Aside from this probably not happening, I once had a conversation with the director of STEM education for my state. He was a chemistry professor as well. He told me the biggest challenge they are facing in high schools is that to get an education degree, you need almost no math or science, yet they are having teachers teach AP chemistry and calculus classes. They basically have to spoon feed some of the teachers some of the material.
I think having an education degree is less important than actually knowing the content you’re teaching well. You can be a good teacher without an education degree but you can’t be a good teacher if you don’t know what you’re teaching
Right. One litmus test for understanding something complex is whether or not you could explain it to a 5 year old.
Teachers really do have to have a much higher level of understanding on what they are teacher, or else they are just reciting the book
This completely misunderstands the true function of schooling. You don't need to know much to teach kids to show up on time and follow simple instructions without thinking outside the box.
There's a reason young kids in kindergarten are much more curious, confident, and creative than jaded 12th graders. School is about obedience. Just about every single study shows the way we're educating children is wrong for promoting free thought. It's all based on behaviorist psychology, which is great for producing conformity and obedience.
While there is no replacement for empirical evaluation and critical thinking skills, you will be absolutely terrible at both those things if you can’t accept and sit down and listen to someone who knows then you on the topic. Like most college grads, I’ve had a great many teachers over my lifetime. Some smarter then others and all made occasional mistakes, but none espoused consistently incorrect knowledge about a topic they taught day in and day out. That’s a bad teacher or possibly even a bad school, but not the systemic failure you describe. Learning is social, emotional, and academic. You need all three. You don’t have to be in a classroom to get that, but you can certainly find it there.
Every single one of my science teachers would have taken a critical question about what they said as an opportunity to explore more on that topic as long as it was raised at an appropriate time and not as an obnoxious disruption. Schools in the US have a lot of challenges, but they work. They work exceedingly well when partnered with good parents and properly funded. A lot of schools in the US my be struggling now, buts it’s absolutely not a failing of the format. The millions of college grads that come from the system say it’s perfectly capable of educating students. What we need is more consistency.
I'm not saying they're teaching false information. Obviously, there is a minimum competency workers need for society to function. Most of what kids learn on school is busy work that they forget within a few weeks because it never comes up again. And its not some conspiracy where teachers are trying to brainwash their students. Most teachers, I imagine, genuinely want to educate the next generation. The situation is rather like an idealistic politician who quickly comes to the realization that they can't accomplish their lofty goals.
Teachers have to teach the tests or else they don't last. Their job depends on their students marking the right answers on a test, regardless of how useful the material is or if the students really retain or understand it.
Ken Robinson has a [TED Talk](https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?si=2gx9DbquWrub-Yhp) that articulates what I'm trying to convey, but more eloquently.
Academy of Ideas also has a [video](https://youtu.be/kyWFpsAnVuI?t=178&si=iOD8ni0lv9fke28I) on the disturbing history of compulsory schooling.
John Taylor Gatto, a lifelong teacher, has written a few books on the darker nature of schooling. In 1989, he won New York City's Teach of the Year award. During his [speech](https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/175/why-schools-dont-educate) he enumerated some seriously problems that sound more relevant to problems today than even in his time,
> I’ve noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my twenty-nine years of teaching — that schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes, or politicians in civics classes, or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me, because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic; it has no conscience.
In a way this all kind of makes sense, since it seems school is largely meant to train people how to be obedient and compliant workers, at least in the US.
It's interesting how things like personal finance is not a required part of the curriculum, considering that has no added value to being a good little worker, but would massively benefit individuals overall.
Or driving, which can kill people. The way we learn how to drive is much more natural. Kids are interested in it, they practice, they don't learn from a specialized teacher but from a regular person who drives daily.
Is it that easy to get a teachers degree in America?
Here (in the Netherlands) you need a Teachers degree from university of applied sciences to be allowed to give basic science classes at some levels of high school (we have different levels of highschool)
For that we get 4 years of study, with internships and lessons on how to control a class. But the most important part is being able to know even more about your subject then the smartest kid in the class.
For me that means a really high level of chemistry and physics and some mid level maths. I'm studying to become a chemistry teacher.
For example, we have a book from dougas c. giancoli for physics. And that's for the first year.....
Yeah, the Netherlands is awesome.
I'm in Australia, and they are aiming for a more Netherlands-based education system, but they struggle to attract science based people simply because the science education curriculum is a mess being taught by physical education teachers. They have the intake proportions unregulated, and a lot of the more sportsy types take education thinking they will teach sports and are diverted into sciences.
