why dont we teach teachers how to teach?

Answer 1

I have a Masters in Education and have taught for two years.

The truth is, you can't really teach teachers how to teach. Teaching is more of a craft than a skill. It's something that is best learned through experience. They say that teachers don't reach their maximum effectiveness until they have 5 years of experience in the classroom.

Teacher education is kind of a joke. It doesn't provide teachers with real-life tools that they will need in the classroom. It's a lot of theories and ideas, with no actual instruction on how to apply them.

If we really wanted to improve teacher education, we would require teachers to co-teach with an experienced master teacher for their first two years before they ever get their own classrooms.

Answer 2

Well, it's a mixed bag. Most teachers that have been around for a while studied their field of interest and have had very few classes in education. Today, a college student interested in being a teacher majors in education with a concentration in their field. So newer teachers are more likely to have actually been taught to teach.

However, there are many different teaching styles including some with varying levels of authority in the role of a teacher compared to a student. Some methods have the teacher lecture while others have the students essentially teach themselves with guidance from the teacher. THe ultimate irony is that in education classes I've learned that most students are visual learners (some are auditory and some are kinesthetic) yet most teachers (especially in middle school and high school) choose to lecture which benefits only the auditory learners. This is another area where new teachers benefit from the education classes because the knowledge we gain about learning style allows us to know that we have to teach using different techniques and try to reach ALL of the students.

Answer 3

We do teach teachers how to teach in college. Maybe the problem is not they aren't being paid enough maybe the passion to teach wasn't there in the first place. If your really don't have the desire to do something in the first place then your aren't going to do a good job in the long run. Money can't get in the way of passion!

Answer 4

We do teach teachers how to teach. Maybe some teachers don't teach well, in your opinion. But they all go to education school, and learn all about how to teach.

Answer 5

Learning to be a good teacher takes many years of training and experience.

In some areas, teachers have unions that prevent administration from dealing with issues of competence. There is no law against a teacher being mediocre. So, only the horrifically incompetent teachers end up being released from their contracts (unless it's a situation where a teacher has committed a crime and then things move more quickly).

In order to help teachers grow as professionals schools need to be able to establish learning communities within themselves so that teachers learn from each other.

We also need to motivate teachers to continue to engage in additional training. In some areas the teacher unions are actually discouraging their members from engaging in professional development activities. We need to get the teachers and their unions working with the school boards and get ourselves out of this culture of antagonism towards each other.

School adminstrators need to have the training as well, to work with teachers who have competency issues. And then, the school districts need to give them the time to do this. So often school principals are busy with seemingly meaningless administrivia that they don't have time to do what will really make a difference in their schools.

All of this takes cooperation between politically motivated groups as well as lots of MONEY!!

The good news is that most teachers are already motivated to continue to improve themselves and are working hard to give children the best education possible. Wouldn't it be ideal if all doctors, lawyers, accountants, waiters, tradespeople (can't name all the groups of professionals and workers) and teachers were excellent at what they do?

Answer 6

why dont we teach students to study? why dont we teach parents to parent?
Most problems in education are society based.

Answer 7

The problem in my opinion is two-fold.

First, we don't pay teachers enough to attract the brightest to the profession or retain those who wind up being successful.

Second, we set artificial success goals that are loosely correlated (at best) to actual learning.