On the Status of Teachers...

Americans face a serious problem in their educational system. Teachers are no longer respected the way they once were and the status of teachers is at a low. For the United States to raise teachers from their status slump, we should trim out the teachers who are dragging the others down by being beacons of terrible teaching. Kati Haycock weighs in on the same subject. She claims here that "we ought to help the strongest ones and close the weakest". I agree with her. About a year ago, there was a survey on the question if teachers who do not have a degree close to what they teach shoud be allowed to teach. Many agreed that those teachers should not be allowed to teach a subject that they themselves are not familiar with. Those teachers that are taught in the field of what they teach obviously understand the subject better and thus can teach students much more than just textbook information. Those teachers who do not have as much knowledge in what they teach aren't able to help students understand the subject as well and, bluntly, may come across as being idiotic in their own line of work to students. Some may argue that if teachers who are not as good at teaching their subject are let go we would have a shortage of teachers. However, if those less than qualified teachers were trimmed away we would be left with the teachers that truly want to teach and thus will put real effort into what they do. Haycock's agrees with what I have said when she states that "we need to provide strong teachers" and that if we weed out the less motivated "we will interest far more of the bright, passionate self-starters we need to turn our system around". If a teacher is not willing to put forth the effort to understand his/her own subject then he/she is not motivated to teach the students who will next inherit this Earth. Those teachers would be instilling apathy into the next generation of people and the next generation of teachers who could possibly instill apathy into their next generation. If we are to pull our teachers out of their status depression we should trim out the terrible teachers to find those motivated, bright teachers to teach our newest generation.

(ramble mode off)