"Finland long ago decided to professionalize its teaching force to the point where teaching is now viewed on a par with other highly respected, learned professions like medicine and law. Today, only the best and brightest can and do become teachers: Just one in every 10 applicants are accepted to teacher preparation programs, which culminate in both an undergraduate degree and subject-specific Master's degree." Joel Klein argues that the US should follow Finland's lead and create, essentially, a
bar exam for teachers, which would serve to professionalize them in the eyes of society and raise their societal value.
posted by barnacles
on Jan 11, 2013 -
82 comments
What makes a great teacher? Analyzing more than twenty years of data,
Teach for America has found that great teachers had trained in their subject areas rather than in education, and had high "life satisfaction." They also demonstrated five tendencies: they
"constantly reevaluate what they are doing... they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls."
This last trait is measured by the Grit Scale,
which has been shown to predict good outcomes in
both teachers and West Point cadets. (
Do you have grit?)
[more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea
on Jan 31, 2010 -
133 comments
Motion Mountain - "
The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and ideas about unification are included."
posted by Gyan
on Aug 17, 2006 -
4 comments
Teach dance in prison! "The Federal Bureau of Prisons...intends to issue solicitation RFQ 50507-012-2 for the provision to provide Dance Instructor Services with a variety of beginning and advanced dance classes to the inmate population."
posted by kirkaracha
on Apr 25, 2002 -
10 comments
"Democratic Schools" Just saw this school on 60 Minutes. The kids hang out all day, play video games, go to class
if they want to, learn if they want to. There's no principal or teachers, just "staff". I may be an old-school stickler but this strikes me as retarded. They had an eight year old on who couldn't read because he "wasn't ready for it yet"... c'mon.
posted by owillis
on Apr 29, 2001 -
70 comments
School's mathematics don't add up! PS 234, a primary school in TriBeCa, is at the forefront of the revolution in math instruction being carried out in more than half of New York City's schools. The district's approach to math instruction follows an egalitarian theory called "constructivist math," which is the idea that children
shouldn't learn basic techniques for adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. Rather, emphasis is placed on "feeling good about numbers" etc. Said one angry parent, "The idea that the home has to be turned into the school because the school is the testing ground for inane programs - that's frightening." And leading university mathematicians have joined parent groups in denouncing the method.
All things concidered, is it right for schools to use children as guinea pigs in this manner?
posted by frednorman
on Apr 10, 2001 -
53 comments
