I agree with the thrust of what Carrol says. I taught economics, but in my classes, what I talked about and discussed with the students usually bled out into other areas, so that in the end, it didn’t seem to make sense to say that I taught economics. I taught what I pleased, and I never cared that students became adept at material they would presumably need for another class. However, for me at least, it was important that I had a good grasp of neoclassical economics, learned through taking about 40 courses in the subject. Plus statistics, econometrics, etc. Plus a wide array of courses in history, philosophy, literature. I never took a course in teaching; I learned to do it by watching others do it and by actually teaching, beginning when I was an undergraduate. The point is that teaching is a kind of craft, and it can be learned and probably taught as well. You can learn to speak, to break things down to their simplest elements and then put them back together again, to work without notes, to lead a discussion, to adapt to the initial capacities of the class, and many other things as well. You do have to like your students, to tone down your ego, to be enthusiastic about what you are doing, to be aware that most of what you teach will soon be forgotten, that you have to be tolerant, that there are many ways to be a teacher. But you have to know something to teach well. My long experience tells me that not many education majors do.
I agree too that schools are becoming more fucked up by the year and that there was a certain virtuous sloppiness about U.S. schooling. But certain things keep going through my mind. The nun beating a girls’ head against the blackboard because she got her feet, yards, and inches mixed up. The science teacher, who knew a few things and could teach them well enough, hitting a friend of mine so hard that he was thrown from his seat and his glasses flew across the room, the sadistic mechanical drawing teacher who jabbed us in the side with a t-square when our drawings didn’t meet his standards. We should have beat the hell out of these monsters. The drawing teacher called my cousin a dumb coal miner, and my cousin, a tough fellow, picked that little shit up and hung him out a third floor window. My hero. So, yes, sloppiness that gave some room for good teaching. But meanness too (and I haven’t even dealt with all the sick coaches). Getting us ready for the shit life to come.