|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
|
 Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 1:48 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| rusmeister wrote: |
| Sashadroogie wrote: |
Heh heh, what's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?
Capitalism is the enslavement of man by fellow man - Communism is the exact opposite... |
Good formulation!  |
Got to hand it to the Rooskies - they tell a wicked joke, especially on this topic. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
rogerwallace
Joined: 24 Nov 2004
Posts: 66
Location: California
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 4:49 pm Post subject: teacher training thru a univ. |
|
|
Seems like the only people upset are those with out a 4 year university degree? In California it's a 5th year teacher training program with a semester of real classroom teaching under supervision.
I have seen the reason for wanting degrees and teaching credentials in China-it was because so many people from all over the world were using ESL as a way to work outside their own country(where there were no jobs to be had) with no training. Teaching(song and dance style) for children is one thing teaching at a university is quite an other!
In the USA, one can not teach esl in public school with out a teaching credential( even that varies from state as to what the perscribed curriculum is).
And then there is the issue of accent, text and pedegogy.
A certificate means nothing in the USA when it comes to teaching in a public school-you can't work with out a 4 year university degree and teacher training and testing.
Roger MEd |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rogerwallace
Joined: 24 Nov 2004
Posts: 66
Location: California
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:27 pm Post subject: capitalism/communism reply |
|
|
| My take is that it's really "Boss Tweed Capitalism"=new world order... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Heh heh, what's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?
Capitalism is the enslavement of man by fellow man - Communism is the exact opposite...
|
Another way to put it is that most systems are perfect until you add the human element.
Justin |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:26 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Seems like the only people upset are those with out a 4 year university degree? In California it's a 5th year teacher training program with a semester of real classroom teaching under supervision.
I have seen the reason for wanting degrees and teaching credentials in China-it was because so many people from all over the world were using ESL as a way to work outside their own country(where there were no jobs to be had) with no training. Teaching(song and dance style) for children is one thing teaching at a university is quite an other!
In the USA, one can not teach esl in public school with out a teaching credential( even that varies from state as to what the perscribed curriculum is).
And then there is the issue of accent, text and pedegogy.
A certificate means nothing in the USA when it comes to teaching in a public school-you can't work with out a 4 year university degree and teacher training and testing.
Roger MEd |
Not necessarily true. There are many people with only a B.A. teaching in the US in public as well as private schools.
Some tough schools would have a hard time retaining a certified teacher. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
winthorpe
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 21
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
| JZer wrote: |
Not necessarily true. There are many people with only a B.A. teaching in the US in public as well as private schools.
Some tough schools would have a hard time retaining a certified teacher. |
No kidding. One of the funniest moments of my life was the first day of my U.S. credential program. Everyone around the room gave a quick autobiography and summarized their current teaching jobs. I said, "Uh, I thought that we were here to prepare for a teaching job." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 3:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| I said, "Uh, I thought that we were here to prepare for a teaching job." |
I am not sure I completely understand. Can you add more details? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rogerwallace
Joined: 24 Nov 2004
Posts: 66
Location: California
|
| Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:08 pm Post subject: it's having a teaching license not some bachelor degree |
|
|
| just having a degree in the usa doesn't get you in the classroom. It's a state mandated teacher credentaling program that one must go through and tests that one must pass to show competency. It's not "knowing something for ones self knoweldge-it's being able to teach someone else the knoweldge. That doesn't just mean teaching the way you learned either, as different people have different learning modalities. Then their is teaching English to those whos first language is not like ones own, which is not just the machanics of the language but much more. If one can't sit through a begining teacher credentialing class and the formalities that may go along with it, then how is one going to handel a classroom setting in an other culture? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
|
| Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| just having a degree in the usa doesn't get you in the classroom. |
Maybe not permanently but initially it does.
Not to mention that a lot of teachers at private schools do not have a teacher's license. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 3:51 am Post subject: Re: it's having a teaching license not some bachelor degree |
|
|
| rogerwallace wrote: |
| just having a degree in the usa doesn't get you in the classroom. It's a state mandated teacher credentaling program that one must go through and tests that one must pass to show competency. It's not "knowing something for ones self knoweldge-it's being able to teach someone else the knoweldge. That doesn't just mean teaching the way you learned either, as different people have different learning modalities. Then their is teaching English to those whos first language is not like ones own, which is not just the machanics of the language but much more. If one can't sit through a begining teacher credentialing class and the formalities that may go along with it, then how is one going to handel a classroom setting in an other culture? |
Hi Roger,
I went through state certification - which program I began after logging over 6,000 hours of classroom time, and have proceeded to log many more since.
The assumptions that state preparation programs really prepare people to actually teach is largely false. Yes, some things are occasionally taught, and even learned, of value to a person who would actually teach. But the entire purpose of the state system is not really what it claims to be, and so the teacher education system functions correspondingly. I won't go into the mandatory requirements of each course, but suffice to say that they are more indicative of the real goals of state education, which unfortunately, are quite far from their mission statements. Of special pertinence is the fact that I was an experienced overseas ESL teacher, and the course I took that was ostensibly the ESL course was the biggest joke of all (to me, at least). There was no real preparation. My first semester in a classroom overseas was far more instructive than that course. I don't want to make too much of personal experience, but what I later learned about public education explained all of the contradictions in the education system. This thread is not the place for that huge discussion on the actual purpose of public ed, but the one thing to challenge you or anyone on that question is (before anyone else starts to pontificate on the topic, as I just have) to ask who knows anything of the history of public ed, and where the US and western countries got their model from? - because if you (plural, general 'you') don't, then you don't know what you are talking about and the rest of your comments can be pretty well ignored. (Point - if you don't know the history of a thing, you can't pretend to understand it, be it Russia, the US, or public schools.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rogerwallace
Joined: 24 Nov 2004
Posts: 66
Location: California
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:13 am Post subject: understanding history past and present |
|
|
Yes, I also have learned the falacy of believing the public ed can solve everything. I often say to others here in the states that's it's really not much different from china(rote, tests and learning to prepare for corporate work. I have been severely disapointed by it all(another way to make money by the state/gov/colleges). Its nothing like what my parents experienced as educators over a combined 75 years in the field.
