posted
So today I had a meeting with an advisor from the school of education to officially change my major and decide what path is the best one for me to become certified to teach secondary English. Yeah, I know - I should have done this before. I made the decision last year, confirmed while going through chemo and I should have met with an advisor well before now. But I didn't and I'm paying the price.
Of my 12 hour schedule this semester only one class is going to count toward my degree. Naturally it's past the drop deadline, too. I'm a post "No Child Left Behind" education student so I don't know what it was like before, but my goodness my hat is off to anyone who can complete the secondary education program. I must admit to being a bit overwhelmed.
It's a double major program - one major is education, the other English. That's not such a big deal, but it's the lower level requirements. They spell out exactly what classes you must take to fulfill your core curriculum requirements and lower level ones and no deviation is allowed. This bites, for me, because for example - I took Music appreciation as my fine art. That won't count, now, I have to take Theater instead. All in all, I have to repeat several core curriculum classes and add some other lower level ones. The English major alone is 120 hours, but with all the stuff I have to re-take, I'll be graduating with 150+ hours.
So, given all that, I asked if it would be easier to just get my degree in English and do a non-traditional 5th year program to get my master's teacher certification. The answer was no - because the 5th year program is atually 46 hours at the master's level, and before I could be admitted to it, they would review my undergrad course work and I'd be forced to re-take theater and the other classes anyway, or take them at the master's level.
All that was discouraging enough, then she told me about the portfolio I had to keep and all the certifications I had to get and medical checkups and tests I had to take before I could even be formally admitted into the teacher edcucation program. They include CPR certification, a negative TB test, and taking and passing the Alabama Prospective Teacher test.
*sigh* Again, it's my fault for not checking things out sooner and I'm not daunted - I'm still going through with it, I just wish it weren't such an ordeal. I'm a bit overwhelmed by everything at the moment. The good news is my advisor seems very competent, said she'd be my contact through my whole career there (as opposed to my former advisors in the Humanities where you get passed along from advisor to advisor and rarely see the same person twice) and that they did a good job of keeping track of things and making sure I met every deadline (there are lots to remember - deadlines for testing, for submitting your portfolios, for application for student teaching, etc.) Maybe I'd feel better about it if it weren't for the fact that all my friends who are teachers tell me their experiences in Education school at college really didn't prepare them for teaching. I hate jumping through hoops just for the sake of jumping through them.
To all you teachers who have already jumped through the hoops I'm just now lining up in front of me - I salute you.
[ October 24, 2006, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Belle ]
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, you could go the way I did. Get your degree, then start subbing while you go through the Alternate Route to certification. Once you have your provisional cert, you can get a job somewhere for a year and get your actual cert.
It really does seem that NCLB has made it far more difficult to enter the profession at a time when teacher shortages are cropping up all over.
Edit:
quote:I hate jumping through hoops just for the sake of jumping through them.
LOL. Hasn't anyone told you yet that is the standard operating procedure for public school teachers?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm doing certification to become a secondary education teacher (social studies at first, maybe adding math or science later). It was sort of ridiculous at my school. To do History + Teacher Certification, I would have had to stay here a 4th year, just to jump through the hoops that you mentioned. Luckily, there's a community college near my home that offers to do teacher ceritifcation over a summer (with the stipulation that you have an internship or a student teaching position in the fall). So I'll graduate with my BA in History this spring, do certification over the summer, and then hopefully start teaching in the fall. Hooray for shortcuts of sorts.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, no, we don't, actually. At least, people with English majors should not become teachers. They're not qualified. We want hard-science majors to become teachers; the proper hoop for literature students to jump through leads to a three-mile drop.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:LOL. Hasn't anyone told you yet that is the standard operating procedure for public school teachers?
Good point. That's another thing my best friend whose a teacher mentioned.
That, and my husband told me that college is an endurance race anyway, it's more about being able to stick it out rather than really learning anything.