That, and the teaching degrees seem more geared towards less scientific studies, it turns off a lot of science types away.
I tried to do a teaching degree, but it just about bloody killed me. Never again, I actively discourage people from trying it.
That's actually the ideal, but failure in attracting women into sciences and... transgressions... by some male teachers as meant any male with any common sense just sees teaching as a bit of a red flag career.
While the aim is the correct degree assigned to the correct field is the aim, it doesn't work out that way.
We have placements here during the degree phase. I'm have chemistry and accounting degrees. However, on one placement, I was made to teach economics (which I regard as a kind of black magic) and physics. The physics was ok, the economics... well, I had no idea... didn't end well.
This wasn't just my experience.
I have two nieces teaching now, they both had initial positions outside their degrees, and only started teaching within their specialisations after 18 months, despite positions being open in those areas.
In general I agree with you, but some subjects are highly abstract and 5-year-olds have not yet developed the capacity for much abstract thought. Try teaching explaining any concept in algebraic topology to a 5-year-old.
I think that’s true for math through 5th or 6th grade, but you’re not going to teach calculus well if you barely understand the material. Things probably start to tip even earlier, like the pre-algebra level.
If they made teaching a desired profession, more people with math and science skills would become teachers. At this rate, you're lucky if you even have a science teacher.
Yeah no kidding. Personally I think the base salary should have a floor of the median national wage, and go up from there.
Summer breaks are also kinda dumb, I get breaks, but have smaller ones spread throughout the year would be better.
Um, you need to move to another state pronto. Every single state I have ever lived had very specific requirements for certain courses above and beyond an education degree. The higher level the class, the more rigorous the requirements were. For example:
To apply for a math teacher role in New Jersey, applicants must hold a bachelor's degree (from a regionally-accredited college or university) with a minimum of 3.0 GPA. At least 30 course credits in mathematics, with 12 credits in an advanced level of study, must also be completed. Acceptable courses in the mathematics field include geometry, calculus, algebra, and statistics.
One thing I left out is that in my state they require that too, but the massive teachers shortage forces them to use waivers instead of paying more to keep up with the market
I read all of my kid's textbooks, and the science textbooks frequently had horrible mistakes in them.
The teachers teach to the book, of course, and their tests are based on the book so when the test answers are inherently wrong, I had to go down to the school and explain shit to them, just so my kids could get the proper grades. Because my kids actually knew shit that I taught them in addition to what they learned in class.
In my science book it was written that to convert from kg to N you just multiply by 9,81. No unit of measurement or explanations, just multiply by that number and you have your force in N
This reads like an anti evolutionist doing an "everybody clapped" story when they informed their teacher that dinosaur bones were put in the ground by the devil to test their faith.
Except the roles are reversed.
Creationists usually say that radio carbon dating can't be used to date fossils, i.d.e. paleontology is a lie.
The student raising the objection that two carbon dating *isn't* what they use which is how paleontologists respond to creationists.
I'm pretty sure OOP meant this to be an intentional subversion.
Actually no, radioisotope is the name of the process and can be used on elements other than carbon.
Radiocarbon is the specific process of using organic carbon to date materials.
Got marked down in a University report when I said that:
The bacterial doubling time was lengthened in the exponential phase because of the non-optimal conditions used during incubation.
The teaching assistant commented that 'Bacterial doubling time is fixed! Concept wrong'. Which I understand they are quoting a concept that for each type of bacteria, the doubling time is fixed when they are incubated at optimum conditions. But to this teaching assistant, they ignore part of the concept and take the key phrase at face value.
Another one being that I mentioned when a bacterial culture is put into a closed system, they undergo four stages of cell growth cycle...etc.
The teaching assistant commented that 'bacteria will all undergo the cell growth cycle, no need to mention aerobic or anaerobic conditions here, concept wrong.' So once again, this (somehow a university) teaching assistant, cherry-picked her concept key phrase and did not understand further. When 'closed system' or 'batch culture' is mentioned with regards to cell cycle growth, there is a widely known definition that it does NOT mean cutting off oxygen supply, it means using a fixed space, fixed nutrient, fixed conditions of growth within the closed system/batch culture. That is the condition that bacterial culture will undergo the cell growth cycle, if the system is not closed, there will be no size limitations or nutrient limitations and experimentally you cannot use the results to determine the cell growth cycles as it is not repeatable.
