By Christopher Moore
President Clinton’s former chief of staff and current president of the University of North Carolina, Erskine Bowles, wants his school to pump out more physics teachers. Here’s why from his own mouth:
At a time when the world is clamoring for science and engineering talent, about two-thirds of the students in U.S. high schools studying chemistry and physics are taught by teachers who are not certified in the field and didn’t major in the subject. Think about this: In the past four years, our 15 schools of education turned out a grand total of three physics teachers. Three!
Three physics teachers from 15 different schools in four years is pretty pathetic. My school, Virginia Commonwealth University, has spat out eight that I know of in the last four year. And that’s one school. But an important point to be made is that of those eight, only two went through the School of Education. The rest just received physics degrees and used Virgina’s Alternate Route to Licensure to get jobs.
I don’t think it odd that 15 Schools of Education couldn’t manage to produce more than three physics teachers. The reason is people who like physics hate Schools of Education. See here and here.
Away, how is Bowles going to “fix” his university system? Here he is again:
Here’s what your university is going to do. For starters we are going to operate more efficiently and effectively in order to redirect every single dollar we possibly can to the classroom. With our own house in order, we’re going to focus our efforts in areas that can give North Carolina the best chance to compete.
The first facet of this prism is improving K-12. Nothing is more important. I promise the people of North Carolina that your university will do everything it possibly can to support and strengthen our public schools so they can deliver that sound basic education our Constitution demands.
Our state has a crying need for more teachers, better teachers, science and math teachers, stronger curriculum and better trained principals. The university cannot solve this problem alone, but we’re going to do our part. We are going to lead, and we will recruit more teachers, train our teachers better and we will mentor those teachers.
I quote all of that so that you can see that our good politician friend used three paragraphs of words to offer NOT ONE concrete solution. … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Look up that quote and figure out what comes before the “…” and you’ll see what I think of Mr. Bowles’ and his tale.
Maybe North Carolina needs an alternate route to licensure like Virginia. Maybe North Carolina should started hiring people with physics degrees to teach physics and stop worrying so much about what education degrees they have. Maybe they should take a good, hard look at the education culture and find out why people who enjoy studying physics don’t see eye-to-eye with English teachers and school administrators. Maybe then North Carolina will have physicists teaching physics and staying around longer than a few years.
Hopefully Erskine Bowles has some real solutions hidden in his coat pocket. And hopefully he has more success with them than his ideas had against Senators Dole and Burr.
By Christopher Moore
I spent the weekend surfing. After a few days of work, I hope to spend the rest of this week surfing.
Ok, so I attempted to surf. My normally consistent ability to stand up was foiled by the combination of gravity and rushing water. And typical grace took a back seat to awkward collapse followed by pummeling by wave and board.
When I decided to learn to play golf, I read. I read about swing mechanics, club speed, shaft flex, etc. I did the same with surfing, and reading acomplished about as much in this instance as it did with golf — little to nothing. The concept is simple. A wave pushes a board. You stand up on the board while this is happening. That’s it. There is some physics in there, too. Balance is important. But the concept is simple.
The same is true with concepts in physics. They are simple. We see them in action everyday. But just like my surfing experience, and golf before that, understanding the idea doesn’t necessarily mean I can solve the problem right away.
I spent a few years playing golf before I got to the point where I considered myself adequate. By the end of this week I hope to stand up on the board at least once, even if it’s for only a few seconds. I get better with practice.
I’ve been working with physics for almost 10 years in school and in my profession. I have not yet and will never master the subject. But I get better each time I try. Once you understand the concepts, you just have to continually practice standing up.
By Christopher Moore
A while back, I wrote an article titled Wanna be a teacher? Your Ph.D. is no qualification. Click the link and give it a quick read. I had some supporters, such as Hertz Friar:
I really think because of the said “hoops” that you have to jump through to teach, it really ruins the quality of the teachers we have. Personally, I’m now wondering if the reason 3 of the best teachers we had at our school quit because of these regulations (one of which being a PhD.) I notice the replacement for the computer science teacher isn’t even a computer science or math major. Why? I doubt it’s because an English major with no prior experience in programming was the most qualified man they could find to teach outside of these regulations.
