Point 1: Teaching training programs are currently inadequate, and do not properly ensure that we have good teachers in our schools.
To say that training is inadequate presumes that more training is desirable. I have not commented on whether or not teachers should have more training, only that they do not qualify as "highly trained professionals" and shouldn't be celebrated as such. As an analogue, manicurists in the mall are not highly trained professionals. This does not imply that they should be. Their training is adequate even though it falls short of "highly trained professional". Since you raised a new topic, I will address it. I do NOT think teachers should have more training. I think on average they should have LESS. It should be EASIER to become a teacher. Teachers receive shitty training not because we want them to have lousy training, but because there is no regime of good training. Let's stop pretending the training we have is good, and stop requiring bad training. Teachers are good or bad because of aptitude, desire, and experience. We can't impart those things in a seminar. A teacher without them and a Ph.D. in C and I is bad. A retired Coast Guard drill sergeant with no degree might be outstanding. So let people self select into the vocation based on desire. Those that don't retain desire will self select out. Let us support and supervise better to make the most of experience. And let's cull those that lack aptitude. Rather than forever rejecting applicants who might be good because they don't have training, and retaining teachers forever who are bad because they have training, lets trust administrators to select for aptitude, empower them to supervise and support, then fire the bottom 20 percent every other year. We can have better teachers not only by ending the charade that teacher training programs at universities mean a damn thing, but by divorcing the vocation from pre-service training and marrying it to in-service training. Like submarine officers and surgeons, who actually are highly trained professionals. We could make highly trained professionals out of teachers if we stop pretending they are highly trained professionals. But not if we continue pretending.
I agree completely: There are teaching programs are more interested in getting as many halfway competent people through the program to fill a shortage of teachers; and end up focusing on passing people who want to teach rather than people who are good at teaching.
Again, the problem is that we don't find out who is good at teaching by requiring them to be students. We should require them to be teachers instead.
This has lead to many people who are convinced they are doing the right thing; rather than people who are actually doing the right thing.
Convinced with religious zeal! As you have seen in this thread. Teachers in our culture are annointed priests.
On top of that, there is no single agreed-on set of best practices for teaching:
And there never will be. So why pretend that a graduate student who spends 29 weeks learning one of them is a highly trained professional 22 year old?
Point 2: Teachers are often people who failed in their line of work, or are otherwise lacking in their field of study. I disagree.
I posted a source for the conclusion that teachers overwhelmingly come from the bottom half of their classes. Do gooders that want to help people and are capable of becoming psychiatrists do so. Those who can't pass organic chemistry become special ed teachers (because it does not require becoming a highly trained professional!). People who love chemistry and want a job in that field become chemists. Unless senior year recruiters don't call them back. Then they hang around North Texas State for another year to get a chemistry teacher's endorsement. And they are no better at teaching because they spent a few hours in Race, Class, and Gender in the Classroom 400.
the failing is on the teaching programs, not the teachers themselves.
Agree. And the successes, too. In spite of the fact that almost no teachers are highly trained professionals, most are pretty good, and some are fantastic. It is because of the teacher, not because of North Texas State University.
Every teacher I have known believes (often as a result of their education) that they know their subject, even in places where they don't.
Maybe because we keep telling them they are highly trained professionals. However, subject area knowledge isn't that imortant. Who cares if your physics teacher made some math mistakes? Everybody does. Even you. I would rather have a teacher that implants 95 percent of what she wants to implant in your brain even if five percent of it is wrong than a teacher that implants 50 percent of the intended material, all of it being correct, because you wish you were anywhere but in her class. More than that is an unreasonable expectation. Even if teachers were highly trained professionals, how many could you find who would be right 100 percent of the time? Not one for every classroom in America.
Point 3: Teachers are not "Highly Trained Professionals" That depends very much on the teacher.
No it doesn't. It depends on the training. You are confusing being a good teacher and being a trained teacher. There are many, many good teachers. There are almost no highly trained professional teachers.
No matter what profession you are in, there are people who qualify as "highly trained", and those that aren't.
Nope. All surgeons are highly trained. Even the bad ones. Because it is required for certification. Almost no teachers are highly trained because it isn't required.
you will find stars and failures in every profession.
Whether or not a teacher is a star is not dependent on training. That a teacher is a star does not imply they are stars because of training any more than being a star actor implies that you went to Julliard.
I'm not saying that every teacher is a highly trained professional:
Describe this highly advanced training that you think a significant number of teachers have? How many special ed teachers have a year of med school pharmacology? And advanced statistics? And are up to date on their state's jurisprudence in education law? And subscribe to half a dozen scholarly journals. And routinely do war gaming for behavioral problems? And know what legislation has been introduced this session that will affect the healthcare their kids get?
And unless you can quote and link specific facts that suggest otherwise, I'm not convinced that your experience is significantly closer to the truth than mine is.
I posted my source. You want a link? I'm not your fucking secretary. Google it yourself.
Especially if you compare teachers to other professions which earn similar salaries.
Average teacher in the US gets compensation of about $100,000 per year. About 25 percent more than people in similar occupations earn in the private sector, like social workers, journalists, and allied health occupations. And teachers work part-time while the other occupations work full time. Adjusting for this teachers get around double the compensation that other para-professionals get. To the extent you are saying that teachers should have lowered because they are paid less than surgeons and submarine officers, it's because surgeons and submarine officers are highly trained professionals and teachers aren't.