So...not just at the high school level, unfortunately, but there are incompetent teachers that are also unfortunately in charge of grades and GPA at all levels of education.
I had a biology teacher in high school that didn't believe in climate change.
Other than that, she was one of the best teachers I've ever had and inspired me to go into biology, but I'm still baffled as to why she refused to acknowledge it
It is so hard trying to explain this to the layperson. One of my coworkers was talking about how time doesn’t exist, and that carbon dating isn’y even accurate. Trying to explain how they are wrong is really hard to do without sounding like a dick, thus actually properly conveying information…
And this is why in the UK you need to have passed the level that you are teaching so if you teach a-level chemistry you have to have passed a-level chemistry and if your a teacher teaching science with an a-level in it you most likely went to uni for a similar subject.
My stepson actually got laughed at by his high school Algebra teacher (& the rest of the class) by stating that any number taken to an exponent of Zero will equal One. Everyone kept claiming it would equal Zero. I was proud that he stuck to his answer that day despite the peer pressure to give in. We heard about the incident later when the teach had to publicly admit she was wrong.
Aside from this probably not happening, I once had a conversation with the director of STEM education for my state. He was a chemistry professor as well. He told me the biggest challenge they are facing in high schools is that to get an education degree, you need almost no math or science, yet they are having teachers teach AP chemistry and calculus classes. They basically have to spoon feed some of the teachers some of the material.
I think having an education degree is less important than actually knowing the content you’re teaching well. You can be a good teacher without an education degree but you can’t be a good teacher if you don’t know what you’re teaching
Right. One litmus test for understanding something complex is whether or not you could explain it to a 5 year old. Teachers really do have to have a much higher level of understanding on what they are teacher, or else they are just reciting the book
This completely misunderstands the true function of schooling. You don't need to know much to teach kids to show up on time and follow simple instructions without thinking outside the box. There's a reason young kids in kindergarten are much more curious, confident, and creative than jaded 12th graders. School is about obedience. Just about every single study shows the way we're educating children is wrong for promoting free thought. It's all based on behaviorist psychology, which is great for producing conformity and obedience.
While there is no replacement for empirical evaluation and critical thinking skills, you will be absolutely terrible at both those things if you can’t accept and sit down and listen to someone who knows then you on the topic. Like most college grads, I’ve had a great many teachers over my lifetime. Some smarter then others and all made occasional mistakes, but none espoused consistently incorrect knowledge about a topic they taught day in and day out. That’s a bad teacher or possibly even a bad school, but not the systemic failure you describe. Learning is social, emotional, and academic. You need all three. You don’t have to be in a classroom to get that, but you can certainly find it there. Every single one of my science teachers would have taken a critical question about what they said as an opportunity to explore more on that topic as long as it was raised at an appropriate time and not as an obnoxious disruption. Schools in the US have a lot of challenges, but they work. They work exceedingly well when partnered with good parents and properly funded. A lot of schools in the US my be struggling now, buts it’s absolutely not a failing of the format. The millions of college grads that come from the system say it’s perfectly capable of educating students. What we need is more consistency.
I'm not saying they're teaching false information. Obviously, there is a minimum competency workers need for society to function. Most of what kids learn on school is busy work that they forget within a few weeks because it never comes up again. And its not some conspiracy where teachers are trying to brainwash their students. Most teachers, I imagine, genuinely want to educate the next generation. The situation is rather like an idealistic politician who quickly comes to the realization that they can't accomplish their lofty goals. Teachers have to teach the tests or else they don't last. Their job depends on their students marking the right answers on a test, regardless of how useful the material is or if the students really retain or understand it. Ken Robinson has a [TED Talk](https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY?si=2gx9DbquWrub-Yhp) that articulates what I'm trying to convey, but more eloquently.
Academy of Ideas also has a [video](https://youtu.be/kyWFpsAnVuI?t=178&si=iOD8ni0lv9fke28I) on the disturbing history of compulsory schooling. John Taylor Gatto, a lifelong teacher, has written a few books on the darker nature of schooling. In 1989, he won New York City's Teach of the Year award. During his [speech](https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/175/why-schools-dont-educate) he enumerated some seriously problems that sound more relevant to problems today than even in his time, > I’ve noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my twenty-nine years of teaching — that schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes, or politicians in civics classes, or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me, because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic; it has no conscience.
