[click the image to enlarge it and read] Apprenticeship has been recognized as the way to develop skills of a trade since the Medieval guilds, if not earlier. And the teacher's union is such a guild. Graduate students will tell you, post-graduate degrees, theses and all, are not large-class lecture hall instruction as much as apprenticeship programs - in the guild tradition. The Carpenters' Union has its apprentiship - journeyman distinctions, as do electrical workers. It is established.
But the truth is, and honest teachers will admit it, education programs at universities are mediocre and the best and brightest shun them. And honest teachers will admit that every teacher, good and bad, learns primarily on the job.
The position of the teachers union is merely that the coopted State education regulators share with the union the purpose of keeping the labor pool sized favorably and managed to aid union objectives. Whether good or bad for the State, at least be truthful about things being as they really are.
I hold an education degree, after having earned an undergraduate degree in a true discipline, chemistry, and speak from experience - the science and math and humanities courses I took were real, the education courses a joke. I in that sense am not an outsider looking in. I taught in Toronto, high school general science and chemistry, and despite the "education degree" I learned more, very much more, on the job. That is another truth the union cannot duck, and it discredits itself if trying to duck truth. The Minn. Post item, after the screenshot, continues:
Some supporters of the proposal, included in the Senate's Omnibus Education bill passed earlier this month, were surprised when the alternative teacher-preparation plan was suddenly yanked from the House bill by Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher with the explanation that legislators need to first more narrowly focus on school funding this session. It's not clear if the proposal will be in final legislation that comes out of the conference committee.
Education Minnesota has its knickers in a knot over the proposal's lack of traditional teacher training, which includes an education degree before entering the classroom.
"Very clearly, when we are expecting more from students, why would we expect less from the teachers who are going to be teaching them? We need the best and the brightest,'' said Tom Dooher, president of Education Minnesota. The union spearheaded a statewide telephone and email campaign earlier this month urging parents to call their legislators and protest the "shortcut" to teacher licensure.
That's it for excerpting here. The article is well presented. Read it. Here.
Two good starting sites for info about the guilds, here and here.