School Information System: Advocating Teacher Content Knowledge: Lessons From Finland #1

July 4, 2011

Advocating Teacher Content Knowledge: Lessons From Finland #1 - Teacher Education and Training

One of the many things I learned producing my film The Finland Phenomenon, was the importance of setting a very high standard for the education and training of teachers.

Finland's high school teachers are required to have both a Bachelors and Masters degree in the subject they teach (e.g. - math, physics, history, etc) combined with one-year of pedagogical training with very heavy emphasis in real classroom teaching experience under the guidance of an outstanding seasoned teacher.

By contrast, most U.S. States require only a Bachelors degree from a college of education with an emphasis in the subject to be taught - and frequently that subject matter is taught by professors in the Education School, not in the actual subject department. Think of it as content and rigor "light" for teachers.

So, what should America do to apply this obvious lesson from Finland? My thoughts:

1- each U.S. State needs to cut off the supply of teachers not sufficiently prepared to teach this generation at its source. The source is colleges of education. A State legislature and Governor can change the requirements to be a teacher in their State. All it takes is courage to withstand the screams from colleges of education - the sacred cash cow of most universities.

2- To teach at the high school level, a State should require the prospective teacher to have at least an undergraduate degree in the subject they plan to teach and from the department that teaches that subject (e.g. - teaching math? Require a B.S. from the Math department).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 4, 2011 3:38 PM
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Comments

This is all great theory. Seriously. I would love to see these kinds of requirements for subject-specific higher education for teachers. However, there are issues with it too. I posted the following on that blog too:

This is all very sensible. But who pays for all that further education? Finland pays for most of the university education expenses of their citizens as well as high school and below.

The US is not going to stop schools of education from having their own pedagogical requirements (far beyond a "year of teaching under a master teacher", and nowhere near as useful!), plus all the requirements from another department for a full major? That's a lot of classes. Teachers have to find money for their education too, and doing all that coursework while working full-time hours to pay for the classes is exhausting - I can vouch for that. Then one still has to pay back all the student loans.

Governors like Walker in Wisconsin are whining that teachers (counting salary and benefits) make "far more" than the average WI worker. The obvious goal is to turn "regular people" against the teachers and education as a whole. After all, America is becoming more anti-intellectual by the day, it seems, at the same time jobs and careers are becoming ever more likely to require higher education.

The fact is, benefits that include paying for more of health insurance premiums and required pension contributions do not mean more money for the teacher to start paying back tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. Also, why SHOULDN'T teachers make more than the average Wisconsin worker? They generally have far more education (and extra credits beyond the degrees) than the average worker too! Graduate-level classes cost more too, by the way: generally hundreds more per credit hour. This plan (while very sound in its theoretical basis!) requires at least a year of graduate level courses, and a full-time year spent essentially working as a teacher for NO PAY (actually, you have to pay for the credits, so you are paying the university for the privilege of working for free). I can only pay back loans (since I, personally, don't run out on my debts) with my eventual salary, not some theoretical benefit amounts that I never see.

Even fewer intelligent, thoughtful young people are going to be generous enough to go into a field that demanding for less money than teachers make now. Just saying....

Posted by: Millie at July 11, 2011 10:45 AM