Thank God for those Onerous Teacher Certification Laws

By Tom

What do you need to know in order to teach kindergarten? Probably the alphabet and some basic phonics, right?  And some numbers, at least up to about twenty. You’d also have to know some science, I guess. Like where rain comes from and why dogs can’t talk. And then there’s social studies. Someone might ask you about police and fire officers, so you should probably understand those jobs, at least in principle.

So on the whole, most people over the age of about seven have probably mastered the content knowledge required to teach kindergarten. But does that mean they could teach kindergarten?

Of course not.

Teaching kindergarten requires some basic content knowledge, but that’s just for starters. You have to be able to structure a day so that 25 or more restless, curious and very immature people will stay safe, keep busy and even learn. You have to know how to deal with conflict in such a way that both parties learn from the experience. You have to be able to teach them how to use the bathroom quickly and hygienically. And you have to be able to earn the trust of anxious parents who, for the first time, won’t see their children for another six hours. These are skills that most adults do not have.

Recently, Liv Finne, the director of the Center for Education at the Washington Policy Center, a conservative think tank, was complaining in the Tacoma News Tribune about all the hassles that people have to go through before they can start teaching. Specifically, she complains that “Over the past 10 years, public and private colleges and universities in Washington state graduated 26,693 individuals who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher in math or closely related subject. Yet none of these talented professionals can be hired as a teacher without a state-approved certificate.”

Ms Finne believes that anyone with advanced knowledge in math or science is therefore qualified to teach the subject. She states, with apparent incredulity, that even Bill Gates himself “is not allowed to teach math in a public high school.”

By her logic, if Bill Gates is qualified to teach math because of his command of the subject matter, then pretty much anyone can teach kindergarten, since the words are small and the math’s not too hard.

Ms Finne wants the state to change the rules in order to let people with advanced knowledge in math and science enter straight into the teaching force, bypassing “the main obstacle to entry – teacher certification laws.”

What Ms Finne apparently doesn’t understand is that it takes more than knowledge to teach. Read that again. I did not say that it doesn’t take knowledge. It does. I said it takes more than knowledge. It also takes specific teaching skills and dispositions that you don’t just get by wanting them or being born with them. I know. I’ve been teaching third grade for almost 25 years, and I’m pretty good at a lot of those skills. But I sure wasn’t when I started as a student teacher. Boy did I stink. I didn’t yet have the skill set needed to translate my knowledge and passion into instruction that works. That’s why I was learning it from competent teachers and professors. And that’s why we have these onerous teaching certification laws. To protect students from what I once was.

It’s the same with any other field. An architect can’t necessarily build a church, even though he designed it himself. A biologist doesn’t automatically know how to perform surgery, even though she might know exactly what every human body part is supposed to do. There are certain skills that you must learn in order to do a job. There’s just no getting around it, no matter how hard Ms Finne wishes there were.

I know full well how hard it is to find competent, knowledgeable math and science teachers for our high schools. And I think I know why. My brother loved math while we were growing up, and he was very good at it. He majored in it while he was at Notre Dame. Honors math, as a matter of fact. When we asked him what he was going to do with all this math, he told us that he would probably be a math teacher. But then they held a job fair at his college and someone from an actuarial firm found him. That was the end of that. Now one of us has a huge house overlooking Puget Sound and the other one doesn’t. But fortunately, if my brother ever does decide to become a teacher and move in next door to me, he’s smart enough to admit that he’ll first need to go back to school and learn how to teach what he knows to students. He knows a lot about math, but he doesn’t know how to teach it. Not yet.

If Ms Finne really wants my brother and his colleagues to teach high school instead of compute insurance rates, she should focus her attention on the most likely reason why they aren’t already doing so. And I’ll bet even a kindergartner can figure out what that is.

Comments

[Tom]

That is quite a story, Elmo, and I'm glad things turned out well for you and your students. However, your story, as crazy as it is, is the exception. I still think we need a structure in place to make sure teachers know how to teach. A structure that works, however; not one that keeps good teachers from teaching.

[Elmo]

Here is my tale.

I was in the US Army Band for 15 years as a professional trombonist. I performed worldwide, starting various groups, conducting seminars with high school students, performing for dignitaries to include presidents. I went to college after my tenure in the military and received my BA in Music Education. However, I took the Praxis tests required by the state of Virginia and missed the math score by 2 points. I passed all of the other tests for certification with flying colors. Turns out that all sorts of people couldn't pass the math test either. The local newspaper in Lynchburg ran a series of articles on these tests. It turns out that a retired Major General couldn't pass the test either. I also knew a woman with a Master's degree that couldn't pass it too.

