Professionals fast tracked into teaching.
 

Gordon Brown promises new deal for credit crunch victims - Times Online

I always thought of teaching as something people went into as a vocation.

They may recruit people who are genius in their subject, but being able to teach it in a school environment I would have thought is another matter.

Re: Professionals fast tracked into teaching.
 

Teaching is an art.
You can know a subject inside out, but not have the ability to teach it.
This is another government gimmick....like the one supposed to address domestic violence.
I will be surprised if either of these iniatives work.

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maybe its the thin end of the wedge? whats next? out of work page3 girls fast tracked into prostitution, when of coarse he has legalised that profession.:rolleyes:

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You either can or can't pass on information in a way that others can understand and learn. Many people don't aquire that skill in a lifetime so 6 months is not going to give them the right skills.



Once again, the decision makers have proved how out of touch with reality, they really are. They have realised that a large number of excellent quality teachers have left the profession. These teachers have experience of life, relationships and are good role models for our young people to follow. To replace them with a bunch of wet behind the ears, undertrained academics with the common sense of a coat peg is just plain stupid.



.......... and why are so many teachers leaving the profession they so dearly love?



One word - Frustration.

We once had a system which taught classes of similar ability kids, anyone who was left behind was transferred to a group which better suited their ability.

Some numpty thought it would be a good idea to lump all abilities together and look what we have got now. The 'clever' kids are held back, the average kids are unable to learn because whole classes are disrupted by a small minority of kids who are unable to understand the lesson.

Most of the disruptive kids are not bad, they need to be taught at a slower pace.



It is not politically correct to segregate kids according to their abilities so all this political correctness is harming our kids education.



........... and to end on an example of education gone mad, my Daughter who has severe learning difficulties and has only a basic grasp of written English, was forced to learn French, Geography and History when it would have been more beneficial to her to spend that time with a speech therapist.

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I find it quite alarming that these proposals would mean that someone can be a teacher after only 6 months training. :eek:

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Nothing that this inept clown does surprises me any more.:(

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I did a City and Guilds Adult Teaching qualification - that took an academic year and there were 30 Hours teaching involved.....10 of which had to be observed and assessed.

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I don't see any particular reason why this could not work myself, after all, as pointed out imparting knowledge to others is a talent and an art.

With the 1 year training at the moment, whose to say these present students are ever going to 'grasp' it at the end of the day. No amount of training can bring this out in some people.

Many of these candidates will probably have some knowledge of training people in their work situation.

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A new teacher throughout the years must have been a wet behind the ears academic. They may have been trained to be a teacher but how many actually lived in the real world before becoming teachers ?

I agree with Katex to a certain degree. It may also help to pass some real business sense on to school leavers before they start work rather than leaving with no idea.

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I am not so sure. The course that I did was very intense...it was aimed at Adults, who are by nature much easier to teach because they actually want to learn.......I loved teaching, but wouldn't be wanting to teach some of the youngsters in schools today.
They really don't want to be there, let alone learning under the auspices of someone with only six months training.

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Kate, I also think that there is a vital difference between giving someone some 'training' and actually teaching.
These young folk that we are putting into the hands of teachers with only six months training are the seed corn of our future...in industry(or what is left of it) engineering(what is left of it)Information technology....etc.

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Think this course will be extremely arduous too Margaret, and linked with heavy interviews to syphon out the potential students to qualify for these courses. More so, I suspect, from graduate > teaching training.

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It will certainly need to be.....if it is to have any integrity.
My fear is that the teachers who qualified in the conventional sense will see these newly trained teachers as 'plastic teachers'...much as the Blunkett Bobbies were ridiculed(and still are to a degree).

I certainly wouldn't fancy doing it....not that there is much chance now anyway.

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Maybe I'm wrong, or memory does not serve me as it should, but when I attended Accy Grammar, I was taught by people whose only qualification for teaching was a degree of some sort. Any teaching skills that any of them had, must have been aquired as they went on. Some of them had the knack (I wouldn't call it an art), and some of them didn't. How do you teach someone to teach? Does the aquisition of a B.Ed. make someone into a teacher in an Ozian way?

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I know that today you have to have a degree to teach Nurses.......and most nurses now qualify to degree standards(though I have to say that it doesn't make them better at the task of nursing patients).
I would have loved to have gone into teaching student nurses full time, but it meant doing a degree and I was already at the end of a long nursing career. I could not get secondment, because the powers that be felt that my career had not got long enough to run before I retired.

