What might teachers without traditional training bring to the profession?

Eric Ringham March 1, 2011, 5:00 AM Mar 1, 2011

A reported deal between legislators and Gov. Mark Dayton could clear the way toward an alternative licensing plan for teachers. Today’s Question: What might teachers without traditional training bring to the profession?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

One of the groups who might be able to teach in Minnesota under this plan are teachers who have licenses in and have successfully taught in other states. Their ‘non-traditional’ training might actually show us that Minnesota doesn’t have a monopoly on training quality teachers. It might show us that people from other states might be just as capable as us at doing the job (shocking, I know). Hopefully the diversity of of their teacher training might bring a diversity of though and innovative ideas to Minnesota schools. And just as importantly, we may finally quit denying experienced teachers, sometimes highly awarded teachers in their home communities, the opportunity to practice their craft in our state.

hiram

Pretty much what other teachers bring. Some will be good, some bad. Alternative teacher licensure is more about mid-life crises than it is about education.

Wade

I tend to believe these new breed of teachers would bring a level of skill and professionalism in their prospective fields that a traditional teacher would be hard pressed to bring.

For example if I were to decide to teach Echocardiography and Preliminary Echocardiogram Interpretation to students. I believe there isn’t a “professional teacher” out there who knows the material better than I do. The reason for this is while they were out in the college and professional world learning how to teach. I was out there learning the profession of Echocardiography and Advanced Clinical Sonography.

While English and History can be taught by professional teachers. I would want a seasoned engineer to teach me about mechanical engineering. Not some “teacher” who read about engineering somewhere but has never actually applied the concepts they are trying to teach.

Understanding something like medicine, Echocardiography, engineering, ect is a profession that takes practice.

Teaching is a people skill.

Steve the Cynic

Wade, under what circumstances would a public school be teaching Echocardiography and Preliminary Echocardiogram Interpretation?

Wade

Just an example Steve.

Why didn’t you ask about the engineering reference? Perhaps because there are science classes with an emphasis on engineering in public schools which is right on point with my comments.

Chip Aspnes

This is a Bad Idea.

Teaching is a skill, just like plumbing or management. Lots of people are no damn good at management or plumbing, which is why they mostly do something else.

Teaching is about eliciting and guiding students towards understanding — not just telling them things. Everyone who thinks that knowledge of a subject area and professional experience is sufficient to make a good teacher, has never taught.

JBlilie

We are laying off hundreds of trained, experienced teachers and we want to bring in untrained, inexperienced people as replacements? Hello? Oh yeah, they anticipate a shortage of teachers at some undefined time in the future. Riiiight!

This, like Scott Walker’s bald-faced attack on the public employee unions in WI, is simply another attempt to weaken and eventually destroy all unions by the GOP.

We have had two major structural failures of public facilities in recent years: The I-35W bridge and the Metrodome. Shall we propose alternative licensing for structural Professional Engineers (my profession)? Maybe “diversity” of opinion would help here.

We are having plenty of issues with health care. Maybe we should propose alternative licensing for doctors and nurses?

I wouldn’t want an alternatively licensed surgeon and I wouldn’t want to use a bridge designed by an alternatively licensed engineer.

Why would I want my child taught by someone who is not trained to, you know, teach.

Everyone thinks they can teach. Looks easy doesn’t it? Only people without knowledge of the job can think that. (Remember those professors in college, top experts in their field, who couldn’t teach their way out of a wet paper bag?)

I’ve been a chemistry teacher. I now work in the private sector as a chemist. I’ve known teachers who have no real world understanding of their field. I’ve also knows teachers who, despite their collegiate preparation in education, can’t teach worth a darn. To think that teacher education programs can make anyone into an outstanding teacher is foolish. To think that anyone with experience in a field will automatically make a great teacher is also foolish.

There needs to be room for both routes into the profession, and this bill provides for that. But there also needs to be oversight and mentoring of teachers entering by both routes. Not everyone has the ability or personality to be a good teacher. Therefore school administrators and those who run teacher training programs also need the judgement and ability to identify those people and steer them out of the profession if need be.