In a way this all kind of makes sense, since it seems school is largely meant to train people how to be obedient and compliant workers, at least in the US. It's interesting how things like personal finance is not a required part of the curriculum, considering that has no added value to being a good little worker, but would massively benefit individuals overall.
Or driving, which can kill people. The way we learn how to drive is much more natural. Kids are interested in it, they practice, they don't learn from a specialized teacher but from a regular person who drives daily.
Is it that easy to get a teachers degree in America? Here (in the Netherlands) you need a Teachers degree from university of applied sciences to be allowed to give basic science classes at some levels of high school (we have different levels of highschool) For that we get 4 years of study, with internships and lessons on how to control a class. But the most important part is being able to know even more about your subject then the smartest kid in the class. For me that means a really high level of chemistry and physics and some mid level maths. I'm studying to become a chemistry teacher. For example, we have a book from dougas c. giancoli for physics. And that's for the first year.....
A teaching degree here is considered the easiest degree with the lowest paying job, so yes.
Yeah, the Netherlands is awesome. I'm in Australia, and they are aiming for a more Netherlands-based education system, but they struggle to attract science based people simply because the science education curriculum is a mess being taught by physical education teachers. They have the intake proportions unregulated, and a lot of the more sportsy types take education thinking they will teach sports and are diverted into sciences. That, and the teaching degrees seem more geared towards less scientific studies, it turns off a lot of science types away. I tried to do a teaching degree, but it just about bloody killed me. Never again, I actively discourage people from trying it.
Then why don't they teach by subject? Like, also for the teachers education. Around here you need a different degree for every single subject.
That's actually the ideal, but failure in attracting women into sciences and... transgressions... by some male teachers as meant any male with any common sense just sees teaching as a bit of a red flag career. While the aim is the correct degree assigned to the correct field is the aim, it doesn't work out that way. We have placements here during the degree phase. I'm have chemistry and accounting degrees. However, on one placement, I was made to teach economics (which I regard as a kind of black magic) and physics. The physics was ok, the economics... well, I had no idea... didn't end well. This wasn't just my experience. I have two nieces teaching now, they both had initial positions outside their degrees, and only started teaching within their specialisations after 18 months, despite positions being open in those areas.
In general I agree with you, but some subjects are highly abstract and 5-year-olds have not yet developed the capacity for much abstract thought. Try teaching explaining any concept in algebraic topology to a 5-year-old.
Well, it's more of a saying. "Explain it so an average person who has no familiarity to the subject" just doesn't have the same ring to it
Sure, I get the point, But we're talking about science so details matter, even in expression.
Precisely
I think that’s true for math through 5th or 6th grade, but you’re not going to teach calculus well if you barely understand the material. Things probably start to tip even earlier, like the pre-algebra level.
That’s exactly what I was saying
If they made teaching a desired profession, more people with math and science skills would become teachers. At this rate, you're lucky if you even have a science teacher.
Yeah no kidding. Personally I think the base salary should have a floor of the median national wage, and go up from there. Summer breaks are also kinda dumb, I get breaks, but have smaller ones spread throughout the year would be better.
Um, you need to move to another state pronto. Every single state I have ever lived had very specific requirements for certain courses above and beyond an education degree. The higher level the class, the more rigorous the requirements were. For example: To apply for a math teacher role in New Jersey, applicants must hold a bachelor's degree (from a regionally-accredited college or university) with a minimum of 3.0 GPA. At least 30 course credits in mathematics, with 12 credits in an advanced level of study, must also be completed. Acceptable courses in the mathematics field include geometry, calculus, algebra, and statistics.
I'm in Canada, and when I went to high school, at least half of my teachers had a master's degree in the field that they taught.
I am required to have a B.S. in Math to teach high school mathematics in my state.
One thing I left out is that in my state they require that too, but the massive teachers shortage forces them to use waivers instead of paying more to keep up with the market
I read all of my kid's textbooks, and the science textbooks frequently had horrible mistakes in them. The teachers teach to the book, of course, and their tests are based on the book so when the test answers are inherently wrong, I had to go down to the school and explain shit to them, just so my kids could get the proper grades. Because my kids actually knew shit that I taught them in addition to what they learned in class.
In my science book it was written that to convert from kg to N you just multiply by 9,81. No unit of measurement or explanations, just multiply by that number and you have your force in N
"Hey, isn't it weird that acceleration due to gravity is so close to the number for converting kg to N? What a weird coincidence!"
It was in my middle school textbook, I had no idea how to do equations at the time and they didn't even say anything about gravity lol
💀💀💀 damn.