I certainly remember the good tutors that I had, and remember the lessons they taught me.......I remember the bad teachers too, thought not what they taught....there must be a lesson in there somewhere.

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ya seem to have more faith in this cretinous government than most.:D

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Can't believe you said that. :confused::D

As a young soldier I was sent on active service after 6 months training, after that it was learn as you go on.
6 months training is better than throwing them in at the deep end straight from Uni or College?

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thats cos i say it as i see it.:D if i think they are right i say so, if not then cashys coming.:D

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Never any grey areas with you Cashy. Just out and out criticism before we know all the facts.

We don't really know what is involved here as yet, all we know is that education is short of people like mathematicians, and these people are on the redundent heap, and have the best brains in the country. If there is any hope that we can pursuade them to pass on their knowledge to our future generations, then I am all for it.

I think worth a try at least. Nothing to do with the my feelings towards this Government ... just think worth a go.

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my critisim stems from the fact, to me theres plenty of good teachers as well as the chaff, that have undertaken much longer training than 6 months, that to me undermimes their efforts.:(

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Aah, but did it need longer than 6 months ? Used to be 2 years in our day Cashy ... but then they had to add extra knowledge to their chosen subject, which took up most of their time. These people will have the knowledge, just training in social, streamlining their subject, disciplinary and presentation matters. If they have got it .. they will make it, and will make just as good a teacher as the 'just out from college trained teachers'.

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Disagree, fer me Character plus proper training makes a good teacher, not anyone will do, just cos theve been thrown on the dole.:rolleyes:

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Like I said, I do not think they will take on people who are 'anyone' :p

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from the white collar brigade,yer joking, owt to improve the employment figures,

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Don't see it that way, making use of people's skills/knowledge in an area where there is a defecit.

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perhaps its cos ya aint had much experience of the political "Big Guns"? cos if ya had ya would be as cynical as me.:)

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Getting people into jobs educted to gradute standard or not can't be a bad thing surely?

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These people will already hold degrees and Masters. Just chose to go out into the business world with their qualifications. Sorry Royboy, are you agreeing with me ?

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Not many 'jobs for the boys' left....I will say yes to agreeing with you...not everyone who you consider daft, slaver. :)

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I sort of agree.

You're just as likely to find a good, or bad teacher for that matter, as a result of recruiting this way because the recession.

At least these people will be able to pass on something of what it's actually like in the real big bad world, rather than some dopey kid whose done a years post-grad teaching course, after doing a degree in me-dya studies at the University of Bognor.

Good teachers are so important. They can either scar you, or impart a love of a subject for life.

Wherever they recruit them from, I just hope they manage to find the ones who are going to be good at it, rather than attracting those who may see it as just a stop gap job until they can return to a more cushy job in Civvy Street, once things begin to pick up in the City.

My only hope is that no directors of any newly part privatised banks are given jobs this way. Most of whom seem to have lacked even the most basic academic qualifications you'd need to be a bank teller, never mind run one...into the ground.

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I can remember back in the sixties, they used to put people through a six month fast track training course in the building trade skills, then after the six months gave them a box of tools and an attitude (I know it all) and called them tradesmen:eek: I served a 5 years apprenticeship when I left school and had to forgo a days pay when I was 18 to carry on, on day release. Yet these six month wonders, as we christened them were quite honestly a joke, I could fill a book with some of the happenings, but I'll just highlight one. One of these tradesmen(:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:) tried to put an ordinary Yale Lock on a sliding door, and he couldn't understand why we were all rolling about laughing. My late Father left school at 14 served a 7 year apprenticeship, he was a first class tradesman, but on the day he retired he said to me "I've enjoyed my working life John, my only regret is, that I was never able to learn everything I wanted about the job that I would have liked to.":rolleyes: Think that says it all to me

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If you can get a teaching qualification in a year, after doing 30 hours then of course you can get the same thing in six months.

As long as you do the same 30 hours.

Heck, you could even do it in a week! :D

Quite often study is for only a few hours a week, there is no problem in increasing that time per week, doubling it etc - thereby reducing the overall duration of the course.

Remember that this is aimed at professionals, people who would be capable of taking in the information that they need to learn, they do not need to learn the subject as they already know that - just how to actually teach it.

Are we by chance short of teachers then?

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Well, I wouldn't want to do thirty hours teaching in one week.
So now you are going to say that school teachers do it all the time.
Well they must use the same lesson plans over and over again.
When I taught adults in further education, my lesson plans were reviewed and amended after every teaching session.