This gets to the point of the article: computer science classes are being taught by people with english degrees and a basic understanding of computers. Why? Many reasons. A computer science degree can lead to a better paying job. So there just aren’t that many computer scientists out there willing to take a pay cut to teach. Combine that with the fact that a computer scientist who wanted to teach is more than likely not qualified since they don’t have an education degree.
After I finished my M.S. degree, I went next door to the School of Education to find out what I needed to do to teach physics in high schools. They told me that I would have to declare a major in education (I could double-major in the subject I wanted to teach if I really wanted.) I explained that I already had a B.S. in physics and had just finished a M.S. They were very rude and non-accomodating after hearing that. You don’t just all of the sudden decide you want to teach! Knowing how to “educate” is more important that knowing the subject you are teaching.
Anyway, Kelly Snyder didn’t much like what I had to say:
Don’t you see the irony of your intolerance of the educational system? Your students were forced to be in your class. In spite of what you might tell yourself, you had a captive audience that probably wouldn’t have shown up if they had a choice. How many tests did you waive because you knew a student could get an A? How much did you protest standardized testing when you had the chance? I bet you didn’t.
The reason you were supposed to take classes in education was that you were teaching. What, exactly, was your objection to learning something new? I find it interesting that you enforced the will of the system on your students, but you considered yourself to be above the rules. If you ever become a teacher again, you should ask yourself why your students should trust you; you have already demonstrated your own disdain for classrooms, tests, and learning.
First, not one of my students was forced to be in any class that I taught. They all chose to be in my class. No school in any school system I’ve ever heard of forces student to take physics.
“How many tests did you waive because you knew a student could get an A?” This is in no way analogous to anything I have written. Let’s pose the question properly for the situations I was describing: How many tests did you waive for students taking “Physics for Poets” after successfully completing “Advanced Placement Physics”? I’ve never been in that situation, but if it where up to me I would waive them all.
Second, I never poo-pooed standardized tests in general, I merely said that it was ridiculous to require a man with a Ph.D. in physics to take a middle school level math test. I hope you can see the difference. If you read carefully, you can see I never made any objection to taking education courses. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I at least understood what they were supposed to provide. I just thought it was stupid to require an undergraduate linear algebra course when I’ve successfully completed a graduate level linear algebra course (not to mention having actual experience using linear algebra to solve real problems.) I was in the process of taking education courses, but No Child Left Behind was breathing down the neck of my schools administration, and they couldn’t wait for me to finish.
Do I consider myself above the rules for high-school students? You’re damn right I do! Because I have the knowlegde they want. If they want it, then they play by my rules. I’m the adult with the degrees and deep understanding of the subject. The police get to break the speed limit sometimes. It’s not that they are above the law? They are the law!
I do not have a disdain for classrooms, tests and learning. I have never demonstrated such a disdain. In fact, everything I have written has been in defense of classrooms, tests, and real learning. Unlike Mr. Friar, Kelly missed the entire point of my article: Physics is being taught by “science” teachers who had one physics course in college and got a C. It’s not that I have a hatred for learning, I have a hatred for learning incorrectly.
By Christopher Moore
A while back I briefly discussed some of the problems I had teaching in the public school system here. I’d like to broaden the focus today and talk about how the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) not only hurt me, but is hurting science.
Here’s what the blogsphere has to say about NCLB:
The Unreasonable Man has this to say:
My biggest problem is not the fact that it is under-funded, because throwing money at a problem doesn’t always fix it. My biggest problem with it is that NCLB, by its very design, will not fix the education system. I have very strong doubts that it will even accomplish one of its main goals, which is to identify the system’s problems3.
