Joanne Jacobs had a post today from a teacher needing certification. I went and read the whole thing. Basically, the teacher accreditation classes were totally useless.

I was appalled, but not surprised.

My undergrad is a BSED with majors in history and English and a minor in biology. I had to take two classes, that I remember, besides my student teaching. Both were taught by certified teachers with lots of experience. But only one was worthwhile for me and it was only useful because I was doing it concurrently with my student teaching. So I would go to class and ask the teacher for suggestions related to both the material for the class and my student teaching.

I’ve taught two years of middle school/high school. Neither was fun. Apparently that is not my gift.

Thankfully, I went on and got a PhD in English and have taught four years of college full time and eight years half time. Those classes, even when I teach kids who don’t know how to write a sentence, are more fun than high school. The best thing, I think, is that they have some desire to be there.

I have no idea what modern teaching classes are like, but I assume they are like mine were. One of my good friends, who was a teacher for over thirty years, said that “teacher education is totally useless.” And that was from her experience, twenty years before mine, which was more than twenty years ago now.

It doesn’t look like it is getting much better.