Everything I've read tells me that we desperately need qualified secondary teachers in Alabama. We're fine on elementary, our elementary school actually had more than a hundred applicants for two positions last year. In contrast, our middle and high schools in the county are struggling to meet the state mandated requirements of highly qualified teachers in all the core subjects. For example, one of my daughter's teachers in the eighth grade is an elementary school teacher who isn't supposed to be teaching higher than sixth grade but they had to use her anyway because they didn't have anyone else.
Seems like if we need secondary teachers so badly, we'd make it a bit easier to become one. Focus on things that matter, and not quibble over what fine art a student took.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm sorry if any of this is incorrect in your situation, but a fair amount of this just seems wrong from my recent experience.
Example: My girlfriend graduated with a BS in Biology 2 years ago, did a 1 year masters program for education in Ohio and then started teaching freshman/sophomore science last year.
Admittedly she is going through some further classes at the momemnt to get some kind of additional certification for her freshman-level class that she teaches, but either way as I understand it she is a fully qualified teacher.
as for your major, I'd try talking to your counsellor again (or possibly other counsellors) generally there is a fair amount of leeway (even when they claim there isn't) in universities, especially when it comes to electives. While often you "officially" have to take X course, if you have a good counsellor they'll generally be fine if you've already taken another course that may be higher on the food chain, cover the "official" course etc... Also, as a double major, I'd expect to have some extra credits, but especially in somewhat related fields I would also think that there would be some possibility of overlap. Try talking through what all your english classes cover, some of the issue might just be that the education counsellor doesn't know what Engl 304 actually is...
Personal Example: I got a minor in Computer Graphics Technology along with my major in Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering. While techinically this meant I took about 3-4 extra CGT classes that were not required for my major, I ended up getting to count a couple of them as "design electives" within my major (even though I just kinda stumbled into that)
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, Belle, being a secondary teacher is incredibly hard. Unfortunately, the obstacles placed in your path at the college level are wholly unlike the obstacles that will be placed in your path as an actual teacher.
There is very little overlap between education courses and actual practice, from all that I've been told.
Secondary school is hard to teach because of the personalities and values involved. It is a lot harder to motivate a teenager to be excited about school than it is to get a first grader excited. To make this harder, parents have less influence over a teenager than they do a child.
It's a very hard social environment to juggle, which is why there are so few science/math teachers. People who are drawn to the the sciences are less likely to have the social flexibility to handle the controlled chaos that are teenage lives (at least in my experience).
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Grimace, I wish that what you said offered me some hope, but it unfortunately doesn't. Since I met with her this morning, I've spent time searching through all the documents from the state dept. of education and it squares with the things she's told me. It's not the university that's causing all this, it's the state and federal requirements.
And, your girlfriend's experience is going to be different because the math and science certifications are different. A biology teacher need only be certified in biology. So, yes, what you've described she went through makes sense. There is no certification in Alabama for secondary English teachers though - it's for Secondary Language Arts which includes not only English and literature but reading education, drama/theater, speech, and mass communications/journalism. That's why all the extra classes - I'm in good shape on meeting the English requirements but I have to go back now and take classes to meet all these other requirements. Specifically, the lower level classes I have to take are the theater, mass comm, and newswriting (I already had credits in speech.)
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: So, we don't want our students to be able to write, debate, or critically read?
Sounds wonderful.
If being an English major imparted these skills, that would be one thing. As for critical thinking, you can't do it without a thorough grounding in arithmetic, algebra, and logical reasoning - which cannot be taught any better than the hard sciences do.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:As for critical thinking, you can't do it without a thorough grounding in arithmetic, algebra, and logical reasoning - which cannot be taught any better than the hard sciences do.
Then colleges should require that even English majors take college level classes in both the sciences and in mathematics.
posted
Actually, the requirement to take college level classes in math and science depends on the school.
Also, at least in the schools I have been to, the math and science courses offered to the arts majors are not the same as the ones offered to the science and math majors. From past experience (I used to tutor some of that stuff), a lot of it was glorified high school material and much of it was actually a fair bit simpler than what I was doing in high school.