Jess

As the wife of a man who went through teacher training and then was unable to find a job, I am most definitely against this idea.

Also, I believe the most important thing you can learn in a training program is classroom management.

I don’t want to see my children coming home from school with stories of out of control classmates and teachers who yell.

We leave our children in the care of others for such a large percentage of their young lives, and I want to know that their teachers are fully prepared and able to provide a safe and supporting environment.

Rose

Babysitting, at best, is the answer to the question.

I’m not in favor of teachers without appropriate training. As it is many teachers either don’t know or don’t apply instructional theory and concepts to the design, development or delivery to thier classroon lessons. They don’t get rated on their ability to teach, only on how “popular” they are with the kids.

Many teachers don’t know or translate their topics of expertise well enough to transfer the skill to others.

I am in favor of an instructor licensing plan that achieves strategic goals and objectives. I don’t think we know what those are yet. Why do we instruct children, teens, young adults, adults? and Who will be answering the question?

dick holt

Common sense would suggest that some non teacher trained professionals would bring greater expertise into classrooms from their field. At the secondary level, such expertise could be a great addition to a team. However, anyone who has spent any time in a classroom, at any level, would quickly see that increasing time is spent dealing with challenging and or complex behavioral issues. Skills in this area must be in place for any learning to occur. My experience volunteering in classrooms (elementary) made me so much more aware of the amount of time devoted to basic maintenance activities, such as illness, broken shoe laces, bad bus experience, etc. Would an astronomer be able or willing to deal with these every day issues?

Steve the Cynic

Wade, the fact that you thought you might be able to teach your narrow specialty in a public high schools (important though your work in that specialty undoubtedly is) shows how out of touch you are with the issue. Sure, it’s good to have teachers with “real world” experience, but real world experience by itself does not qualify one to teach.

Steve the Cynic

To answer the question….

This proposal, whether it passes or not, is bringing doubts and suspicion about the teaching profession and a further eroding public confidence in public schools, which is apparently the whole idea.

Free-market ideologues have opposed the concept of public education ever since its inception. Their long-term goal is to privatize the whole system and replace public schools entirely with some kind of universal voucher system. That might even be a good idea, but it’s being pursued dishonestly. Realizing that total privatization is too radical an idea to get public support, they’re instead using a strategy of gradually sabotaging the public school system. The standards in No Child Left Behind, for instance, were designed to ensure that every public school, no matter how excellent, would eventually “fail” to make “adequate yearly progress,” and there was never any provision for any school to be deemed good enough. Vouchers, charter schools, alternative licensure, and other proposals to introduce “competition” to the public schools are similarly motivated by the intention to paint public schools as “incompetent.” Each one of these ideas sounds vaguely reasonable, but the overall effect is to demoralize teachers and foster an adversarial relationship between schools and parents, which is destructive of the atmosphere of relational trust that’s needed for good education to happen.

Kevin VC

Do we not have enough with a unfunded mandate from the republicans of ‘no child left behind’ that has produced no results. (Gee… maybe because they forgot to put money behind it? All bark, no bite.)

Teachers currently have quality behind the qualifications (it’so fact’o), And we need quality, not amateurs in charge.

The current idea of putting real world people in the school is kinda silly. Kinda like putting businessmen in charge of the government…. (Cite: Wall Street and Banking Industry.) If we did that our government would have failed already, denied the reality of the situation and then give everyone the remainder of the budget as a bonus to the senators and congress before bailing out….

There is a skill in bringing knowledge to a understandable level of those who need help in understanding. People in the real world I admit make a great resource to help real teachers out. AND i could see that being added to the line of resources.

But that has always been a option, and parents coming into school for a day both helps in this real world application and helps parents know of the needs of the schools.

