Pa. dumbs down teacher educaton
In the Nov. 12th edition of Education Week “Education School Courses Faulted as Intellectually Thin,” Professor David N. Steiner of Boston University studied the teacher education courses at 14 of the top ranked teacher-training institutions. What he found is what has essentially been the criticism leveled at teacher education for more than a decade. Mostly the critics attack too many how-to courses and very little, if any, intellectually demanding experiences for these future teachers of our young. Generally, this is true.
There is the tendency to make topics into courses and make teacher education into training clerks rather than professionals such as medical doctors or attorneys.
The report focuses on the one course that does attempt to be academically respectable and essential for all educators.
In examining the outlines for 45 ‘education foundations’ courses in 18 programs, the researchers found that no course offered an introduction to the four central areas that they say ideally would make up the course: the philosophy, history and psychology of education along with public policy debates in the field.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has just issued their “Guidelines” for teacher education and they are a perfect example of everything that this research describes thus: “If this were any other field, people would be hitting their heads in alarm.”
Those essential foundation/policy studies courses are missing, replaced by more how-to-do little lessons and much multi-cultural awareness, again, a preparation more suitable for low-level clerks than professionals who must understand what our educational system is all about, how it got that way and what needs to be done to improve it.
Most of my education majors are impressively enthusiastic and dedicated people I would want to teach my own children, but they are near totally ignorant about the institution they are about to join. They rely on me to help them understand the American education system, how social class affects grades, testing and learning.
They think Big Brother is a television character and Brave New World a science fiction show. The impact of the ideas of John Dewey and Maria Montessori and the long disastrous experiment with behaviorism are essential knowledge they must have to function intelligently in our public schools.
These students rely on me and my colleagues to give them a basic grounding in philosophy, sociology, human development and all the latest research and court decisions from Brown v. The Board (1954) that changed our society forever, to the latest on affirmative action in university admissions.
Under these “new/old” guidelines they are being made into ciphers rather than inspirational role models for what an educated individual should be.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education is in a constant state of chaos changing requirements on an almost weekly basis so that none of us can keep up. Students have no idea what is going on and are mostly angry and disgusted with the entire mess.
What are history majors to make of the new citizenship certification that makes Pennsylvania appear as backward among 49 other states that have social studies? These graduates will not only not find jobs but will have to attempt to explain what “citizenship” means. Now we have guidelines that are not only poorly written but embarrassing for a state that once had a degree of respect for its public education system.
Perhaps our new secretary of education will recognize this problem, but her name does appear on this new document that is being enacted at this time. And, as always, our teacher education institutions appear to be doing as they’re told instead of rebelling against what many of us know to be an impending disaster for Pennsylvania.
David N. Campbell is a professor of Policy Studies-American Education at California University of Pennsylvania.