Communists hate NCLB. Here’s a quote from the Communist Party Platform:
The Bush administration eliminated $8 billion in funding to public education after creating new, costly mandates in the “No Child Left Behind” act, which undermines public education in favor of vouchers for some children to attend private or religious schools. Every child should have the best possible public education.
Lisa Snell, director of the Education and Child Welfare Program at the Reason Foundation, wrote a wonderful article about NCLB for the October issue of Reason:
Like every junior high school student in Camden, New Jersey, 12-year-old Ashley Fernandez attends a school that has been designated as failing under state and federal standards for more than three years. But low expectations were the least of this seventh-grader’s problems. In 2004 Ashley’s gym teacher became irritated by his unruly class and punished all the girls by putting them in the boys’ locker room. Two boys dragged Ashley into the shower room. One held her arms and the other held her legs while they fondled her for more than 10 minutes. The teacher was not present, and no one helped Ashley.
Ashley’s principal, who has refused to acknowledge the assault, denied her a transfer out of Morgan Village Middle School. Since the gym incident, Ashley has received numerous threats, including repeated confrontations with male students who grab her and then run away. When Ashley’s mother began keeping her home from school, she got a court summons for allowing truancy …
This situation is exactly the sort of problem that George W. Bush’s much-ballyhooed No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was supposed to address. As the president said in a January 2001 press conference introducing the law, “American children must not be left in persistently dangerous or failing schools. When schools do not teach and will not change, parents and students must have other meaningful options. And when children or teenagers go to school afraid of being threatened or attacked or worse, our society must make it clear it’s the ultimate betrayal of adult responsibility.” …
Since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, less than 2 percent of parents nationwide have transferred their children to other public schools. Teachers unions, school administrators, and journalists have argued that the low transfer rates prove parents do not want more choices and that they prefer their local schools. But while parents have more information than ever about the quality of their children’s schools, in most cases they still have no way out of a failing institution.
Here’s how NCLB is supposed to work: If your child’s school is failing, then you can send him/her to another school in the district. Here’s the problem: The federal dollars do not follow the student and good schools are already full.
As Snell points out “better-performing schools have no financial incentive to admit low-performing children.”
In practice, children are offered transfers only to other Title I schools. Since most Title I schools are mediocre performers at best, parents have a choice of schools that are only marginally better. Furthermore, the school districts decide which schools parents will be allowed to “choose”; often they offer only one or two alternatives.
Now the Communists I talked about above got it wrong. NCLB is FAR from being a voucher program. All it does is shuffle kids from one failing school to another that is farther away.
Real school choice would allow parents the option of sending their kids to any public or private school that will take them, and their tax money should follow.
Now our friend the Unreasonable Man has another gripe about how NCLB is unfair to teachers. And in a sense he is right. But the real problem is that the entire program is a huge waste of money that accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Higher standards? Most states had adopted some form of standardized testing long before NCLB.
School Choice? Hah!
Teacher Accountability? I assure you, if the students don’t pass, they’ll just make the test easier. So why bother.
Now how does all of this effect science? When our schools are failing how can we expect to groom good scientists?
By Christopher Moore
I just finished watching an episode of the West Wing. The ending reminded me of why I love science and why I love spreading that love via teaching. It reminded me of how much courage it takes to try, even when you will probably fail.
In the beginning of the episode, the President is practicing for a telecast that he will be participating in with NASA scientists on the following day. They will be sharing with young students the first images transmitted by a Mars rover called Galileo 5. There’s talk of adding a bigger theme, something more than just a couple of pictures from a barren planet. Something about exploration.
Sometime in the middle of the episode the signal from Galileo 5 is lost. NASA is trying to regain it, but it becomes evident that the landing was unsuccessful and that the mission was lost. They plan to cancel the telecast.
At the end of the episode, the President’s spokesperson suggests to the president that maybe they should go ahead with the telecast. “We have a captive audience of thousands of young minds, some of which are afraid to go to the blackboard or raise their hand because they might be wrong. Let’s say to them that even the big boys get it wrong. And then tell them that we’re going to build Galileo 6.”
