Monday, November 02, 2009

Education Majors? Worth Thinking About?


Like most academics I know, I've never thought much about Education majors and professionals. I've never met one worth a shit, and every Education student I ever had just screamed out "Help me! I have no idea what I'm doing."

Yet, this recent NY Times article makes some point even I had to consider.

[+]

Teach Your Teachers Well
NY Times
by Susan Engel

ARNE DUNCAN, the secretary of education, recently called for sweeping changes to the way we select and train teachers. He’s right. If we really want good schools, we need to create a critical mass of great teachers. And if we want smart, passionate people to become these great educators, we have to attract them with excellent programs and train them properly in the substance and practice of teaching.

Our best universities have, paradoxically, typically looked down their noses at education, as if it were intellectually inferior. The result is that the strongest students are often in colleges that have no interest in education, while the most inspiring professors aren’t working with students who want to teach. This means that comparatively weaker students in less intellectually rigorous programs are the ones preparing to become teachers.

About RYS:

Rate Your Students (RYS) is an academic blog moderated by a rotating group of college professors. To submit work for possible inclusion on the RYS blog, please submit text to our main mailing address.

Generally, stand alone pieces that are "lively" and focused on the terrifying life of a college proffie have the highest chance of making the page. Responses to earlier posts work well only when they come in within 24 hours of the original post. Otherwise the issue has often cooled.

There will usually be 2 site-wide questions each week, the so called "early thirsty" on Tuesday and the "big thirsty" on - well, Thursday. Generally, short and savage replies work best as we normally bundle a variety of responses in bullet format.

Due to the amount of mail we receive, it is impossible to reply to writers, even those whose work we use. This is a failing we would change if we could. Generally, if your post doesn't appear within the first week of you sending it, we've passed on it.

We also are happy to consider links and videos you think our readers might be interested in. We post links on an irregular schedule, but are currently posting 4-5 videos a week given the number of suggested pieces that come in.

We no longer entertain requests for press of any kind. The names of current and past moderators are not available. If you don't like the VidShizzles, please don't watch them. If you don't like the site, please don't read it. If you think we're clueless morons who've ruined the profession, then join the fucking club.