And just because you know a subject doesn't mean that you will be good at teaching it.

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What has it got to do with reviewing your lesson plans?

It is possible to condense a years course into a lot shorter time.

For example, take driving lessons. it is normal to have 1 hour lessons weekly and it takes many weeks to be upto the std to pass your test, however there are faster courses that condense it all into a week and you should get the same result.

Part of this initiative may well be to have the structure and tutors in place to manage a quicker course.
(Although we all know our government and it will likely fail miserably). (but theoretically it shouldn't do)

Just because you have not taught before does not mean that you won't be good at teaching it if you get some tuition in how to teach, just because you do not get as long to learn this as more established teachers does not mean that you will learn any less.

And yes, as you say many teachers do teach for 30 hours+ and yes many also reuse lesson plans, the ones that have been set out and agreed upon for the curriculum.

If they did not use agreed lesson plans and taught me the same stuff that others have been taught, I'd be a bit peed off :D

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agree with every word you have written , and the first bit about losing money is true , though I dont think I lost money till I reached 21 ,

Still have my "Indenture papers" signed by my parents and the company,(signing me up at 16 until my 21st birthday ) for a 5 year term .
Not sure if it was a legal binding contract , but it worked out fine for me the 'owd' guys responsible for teaching me my trade (didn't think so at the time) I owe a debt of gratitude ( Jimmy Gent, Cliff Starkey, John Darwin, Jack Kaley, Ernie Tuke, etc ) because of those guys I've allways been able to put bread and meat on my table .


Lots of talk about equality and such stuff , but going back to those days even the unions had a class hieracy , In my union (Boilermakers and Ironworkers) young lads who came into the trade got a full union card on completion of apprenticeship , other guys who entered the trade later in life for training and did five years got a different union card , (no tech college classes just on the job training) think we got a white card and they got a green card .

Think Accy web user South Aussie with tell me if I'm wrong but I think the law changed on Jan 1 st 1970 when the age 21 rule for apprentices was abolished , I know I had to go to 21 but South Aussie who is a few months younger than me got the full pay before his 21st ;)

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Lesson plans take time to formulate and review......add that to the 30 hours of teaching and it becomes 120 hours of work and research for lessons. Would you want to do it all in one week.
Also there is the fact that you have to fit in with classes. What I mean by that is, the classes you take as a student teacher have to be convenient for the assessor....and of course the pupils.

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Lesson plans are also a tool to ensure that the pitch and level of the subject is suitable for all the students in the group.....it includes different activities.....not just exposition(or chalk and talk).
And the curriculum is set but lesson plans are something that are the teachers domain......and as long as the lesson plan reflects the needs of the curriculum they are OK.

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Margaret , I also did the City and Guilds Teaching Certificate Qualification in Adult Education ( classes at Sandy Lane and the old Grammer School on Blackburn Rd. ) never used them in the formal classroom situation , but where ever I've lived and worked have tried to pass on my knowledge of the subject , its not an ego thing ...its just passing knowledge on to the next generation wether they be Zambians,Rhodesians,Congalese, Iranians, Saudis ,Thai, Fillipino, or American , all young folks who want to make a better life for their family

To me it's just a normal thing for someone to do , pass on the education we were lucky on to get to the next generation , never really gave a thought to the young guy if he was called Ahmed, Winston, or Jesus , I was more concerned if he could get a weld though an X-ray weld inpsection than who he put the penies in the plate for , just so he could provide a plate of food for his family.

And its been my experiance that 'young' folks don't mind learning from us old wrinklies, they try to give us the attitude , but if you 'slap' them down they get the notion you are interesed and they take notice and show an interest , the problem is we can create the artisans/craftsmen/jouneymen, but we can't create the jobs for them to fill :confused:

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There's another thing that I've always thought, especially for the building trade, before architects are allowed to put a pen on a drawing they should have to do at least 12 months gaining practical experience of the relevant trades. I cant remember the number of times I've looked at plans that quite frankly were unworkable, one in particular was when I worked in Whalley and we were building Semi detached house, we came to putting the first floor joists on, but if we had kept to the drawings they'd have been going up stairs from 4 foot in the garden:D:rolleyes:

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This 6 month scheme is doomed to fail just because of the people it is aimed at: people who did not go into teaching first time round and who will do so only because they can find nothing else.

Teaching should be a first choice not a last choice, it is not a job it is a way of life.
Also 6 months is no where near enough to learn about all the different types of special needs in schools today.