Right now we have a world were the kids in school have better cars and benefits then the teachers…

Also if you want real world people working as a teacher you need to put real world money behind it. Teachers make less then those in other real world professions with the same skills and training on average.

Kevin VC

A friend of mine posted this in Facebook.

It Illustrates the problem.

“Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE….

That’s $585 X 180= $105,300

per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special

education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an

hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s

something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary

(nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days

= $277.77/per day/30

students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!”

Tina

To teach, you have to like kids and yes, you have to be able to convey your knowledge to them, often using untraditional methods. You have to be able to convey information to people whether you were trained as a teacher or as a scientist. As a working scientist with a Ph.D, I bring my knowledge of real-life science work to the classroom. I left industry to teach middle school science 3 years ago. I had already been mentoring through state science fairs and volunteering in my children’s school; I even substituted. I taught for 3 years in a private school and then my school closed. Here is where reform is needed: the public system does not consider that I ever taught. I shouldn’t have to student teach . . . I already did that in my own classroom!

In the end, it is really about money. Money the college gets from all the classes they are making me take because now I am enrolled in a post-bac teacher licensure program. Money for the new Mn version of the national Praxis teaching exams, which by the way, are supposedly easier than the national test and useless if you move to teach anywhere else, and money from a job I had (and a principal who wanted me), and then lost, because the state said I wasn’t qualified to teach!

steve

teachers w/o formal training perhaps can be good it depends on the person-but in my case the teachers condone mediocracy and there needs to be better teachers! teachers are under tremendous pressure and need more job security!

Jeff

I hope we will be able to fill the positions that are in need in many high schools today (high level math and science teachers). Also, I believe that many students will get to see and hear many real life examples from these private sector professionals that will spark their interest in the careers of the future. Hopefully, we will see more high school level classes tailored towards the jobs of tomorrow like robotics, computer programming, engineering and medicine. When those classes are taught by people who have worked in those industries the material will much more useful to students and when they can understand the real world applications they will be better able to see themselves in a related career.

Jenn

Anyone who thinks that an alternative licensing program would be “easy” or produce “amateurs” clearly hasn’t even looked at the Teach For America requirements. 2 yrs teaching and being mentored in a low income community? Frankly, that is way more experience and support than many university programs offer in their one required semester of student teaching.

Philip

Three letters: SME (Subject Matter Expert).

Amanda

When I imagine putting myself in this situation – a working professional without training in education, designing a curriculum for students – I think the best things I would bring are 1) the enjoyment of spending time with kids and young adults and 2) some real-world examples of how their knowledge might be applied. Those were two things that I didn’t always get in my education.

However, there’s plenty that I would not bring to the classroom:

–the ability to design a curriculum that could be logically and successfully followed by students without knowledge in the area

–the ability to measure their progress

–the experience to know what the students need in their learning environment (how much structure, examples, lectures, pictures, homework, test, etc to use?)

–the confidence that I would be teaching them something that would allow them to continue their education succssfully (how would I prepare them for what comes next?)

After considering that, I feel I would be more appropriately qualified to be a visiting speaker for a day or a week to teach a specific mini-course that an experienced teacher would be able to integrate into the curriculum – and leave the rest up to the pros.

Sue de Nim

If we had a shortage of qualified teachers in Minnesota, this would make sense. My fear is that this will bring in teachers who have failed at something else and see teaching as an easy second-best career, instead of working harder to achieve success in what they really wanted to do.

Rip Stauffer

A couple of things:

1. Where are all the openings? Most schools currently have waiting lists.

2. There’s certainly evidence that the current certification system is not 100% successful in producing excellent (or even competent) teachers. Therefore, the current system does not guarantee quality. That doesn’t mean it will be easy to gain acceptance; many current teachers and principals have a lot of time and money invested in their own certifications. It is the current paradigm, so is difficult to change (it has “tenure”).

3. There’s no reason to assume–prima facie–that talented, intelligent people who are enthusiastic about their subject matter can NOT teach; while some of them might make lousy teachers, some of them are almost certain to be excellent.

