Why Some Teachers Can't Teach. . .

We can all agree that there is much to be done to help the US education system--from grade school through to graduate school--achieve better results. Those results, however, are not numbers or letters on a report, they are students.

Educating kids and young adults is the task of passionate individuals who will possibly make vital changes in the thought processes, values, and ambitions of the thousands of students they meet. The US is full of talented, dedicated teachers at all levels of instruction. Unfortunately, any money currently going is in research (rather than teaching) and even there the competition for research grants is cutthroat.

• So we have (generally) two types of university faculty: the professors who want to teach and the professors who want to research and write.
• In high schools and grade schools there are also two types of teachers: those who still have ideals and those whose spirit has been broken by decades of top-down incomprehension of the teaching process from education boards and federal mismanagement. (Google "federal mismanagement US school system," if you would like more details.)

The results are low student scores and low student expectations. High student drop-out rates, teen pregnancy, drug use, and cynicism. (It is facile to say that teens will always indulge in these negative behaviors; that blanket approach condemns many kids who could otherwise have been diverted into safer paths.) The worst consequences, however, are the number of unprepared high school-ers entering colleges and the number of those colleges (most of them) who are desperately attempting to play catch-up with these students, thus ensuring that this trend continues.

Unless you are a confirmed masochist or subscribe to the notion that it is everyone's duty to be miserable, it is safe to say that you will suffer burn out if you care about the teaching profession. Some simple facts:

• Cutting funding to schools that have lower student scores means that those schools must in turn cut programs, pay teachers less, demand more work from all staff to cover the bases, and who suffers? The students. Logic?

• Accountability.

  It becomes more difficult to achieve better scores when your teacher is harried by administration into providing more "accountability" in the form of lesson projections, lesson journals, lesson assessments (note that the lessons themselves become less of a priority in this morass of accounting); is forced by local school boards into teaching (or omitting) materials that may or may not be fact; and is badgered by parents--many of whom treat grade school as daycare for their children.
• Students don't necessarily need laptops to enjoy learning. The best way to learn is by experiencing fact-filled, uplifting, and enjoyable lessons. Your teacher does not have to be Robin Williams, but a smile can go a long, long, way--school is not a summer camp, of course, but even hypergeometric functions could be fun to learn if approached in the right manner. (No, don't ask me what hypergeometric functions are. I have no idea.)

Treating the teaching profession with a little respect could have an enormous impact on the future of the U.S. education system. We now treat expended resource distribution engineers (formerly known as trash men) with more respect than we proffer to many of the teachers who care for our children's learning so much that they often pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, go to work on weekends to repair broken furniture or building resources, and still try to find time somewhere in there to teach.

Generally, most U.S. universities insist on heavy teaching loads for their professors AND require research and publication on a continual basis. [University service is also required: membership in faculty committees can be time-consuming. Community service is also expected in some schools with outreach to the public a good way to gain local favor.]

This keeps young assistant professors very busy indeed as they struggle to complete the seven-year review period with an outstanding record of achievement in all the above areas. What is admirable is that more than a few can manage to excell before either applying for tenure or burning out.

Tenure is not a complete safety net for associate professors. They undergo tenure review every few years to ensure a steady stream of good teaching evaluations and publications. After several years (the number varies), the associate professors can apply for full professorship. This often means that they have earned the respect and trust of their students and colleagues, and are an asset to the institution. Or that they net big research grants. Or that they publish extensively in reputable academic journals and have written several books.

Generally, smaller universities emphasize teaching and larger schools emphasize research while maintaining the (now admittedly evolving) traditional approach to student learning--students are expected to learn the subjects any way they can; and while excellent professors are of course numerous and celebrated in larger institutions, freshman classes are usually taught by graduate students whose native language may not necessarily be English.

University professors receive no formal educational training because they are conveyors of knowledge. They either learn to be excellent at both "professing" what they know AND teaching effectively or they concentrate on what they do best--be it writing, researching, or working in the field.

This revered tradition has undergone extensive change in the US, however, as more students sign up for courses for which they are not ready (through no fault of their own). Writing Centers (remedial assistance), Math tutors, science tutors--all are now necessary at universities from Lost Stump, Idaho U. to Harvard.

This fact stumps many students who might be expecting the same level of hand-holding they received in high school. They resent the fact that the responsibility for their education is now theirs, give their professors bad evaluations, and complain that they are not being allowed to learn--when, in fact, they have the freedom to learn any way they choose.

But it isn't their fault. They have been let down by decades of poor educational support; it would be like paying for the privilege of learning how to fly a 747 but only having been previously given instruction on how to make paper kites.

The above chart shows that 75% of the people hired in 2008 had less than a four-year college degree. So, do we really need to spend more on education? Why have all these colleges, if three-quarters of the population (in 2008) were employed without a university degree*?

Perhaps the 2008 statistic is indicative of low achievement rather than lower employment standards?

*[I'm not counting Associate Degrees, which are equivalent (for example) to the UK Higher National Diploma (HND) or Foundation Degree and as such are preparatory to, rather than recognition of, university attainment.]