That’s a bigger theme.
Being wrong takes courage. Because any time we explore beyond what is known, we take a risk. We take the risk that we may fail. But if we never try, if we never pursue new knowledge, we have already failed.
Raise your hand. Go to the blackboard. Have the courage to be wrong. The only time we ever truly learn is when we fail first.
By Christopher Moore
I used to teach high school physics in a public school. I was pretty good at it too. During my tenure I sent more students into college physics programs than any teacher before me. My students chalked up higher scores on standardized physics tests (such as Advanced Placement) than any previous. I began an online venture called ilovephysics.com that connected my classes to technology unheard of before. I loved my job and my employers liked me.
So of course I left the public school system. Not because of unruly students. The students were great. I had no problem with parents. I had plenty of funding for equipment. I made plenty of money ($39,000 for 9 months work isn’t bad at all!)
I left because otherwise, the school system was going to fire me!
I wasn’t qualified to teach. I never got a degree in education. I’d never even taken a course in education. I was a little busy finishing an M.S. degree in Applied Physics. I also never took a linear algebra course as an undergraduate. Apparently, that is required to be qualified to teach physics in Virginia. Nevermind the graduate linear algebra course I took (in which I got an A). My advanced degree and high GRE scores (both regular and physics subject) don’t cut it.
Did it matter that I was qualified to teach both physics and chemistry at the university level? Was my actual previous experience teaching at the university level considered? Nope.
This isn’t just a problem in Virgina. It’s a problem in all fifty states as well as other countries.
Here’s a story about a professor in the UK:
Dr Wolfe has been teaching at the school for two years. The rules are that he should have “qualified teacher status” (QTS). Part of that is a requirement to have at least a grade C in a maths GCSE … There can be no compromise on the need for the QTS …
David Wolfe is emeritus professor of physics at the University of New Mexico, where he used to run the physics department. He has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.
He said it would be easy for him to pass a maths GCSE - a qualification for 15 year olds - but, at 65, he was too old for that sort of thing.
“If there’s one thing that a person who becomes a professor has done, we may not be the cleverest but we’ve passed a lot of exams and I’ve taken enough in my life,” he told BBC News.
He accepts there need to be standards for teachers.
“But there also need to be exceptions made in special circumstances, especially given the situation where there is a great lack of teachers in a given subject like physics or maths.”
You bet. Requirments for “qualified” status need to be flexible. As the article discusses, the UK has added flexibility to its system, so Dr. Wolfe can continue to teach. But the UK’s counterparts in the US have not been so quick to recognize a solution to a problem.
The No Child Left Behind act has actually hampered a states ability to be flexible. Virginia does offer an alternative route to licensure. I initially got a job via this route. The problem is, that No Child Left Behind places a cap on the amount of “unqualified” teachers that a school can have before being labeled “failing”. Schools don’t like the “failing” label, so they avoid “unqualified” teachers at all costs. Virginia’s alternative route has its problems, but No Child Left Behind makes schools less likely to hire teachers that follow it, anyway. So a well intentioned and fairly effective state law has been trumped by federal bueracrats who know nothing of Viginia’s situation.
This is why I was facing a pink slip. In order to be a “qualified” teacher, I would have had to take five education courses, sit for three seperate exams (called PRAXIS), and go take that undergraduate linear algebra course. The school system was willing to pay for some of it, but I would have had to chip in over $1000. Before No Child Left Behind, I wasn’t worried, because the school system didn’t fire good teachers, even if they didn’t jump through all the hoops.
Post No Child Left Behind, I had two years to get it all done or I’d be pointed towards the door.
So I did what any self-respecting person with a graduate degree, cum laude honors, published research, a list of scholarship awards, and multiple private sector job offers would have done. I quit.
So why is there a teacher shortage in math and physics? Hmmmm.
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