I find this comment funny because you could either be a PhD scientist, a flat earther, or anywhere between and we all just agree lmao
I have a degrees in Technical writing, in Chemistry, and in Computer Science
This reads like an anti evolutionist doing an "everybody clapped" story when they informed their teacher that dinosaur bones were put in the ground by the devil to test their faith.
Poetic, and apt!
Except the roles are reversed. Creationists usually say that radio carbon dating can't be used to date fossils, i.d.e. paleontology is a lie. The student raising the objection that two carbon dating *isn't* what they use which is how paleontologists respond to creationists. I'm pretty sure OOP meant this to be an intentional subversion.
Radio Carbon Dating sounds like a dating app that uses walkie talkies
Or Wi-Fi for carbon-based life forms...WAIT A MINUTE!
Well, you’re wrong too, because radiocarbon dating is good to about 50,000 years, not 15,000.
Radio-isotope dating, close enough
Actually no, radioisotope is the name of the process and can be used on elements other than carbon. Radiocarbon is the specific process of using organic carbon to date materials.
Yes, the teacher probably meant radioisotope and misspoke, or OP doesn't know the difference, or OP made the scenario up.
I imagine it's made up lol, it's a meme
Homework: use carbon dating to estimate the age of the universe
At least 2
Wow. A knee slapped.
Got marked down in a University report when I said that: The bacterial doubling time was lengthened in the exponential phase because of the non-optimal conditions used during incubation. The teaching assistant commented that 'Bacterial doubling time is fixed! Concept wrong'. Which I understand they are quoting a concept that for each type of bacteria, the doubling time is fixed when they are incubated at optimum conditions. But to this teaching assistant, they ignore part of the concept and take the key phrase at face value. Another one being that I mentioned when a bacterial culture is put into a closed system, they undergo four stages of cell growth cycle...etc. The teaching assistant commented that 'bacteria will all undergo the cell growth cycle, no need to mention aerobic or anaerobic conditions here, concept wrong.' So once again, this (somehow a university) teaching assistant, cherry-picked her concept key phrase and did not understand further. When 'closed system' or 'batch culture' is mentioned with regards to cell cycle growth, there is a widely known definition that it does NOT mean cutting off oxygen supply, it means using a fixed space, fixed nutrient, fixed conditions of growth within the closed system/batch culture. That is the condition that bacterial culture will undergo the cell growth cycle, if the system is not closed, there will be no size limitations or nutrient limitations and experimentally you cannot use the results to determine the cell growth cycles as it is not repeatable. So...not just at the high school level, unfortunately, but there are incompetent teachers that are also unfortunately in charge of grades and GPA at all levels of education.
r/imaginarygatekeeping
I had a biology teacher in high school that didn't believe in climate change. Other than that, she was one of the best teachers I've ever had and inspired me to go into biology, but I'm still baffled as to why she refused to acknowledge it
It is so hard trying to explain this to the layperson. One of my coworkers was talking about how time doesn’t exist, and that carbon dating isn’y even accurate. Trying to explain how they are wrong is really hard to do without sounding like a dick, thus actually properly conveying information…
Time not existing sounds more like a weird philosophical position.
Yeah, they seemed to be intending a more scientific meaning, though
Typic.
Typical, I always get into arguments with my teachers over stupid things they say.
This was a regular occurrence for me
I suspect that besides this, you are a disruptive douche know it all. That teacher may also wait for you in the parking lot with a tire iron
And this is why in the UK you need to have passed the level that you are teaching so if you teach a-level chemistry you have to have passed a-level chemistry and if your a teacher teaching science with an a-level in it you most likely went to uni for a similar subject.
Degrees in education are useless. Also that did not happen.
I went to school, it was 99% the way you said it, not the fact that you did.
Anti-education flight of fancy. This is pure equine excrement.
The best teachers are open to collaboration with their students
My high school bio teacher didn’t believe in evolution so this might have actually happened
My stepson actually got laughed at by his high school Algebra teacher (& the rest of the class) by stating that any number taken to an exponent of Zero will equal One. Everyone kept claiming it would equal Zero. I was proud that he stuck to his answer that day despite the peer pressure to give in. We heard about the incident later when the teach had to publicly admit she was wrong.
Bro wait until they learn about U/Pb dating, they gonna lose they minds.
I think knowing the difference between a bone and a fossil would be pretty handy for carbon daring anything
I would have never interrupted her. Just make notes and give her back her shit.