Compas,
Check out, "Wine at five."
People Who Live The Longest Swear by These 9 Rules
PS I will expound briefly on my conviction that "the proof is in the pudding."
What are we to do about all the lousy teachers who get their certification by doing what American education does best, which is to say, "teach students to show up; sit in chairs without protest; get their degree/certification; and collect their paycheck when passing "Go"?
By my lights, teachers should be certified by actual examination of their teaching style/performance, whether or not they have graduated from a School of Education. (I understand that parallel elimination of the need for medical school certification is a bigger can of worms, but in brief, let the uncertified dimwits practice medicine, assuming there will be no accompanying legal liability. That would have a sobering effect.)
Clearly, details will need to be worked out.
But basically, "anyone" can request a "time slot" to teach a sample class (maybe two or three sample classes) inside an actual classroom -- filled with actual students -- while, simultaneously, aspiring teachers are evaluated by "professionals" -- and lay adults -- who are observing the same classroom enactment.
These evaluating panels will be comprised of the school principal; at least one parent (chosen at random); a professor from the nearest School of Education; plus high-performing students in the same school district (with previous valedictorians, salutatorians and outstanding community volunteers, being prime candidates). We might add a randomly chosen priest or minister from the community. I am wide open to other suggestions.
The members of these evaluating panels would NOT know anything about teacher-aspirants in advance, and would certainly NOT know which aspirants had attended a School of Education.
If an aspirant were seeking to teach in a particular discipline - let's say modern languages - then adults currently "making their living" in that discipline would also participate as part of the evaluating panels in these "dramatized" classroom settings.
A personal note:
I quit public school teaching after 7 years, because North Carolina law had determined that my so-called "lateral entry certification" (which was temporary) now needed to be updated. To secure this updated permanent certification, I needed to develop (and commit myself to) an approved three year night school plan of study, culminating in conferral of a Masters Degree - in Spanish - from a certified college or university.
Knowing that I could already teach Spanish as well as most of the teachers who would be teaching me if I went down the prescribed road, I told them (politely) to stuff it.
Just last week, the North Carolina State Assembly floated a law that would authorize teachers with NO subject area mastery and NO credentials (at the same time the bill propoed eliminating ANY upper limit to class size). In effect, the proposed legislation would legalize any warm body to be a state-authorized teacher - the only "stipulation" being a lukewarm attempt to ensure that school kids didn't get hurt.
Ah! The many manifestations of our nascent police state.
Read it, and weep. https://www.
This appears to be the end of American civilization as we knew it.
"Trolls And The End Of Civilization As We Knew It"
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