On Feb 15, 2012, at 10:23 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Doug: "American teachers, I'm sorry to say, mostly come from the
> bottom third of their college classes"
>
> [WS:] What makes you believe that an advanced college degree is
> essential for successful teaching at the grade level? Some of the
> worst teachers I had had advanced degrees but could not teach to save
> their lives. What makes successful teaching is the ability to break
> down knowledge to manageable chunks and effectively communicate them
> to students. One does not need a degree in physical therapy to teach
> children how to walk, but one needs a lot of patience.
The way other countries do this is the teacher gets the degree and learns to teach via something like apprenticing for quite a while with a master teacher. Schools of education are not the most inspiring of places.
Doug