Posted by Kenneth Sloan on September 10, 2002 at 23:37:01:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why should we have to defend teachers? posted by GC on September 10, 2002 at 11:45:50:
Well, I suppose our disagreement is over whether to characterize a Master's degree as constituting "really advanced math skill".
On the subject of the utility of training in education, surely you can tell from my other postings that I agree with you.
All of the best teachers that I encounter at the high school (and even middle-school) level have had Master's degrees in their speciality. This applies to math, biology, history, English - whatever.
In my opinion, you make the mistake in assuming that a teacher only needs to know the material that they actually teach - so if the students never go beyond algebraic geometry, then the teacher doesn't need to know any more than that. I think this is an impoverished view of what education means (and here, I'm talking about the teacher's education). Someone who has the talent and desire to teach algebra is surely (in my view) interested in knowing MORE about the field. A Master's degree represents perhaps 1.5 years after the Bachelor's degree (and can often be done part time).
Speaking in particular about math - the high school (and even college) math "track" covers courses in a fairly straight line. But, there are any number of subjects which *could* be understood by a bright 9th grader which will appear as upper-class electives in the standard curriculum. A middle school teacher who can branch out from the standard track and enrich the education of the odd advanced student is a better teacher than one whose knowledge and training are limited to what they are asked to teach in the standard curriculum.
Look at it this way - a Master's Degree is perhaps 8-10 books past a Bachelor's. I expect a middle school mathematice teacher to WANT TO take the time to read those books, and learn that mathematics. If *they* don't have a passion for the subject matter, how in the world can we expect them to inspire our children?