Posts: 74 | Registered: Jan 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:As for critical thinking, you can't do it without a thorough grounding in arithmetic, algebra, and logical reasoning - which cannot be taught any better than the hard sciences do.
Then colleges should require that even English majors take college level classes in both the sciences and in mathematics.
Oh wait, they do.
I'm sorry, but they do not. Certainly, there are classes labeled as math and physics for non-science majors; what they are not is 'college level'.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
As has been said, it varies from university to university. The university I went to didn't differentiate between sciences - there was only one biology 101 in the catalog and both science and non-science majors took it. I do believe they had a different physics class for physics majors, or maybe it was that physics 101 didn't count toward the physics major, I'm not sure.
As for math, none of the three colleges I've attended had different math classes for non-science majors.
Edit: And, even an English major can't graduate without at least 11 hours in the natural sciences and mathematics - that's at UAB. At UNO, where I began my college career, you were required to have six hours of mathematics so I actually have 14 hours in the sciences and mathematics. Science majors, as well, have to take English composition and at least three hours of literature. Maybe private schools are different, I've only ever attended public universities.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
my apologies that my comments weren't very helpful. I didn't realize how much difference there was between the requirements for english versus science teachers was.
also, can someone give me a comparison for grad school in humanities courses. i.e. how many credits would a normal person be taking when doing that "5th year" program full-time?
I ask because most of the grad-level engineers I know only took 6-9 hours of classes a semester rather than the 12-18 that might have passed in undergrad. so when I see 45 credits I see 5-6 semesters, more of a "5th 6th and 7th year" program... unless you generally take 15 credits a semester.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
No, you're right Grimace - 15 graduate credit hours a semester is a lot. As far as the 5th year program goes, it looks to me on paper that it would indeed take longer than one year, if only because a semester of student teaching is required. You can get out of the student teaching if you're employed full time in a public school, which might be possible because so many schools are short secondary teachers they'll hire you without your certification as long as you're working toward it. I have a friend in the 5th year mathematics program right now who is in that situation - he's already working for a public middle school so he can forego his student teaching. But, he has already been working on his 5th year program for a year and has at least two more semesters to go. Some of the classes can be taken in workshop form during the summer and completed rather quickly, from what he's told me. I do know that most people take longer than one year to finish it. "5th year" might be a bit of a misnomer.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
In six hours (that's hours per week over a semester, right?), you might be able to learn the rudiments of calculus, if you were any good at math. Did you?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by FlyingCow: So, we don't want our students to be able to write, debate, or critically read?
If being an English major imparted these skills, that would be one thing. As for critical thinking, you can't do it without a thorough grounding in arithmetic, algebra, and logical reasoning - which cannot be taught any better than the hard sciences do.
If you had critically read, you'd have noticed I said nothing about critical thinking.
It's not so much being an English major that imparts writing skills and whatnot. It's that the people who choose liberal arts majors already have them, which is why they chose to pursue an advanced degree in those areas.
Linear, scientific personalities have a lot harder time teaching than non-linear, abstract ones.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do you have a point, or are you just posting to have an excuse for using the rofl smiley? Because you are not making any sense.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just looked over our college catalog. Teachers must select from a group of science gen-ed courses, but it's almost identical to gen-ed requirements for everyone else (not updated for a new class). There are some extra English and math classes, but not that much.
It isn't ed programs or NCLB, apparently. It's the school. Bummer, dudette.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm sorry, King of Men. That's called a "metaphor" - it's when you compare two things without using the words "like" or "as".
It was unfair of me to say I was going to use math terms, but then go all English-y on you.
Let me break down the comparison.
You say that critical reading is a subset of critical thinking.
This is true.
A square is a subset of a rectangle.
This is also true.
However, this does not mean you can say that a rectangle is a square. By comparison, the first statement does not mean you can say that critical thinking is critical reading.
