized education. It is a core philosophy issue that I got into educaiton to discuss. Currently I consider myself a "good" teacher but I can always improve I look for chances to expand my practice and test new waters. Especially when I disagree with a theory, I then try it to test my pedagogy against practice.
My favorite part of all of this is public reaction. Everyone's limited experience in the system is then applied to all of us in general. If you had a bad teacher or one bad experience then we need reform, if you had a good experience then things are fine. Very near sighted in approach. Like all pprofessions some os us are bad, most of us are really passionate and quite good at our jobs. Just like EVERY other profession. I have met bad doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, and a plethora of other professions with "lemons" and they don't lose their practice. They simply lose clients, and if parents push hard enough they can move their kids away from bad teachers, or teach their students to thrive in spite of the condition. Another good life lesson. That is my 2 cents.