I guess despite my extensive musical background and the fact that I graduated with the highest instrumental scores in my class at the military's school of music wasn't good enough for the genius state of Virginia. By the way, when I left there, the local paper ran a series of articles on how the state had to hire full time substitutes to teach. No duh.

I took my Praxis scores to the State of Kentucky where the scores were lower and I got a job at a school that was so hard up for a teacher the principal drove 45 minutes to interview me. Yeah, you read that right. When I got to the school the official placed me into another program that I had to complete in my first year of teaching called Kentucky Teacher Internship Program (KTIP) I completed my first year at that school which was sheer hell. I knew there was a problem when the principal drove all that way to interview me. Located way out in the sticks I as faced with teen pregnancies, breaking up fights (mostly girls) and students that did not hesitate to tell me to F*** off whenever they felt like it.

However, the county that I worked for never submitted the KTIP observations (a large project requiring teachers to come all the way from Louisville to watch me as well as a teacher from the school) so I never received any certification. As a result, I took on a job at a private school in Lexington.

It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I now teach in paradise. My classes have about 20 students each and I am treated with respect and dignity. These kids are so nice to me and I am able to not only be their teacher but I can honestly be their friend. We have a tough curriculum and our students are held accountable as we teach them academics as well as responsibility, manners and morals. I would do anything for these kids because we respect each other.

In my opinion, it was my gain and the system's loss. I am currently getting my Master's degree in Education Technology and I am able to transfer all of these skills into our school which has been able to invest in technology. We have a blast in this school and the students as well as the parents ( along with the observations by our staff) have been very positive.

So, as I said before, it is the state's loss and not mine. I guess the the leadership needs to take a test on common sense.

Elmo

[Tom]

Yes, we're writing about classroom teaching. That's why it's called "Stories from School."

[Bob Heiny]

I take it you are each writing about school teaching, not all teaching? Recorded history about human learning would indicate that distinction also. Yes?

[Travis]

What Ms Finne suggests is that there is not a skill to the act of teaching which is not true. This would be like saying that a surgeon who only studied the books is good enough to do my open-heart surgery.

In addition, from a teaching standpoint, this goes against the belief of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards which states that teaching is a skill in itself.

This idea that anyone who has some knowledge can teach is one of the reasons who teaching is not considered a profession. We all speak English to some degree so, the thinking goes, nearly anyone can teach middle school students how to write. Forget the fact that teaching correct comma placement needs to be shown in multiple ways, for different learning styles (and the fact that the teacher had to learn and practice that art), or that the teacher needs to be able to teach a concept, practice it with the students, and then assess the progress in less than 1 hour, for me it was 45 minutes.

I invite Ms Finne to be my guest teacher, in my classroom, any day. I will even give her a days notice on where the students are, as I would have, so that she can prepare her lessons, as I would have to, for the following day based on the progress and misconceptions. "Ms Finne, I await your call."

And as Nancy stated, do send your response on to the Tacoma News Tribune, which even in its best years, was never that fair of a newspaper (I grew up in Tacoma).

[The Science Goddess]

Oddly enough, I agree with you...and am someone who just circumvented the system (and am now "qualified" to teach kindergarten). LOL

I do think that the entry requirements for the career should be rigorous. Just because Bill Gates or Einstein know their their content does not mean they know how to teach it. On the other hand, I've heard from many experienced teachers that they felt like (if they had to) they could teach pretty much anything. In other words, they had mastered a range of classroom skills that nearly any kind of content could be dropped.

After 17 years in the secondary arena, I wanted to add my elementary endorsement here in WA because I have been doing instructional coaching work with elementary teachers. However, I can't cover a class for them if they want to observe or coach one another...and I couldn't get the endorsement without doing the whole certification process (including student teaching) again. Instead, I chose to take a test in TX to add my endorsement there...and take a test in WA. WA will recognize the TX endorsement with my WA score...and presto, I'm an elementary teacher.

Would I be any good? I think I would have a significant learning curve, but overall, yeah, I could do the job. Not because I'm smarter than a kindergartner...but because I know how to teach.

Good post.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Tom, this commentary ought to be scooped up and sent to the Tacoma News Tribune. I have heard the anti-educationists say that even Einstein himself couldn't teach Physics. With all due respect to Einstein, I'd like to see him dealing with high school juniors during shortened schedule, when they're dressed in face paint for the big pep assembly.

Subject matter expertise is essential but insufficient in effective teaching.