4. We should probably move beyond this quibbling and start getting our children (and adults) better educated. If a workable solution includes Teach for America, or online education, or robots, that’s alright with me. We need great science education, and science is losing on every front…from measurement (no standardized science tests in NCLB or other approaches), to know-nothing representatives trying to legislate science based on ideology.

5. We don’t have a system…we have a patchwork of independent subsystems, with no mandate or political will to turn it into a system. This makes it impossible to optimize education, because many of the “standards” compete with each other. Building a system requires leadership that understands theory of variation and basic general systems theory…that knowledge is rare, and all but unknown in departments of education and in most school boards.
Joe

First of all, your question is wrong. These people are NOT teachers. They may be well-motivated (or desperately unemployed) folk who might (or might not be!) versed in a content area. What I think many of them would bring to the classroom

is a amazing degree of naivety. It might work at the university level but never K-12. I’d hate to go to a dental office and be treated by someone who thinks he or she can do the job because they’ve taken the same science curriculum as a trained and licensed dentist.
Brian

This is another Republican solution to a nonexistent problem.
Joe Schaedler

The value of what teachers without traditional training can bring depends on the same factor that affects teachers with traditional training: pay.

If these positions are good paying, then good applicants both traditional & non-traditional will seek them. if they pay below par, then the more dynamic individuals of both groups will look elsewhere for their careers.

Pay teachers well to get good applicants, and disregard traditional qualification requirements to broaden the applicant pool to the widest possible extent.
Tony

Increased unemployment.
Tony

And more downward pressure on pay.
Max

High turnover. Many of these people are going to find our that teaching is not as easy they think. I did. After law school I decided to substitute teach while looking for work. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to impart some of my expensive and hard earned knowledge and experience. How hard could it be? If I could walk into a court room and convince a jury that up is down and black is white, surely I could teach a class room of children. What I didn’t realize is that in order to teach something to someone they have to be listening to you. How do you get classroom of hyper active children hopped up on corn syrup, who don’t want to be there and would rather be doing something else… to simply listen? It was an extremely frustrating experience to want to teach but not be heard. Teaching is the art of getting kids to listen.
Jim R.

What might a teacher without traditional training bring to the profession? I’d say a lot of risk. Why not compare this to the medical profession? We could solve the problem of high medical costs and sometimes limited accessibiliy by finding well intentioned individuals who are interested in medicine. We could give them credentials and let them see if they can make the right diagnosis and give treatment cheaper than the usual way. In either the educational or the medical system, only the pupils or the patients would be at risk. After this noble experiment we could duplicate the system in all sorts of professions.
Craig

I think this kind of teacher will have the respect of students planning to enter the tech fields. Whereas students unsure of their career direction, or less eager students may need a more traditional teacher. As such, it may not increase the number of tech oriented students, but it would increase their quality, and perhaps their confidence.
Shane

I would much rather have my young student learn from someone who has had a successful private sector career and decides to retire early and teach things with some real world experience than learn from some young person who has spent their entire life in the classroom.
Matthew

Self-importance, arrogance, complacency, lack of empathy, disprespect for a district’s designed curriculum, an inability to pick up on the symptoms of possible problems at home… The usual stuff we all saw in adjunct professors in undergrand and graduate school. Teaching is a vocation. It is a profession in itself. I oppose this alternative licensure nonsense with every ounce of my being. And I’m not a teacher. I’m an attorney. But I would never impose myself upon a high school civics or social studies class. I’m not a teacher. I have as much business in the classroom as a teacher would have in the courtroom.
jack goldman

Lower budgets.
Jack Goldman

Vouchers. Freedom of choice. Questioning authority and bureaucracy. In other words a lot of trouble for status quo, business as usual, teachers who are teaching their first year of teaching for the thirtieth year with the same notes.

We need vouchers. Only freedom of choice for customers can allow experiments to find out what people want.