I learned more from just doing it and being atuned to student needs.
The dumbing down of education here in the states has been happining for some time now. I have been more of a baby sitter than teacher here.
I often wonder why I went through all the b.s. in graduate school-for what?
I do use my native people skills more than anything else and the fact that my MEd is spec. to cross cultural teaching. is my main resource to helping my foreign students learn. Being more humble really helps too...thankx |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 1:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Rusmeister posted
| Quote: |
Education is only a means of transmission. It is a shared base philosophy - worldview - that holds society together..
And if the philosophy is not discussed, only implemented, that generation would not even realize that their views were indoctrinated, and that they really might have been formed differently. We read about it in anti-utopian novels and don't realize that it really has been done - to us. We can't even imagine thinking differently from the popular modern view that truth is individual and personal, that many people believe many different things and that's cool, that diversity is the highest goal of mankind, that all things must be tolerated, and so on. It is because the philosophy controlling public education - and its history (Where did the modern idea of the public school come from? Who pushed it to be the way it has become and why?) are not common knowledge that this is possible. Thinking about it is positively discouraged. |
Okay, what are you suggesting instead? It's all thought control?
| Quote: |
| Just try asking any public education official: "What is the nature of man? and "What is his purpose in life?" They'll tell you they don't deal in those questions. But you can't construct an educational system without having definite answers to those questions. So go try to figure out what the answers are in the forming of our system. |
I think you're looking at education quite differently than myself. I see education giving people the tools to think, nothing more.
| Quote: |
| ...I won't go into the mandatory requirements of each course, but suffice to say that they are more indicative of the real goals of state education, which unfortunately, are quite far from their mission statements. |
And those real goals are....
| Quote: |
| This thread is not the place for that huge discussion on the actual purpose of public ed |
We could start a thread on that and how it relates to language teaching. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 1:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
I think you're looking at education quite differently than myself. I see education giving people the tools to think, nothing more. |
With the politics that surround most educational systems is that even possible? Teaching people how to think is a great idea in the abstract but how do you teach people to think without pushing your own ideas on students?
With all the political correctness and laws governing what people can and cannot say in western countries are people even allowed to think outside of their homes? Maybe we can do it but we may get fired or sued for expressing our thoughts. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| JZer wrote: |
| Quote: |
I think you're looking at education quite differently than myself. I see education giving people the tools to think, nothing more. |
With the politics that surround most educational systems is that even possible? Teaching people how to think is a great idea in the abstract but how do you teach people to think without pushing your own ideas on students?
With all the political correctness and laws governing what people can and cannot say in western countries are people even allowed to think outside of their homes? Maybe we can do it but we may get fired or sued for expressing our thoughts. |
Thanks, JZ,
You're basically right. If you attempt to teach people to think, and you believe that you yourself know how to think, then obviously you will attempt to teach that to your students. And that itself not only forms, but is also formed by one's worldview. This is an unavoidable aspect of "teaching critical thinking" - and in public education it decidedly teaches uncritical thinking in some areas. The public philosophy of secular pluralism is assumed from the outset and required of the teachers at every step.
You're also right that no one who holds beliefs contrary to that public philosophy will stay in their job very long. The trouble is, because the philosophy is not publicly declared, it is extraordinarily difficult to defend oneself against it.
I'll also say that I have concluded that political correctness is simply the practical application of pluralism. So it is necessary to consciously understand what the basic tenets of pluralism are, and to recognize its buzzwords: 'tolerance", "diversity", "multiculturalism", etc and what the assumptions behind them are.
Gaijina, I don't wish to seem like a mad conspiracy theorist - and I am not really talking about a living ongoing conspiracy as much as the results we live with today with what was once essentially a conspiracy - if you want to call it that. I've paid some serious prices and committed a huge part of my life to learn what I've learned. I'll just stress that without a fairly solid knowledge of the history of public education, no one here can talk about much outside of their own personal experience. So let's talk about what y'all know about that if you want to talk public education.
So how does this affect ESL teachers? Well, some of us teach/have taught immigrants in public schools. What if we try to teach critical thinking as the mission statements so proudly promise and cut across that philosophy somewhere along the way, or suggest questioning those baseline dogmas of tolerating anything and everything, or whatever? What if the places where we draw the lines of tolerance differ from the public and unstated ideology? Then yes, our jobs are at risk - because of what we believe.
Last edited by rusmeister on Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Dear rusmeister,
"If you attempt to teach people to think, and you believe that you yourself know how to think, then obviously you will attempt to teach that to your students. And that itself not only forms, but is also formed by one's worldview. This is an unavoidable aspect of "teaching critical thinking"
Socrates had a pretty good method for teaching critical thinking. He asked questions rather than giving answer and allowed the student to find his/her own path to an answer.
http://www.1000advices.com/guru/communication_questions_socratic.html
Regards,
John |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
