What Teachers Are Taught Today To Teach

I am currently in school to get my teaching credential. Although the reasons I went back are several, the main reason I chose to go back was to protect my right to homeschool my son until he is finished with school. I am fearful that our time of freedom to homeschool may come to an end, and I thought that the only way I could protect this right was to get certified.

Plus, I needed a secure job in this economic climate with hours that would work with my son's rigorous hockey schedule. Add to that my love of children and how I found out that I love to teach, what better job could I go after?

My horrifying surprise at what teachers today are taught about how to "teach" cannot be taken lightly. There are no "methods" classes, only "content" classes. These classes are intense in teaching us ways to learn to profile students so that a teacher may be better able to reach that child. By "profiling", I mean learning to observe a students physical features to determine which ethnicity they might be. Yes, racism, pure and simple. It took me about half way through my first class and a big bottle of Tylenol to finally figure out what the class was all about! When I figured it out, needless to say I was horrified! But figuring that out made the rest of the class and then subsequent classes go easier for me. I just didn't get what they were trying to teach.

Add to that that the curriculum that is used in schools today is so very scripted, that it leaves little room for a teacher to actually teach. The teachers I have talked to during observation all echo this frustration. They complain that everything is about The Test and have little or no time to actually teach. Teachers who have been in the schools and are ready to retire are only staying on for the last year until retirement. This sentiment was repeated throughout the schools, adding that they never would have gone into teaching today because they just can't teach.

It's with a heavy heart that I think about our teachers in the public school system that is in place today. The teachers have no choice, and follow the rules. The ones that don't follow the rules usually have kids who are really learning something, but their job is at stake.