I am a retired teacher and sadly had to send my last daughter to private school after having an inferior education in public school for six years. She never studied and got straight “A”s. She will graduate from a private college this year with a better education.

Education is the last archaic bureaucratic, unionized, monopoly that is primarily run as a Communist obsolete system paying people by how long their butt has been in a chair. Why pay the butt? Why not pay the results? Only the public, the parents, can determine what they want based on vouchers, freedom of choice, and determining market values in a free market.

End teachers unions. The teachers unions run the school and run it poorly. High schools have a 30% failure rate in America. Colleges have a 50% failure rate. Is a college education really worth $300,000 which is K-12 plus college costs?

Only freedom of choice and free markets can fix our broken schools.
BrianG

Those of you suggesting that alternative licensure will simply plop professionals untrained in the vocation of teaching into a classroom ought to read the text of the bill. From Section 2.2:

“An alternative teacher preparation program…must include:

(1) a minimum 200-hour instructional phase that provides intensive preparation before that person assumes classroom responsibilities;”

Yes, that’s surely fewer hours of classroom instruction than a traditional postsecondary program (which is probably in the 300-400 hours range), but you can hardly call it trivial.
Evelyn V

I have a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Minnesota and three years experience in the biotech industry. For the last two years though, I am a stay at home mom of twin boys while running a private part-time math and science tutoring business from my home.

After my experiences as a tutor, I am considering high school teaching as a possibility when I return to the work force in a few years. However, the additional requirements I would have to meet to teach in MN right now seem a bit ridiculous given all the work I have already done. I am hopeful this new deal might make this easier for me.
Brandy

Leave it to the government to breathe down teachers necks about classroom performance. We don’t get all up in a doctors grill if his/her patients are overweight and dying of heart disease and diabetes. And we certainly don’t approve of someone taking the fast track into medical practice. Doctors are professional as are teachers.

It’s time the senators, representatives, governors, and general public realize that education doesn’t start and stop at the school enterance. Some personal responsibility in our young and old citizens would do a world of good. So eat right & excersize and help your children be better students.
Steve the Cynic

“Only freedom of choice and free markets can fix our broken schools.”

I can imagine a good education system based on fully privatized schools and paid for with vouchers, but to say that free markets are the “only” solution to this or any other problem is nothing short of superstition.
T W

Here’s a concept: Instructors who can say “been there, done that”

The problem with these so-called “educators” is that they have never worked in the real world. Now there is of course a difference between a teacher of the ABC’s and 123’s in grade school. However, who would be better at passing down the knowledge and know-how of the real world of industry and employment then an instructor who’s been there in the trenches?

What I am saying is to allow engineers, computer guru’s, journalists, chemists and other passionate professionals who are avid for their vocation pass the desire in their respective fields to students who are willing and wanting.

Contrary to the teacher’s union that says “only ‘teachers’ can teach is utter pro-union propaganda.

Union “educators” can only teach from a book, professionals who are given the gift of teaching pass along the craft from experience.
Bear

Doctors are professsionals and they are NOT unionized. The medical profession has many levels of professionals matched to the skill need. The teacher’s union want only one level. Ever hear of mid-wifes? The accepted practice in Europe and many countries who have far fewer birth deaths than the US. Teacher’s unions: to dig your heals in at a change that could lead to better education performance is insulting to the education system. Be part of the solution; stop your obstructionist tactic the only purpose of which is to protect the under performing lots in your profession. Professionals should not be unionized. A contradiction of terms.
DNA

If they are really teachers then they’ll bring a fresh and unique perspective, a variety and alternative to the reified ways of the traditional.
Maryrose Capko

We need dedicated teachers in the system. There is much more to teaching than just knowing the material. Teachers also need to connect with their students and manage the classroom. They need to identify and meet the psychological needs of their students. Learning disabilities and behavioral issues abound who will identify them and tell the difference between true disability and just apathy. There are parent and family issues to deal with. The point is there is a lot more to being a teacher than just teaching. That is why teachers are in college four or more years.