While critical reading is a type of critical thinking, critical thinking is not a type of critical reading.
Mathematics deals with certain subsets of critical thinking, and critical reading is not one of those.
It's like saying you're teaching "science" - you don't automatically mean you're teaching "advanced particle physics". By teaching "critical thinking skills" you don't automatically mean you're teaching "critical reading skills".
Sure, there are some critical reading skills used in mathematics. Understanding metaphors doesn't seem to be one of them.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, the word 'subset' was a little badly chosen, hence the misunderstanding. I should have said 'critical thinking is a prerequisite for critical reading'. That is what I was thinking throughout the discussion, which led to your 'explanations' of which way a subset-relation goes looking rather like non sequiturs.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
Understanding language, grammar, and syntax is a prerequisite for solving word problems, as well. In fact, in my time as a math teacher, I found that students with poor reading/language scores often had lower math scores than their ability would indicate. It is a common concern among math teachers that if the students knew better how to critically read and understand questions, they wouldn't have as much trouble doing the math.
This also applies to science, as scientific journals and articles are nearly indecipherable to those who have a poor grasp of language skills and critical reading sklls.
All subjects go hand in hand, and to exclude one is to detract from all the others.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
My school's silly requirement had to be the biology. Biology for non-science majors counted towards the gen ed requirement but biology for science majors only counted as a gened if you were in a specific list of majors. So, my friend who was a psych major needed to take biology for science students because she was premed. But, technically, she would then still need to take the lower biology. In the end, she registered as a bio major, finished her gened requirements, had that signed off, then officially switched her major back to psych. Now, that was a stupid hoop.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: People who are drawn to the the sciences are less likely to have the social flexibility to handle the controlled chaos that are teenage lives (at least in my experience).
Case in point, King of Men, who sees nothing wrong with coming into a person's thread to state, repeatedly, that her choice of vocation is worthless. Too bad they don't have a course in people skills, or, say, how to be a human being, for science majors.
Of course, if there were a "People Skills for Science Majors," it would have to be watered down for them . . .
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I'm sorry, King of Men. That's called a "metaphor" - it's when you compare two things without using the words "like" or "as".
Actually, this is a simile. It involves a comparison (x is like y), while a metaphor does not (x is y).
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
Of course, if there were a "People Skills for Science Majors," it would have to be watered down for them . . .
As a science major, that's not really fair. Not all of us are socially inept- just 90%.
I know. Likewise, not all English majors are scientifically inept. For example, although she has not mentioned it, I believe Belle has taken Calculus. For myself, I majored in literature, went to grad school for it, and am certified to teach it . . . but I actually teach math, in which I also have a degree, and I have been a researcher for two different science-related jobs, and been published through each. I think I have reasonably good social skills, for a science-type, or pretty good science skills, for a literature type. I also think stereotypes like KoM's tend not to hold up in a lot of specific cases, and that turnabout is fair play. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I'm sorry, King of Men. That's called a "metaphor" - it's when you compare two things without using the words "like" or "as".
Actually, this is a simile. It involves a comparison (x is like y), while a metaphor does not (x is y).
Actually a simile is a subset of metaphors. A simile is a metaphor, while a metaphor is not necessarily a semile.
Edit to add: Belle - I feel your pain. I am currently attempting to arrange the University hoops in such a way that I can jump through them. Unfortunately my ramp isn't long enough and my motorbike is low on gas.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I teach LSAT (law school admission test), GMAT (business school admission test) and MCAT Verbal (subject on the medical school admission test) test prep. The town I teach in is upper-middle class affluent. By far the number one reason I see students stymied in their attempt to improve their scores and get into graduate school is their lack of English skills. The math required for the GMAT and the memorization and regurgitation on the MCAT don't get them. The ability to correct sentences or read four paragraphs in less than five minutes does.
So I suppose English may be irrelevant for those who do not wish to attend graduate school, which is certainly most of the US population. However, for those who do want to become doctors or lawyers, English goes from being ignored to all important.
I feel very sorry for my students. I can help them to bring their scores up quite a bit, but if you don't know what a noun is or have a poor vocabulary, I can't work miracles in six weeks. It seems to me that solid English skills are, to some extent, linked to class and home life. You either got it young or you didn't. Determined individuals can engage in self study to rectify this, but qualified English teachers would make a tremendous positive difference as well.
While I agree that science education is sorely lacking in public and private schools at all levels, I would never encourage elevating one core subject over another in importance. If scientists were more skilled with the written and spoken word, we would not be as susceptible to the media and politicians spinning scientific fact. English is as important as science or mathematics, because while graphs and numbers may help to illustrate these fields, we must first be able to explain their meaning to the uninitiated, and to do that we must be able to use language fluently. To learn a new word is to have a new idea beating against the inside of your skull, and that is how societal advances are made. No one ever inspired men to march onto a battle field by showing them a chart or a proof; no one ever won an election and subsequently passed a bill that changed the color of the faces in our universities by handing out copies of their senior thesis on the distribution of mutations in frog oocytes.
There's a reason why science is poorly understood and appreciated; it's because most scientists don't know how to communicate with people outside their field. Part of the solution is to ensure a solid grounding in science for students. But the other side must reach out as well, and that's why English teachers are so important.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow. I am deeply ashamed. That is definitely how I learned it in school. I can vividly recall the discussion in middle school. Yet a cursory internet search tells me I'm wrong. This hurts. Yet again I am disappointed by my education.
Edit: this was in response to Icarus, but if mph agrees, I might stick with my original understanding, I don't know. Can we get a vote? Edit 1a: Ok, after more searching it seems like the internet is in quite a contention as to whether a simile is a metaphor. I'll stick with my original understanding and defend it 'till death now. 'Cause that's just what you do when the internet can't make up its mind.
Edit 2: Sorry, I clicked quote instead of edit.
Edit 3:"A simile is like a metaphor is a simile, but a simile is a metaphor is a metaphor." <-- This amuses me.
Metaphor and simile are two of the best known tropes and are often mentioned together as examples of rhetorical figures. Metaphor and simile are both terms that describe a comparison: the only difference between a metaphor and a simile is that a simile makes the comparison explicit by using "like" or "as." The Colombia Encyclopedia, 6th edition, explains the difference as:
a simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A.
According to this definition, then, "You are my sunshine" is a metaphor whereas "Your eyes are like the sun" is a simile. However, some describe similes as simply a specific type of metaphor (see Joseph Kelly's The Seagull Reader (2005), pages 377-379); in this case, metaphor is the umbrella term for making comparisons between unlike concepts, and simile describes the figure where one makes the comparison explicit.
posted
Yeah, Porter. I once taught out of a geometry textbook that claimed that parallelograms were a subset of trapezoids. I reckon there's no accounting for stupid textbooks. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
btw, Belle, that really sucks. My undergraduate program was much more flexible, but I guess in a backward and perverted way they're helping you, because I know that right now, people coming out of Florida's universities are not considered highly qualified to teach language arts.
(Requiring specific electives or core classes is still stupid, though. )
I agree with those who say it's all just jumping through hoops.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Um . . . isn't that true? I suppose it depends how you define trapezoid.
(Checked some definitions. Some say "exactly one pair of parallel sides," but some say "having two parallel sides," and I also saw "at least one pair of parallel sides." )
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe that under the definition we used in geometry, a paralellogram is in fact a type of trapezoid (four sided polygon, at least two paralel sides).
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
Naturally it's past the drop deadline, too. I'm a post "No Child Left Behind" education student so I don't know what it was like before, but my goodness my hat is off to anyone who can complete the secondary education program. I must admit to being a bit overwhelmed. ![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
I salute you.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Since I met with her this morning, I've spent time searching through all the documents from the state dept. of education and it squares with the things she's told me. It's not the university that's causing all this, it's the state and federal requirements. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
)![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
)
