6 months and qualified to teach kids?

[Gazza77]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Or maybe just takes a teacher with an interest in a subject!

There's the key, irrespective of age or experience. Someone with no interest in a subject will never inspire someone else to learn it.

You old bunch. Life wasn't always better in the past.

There's got to be a large element of crowd control too. Can be as knowleadgeble in your subject as you like but if you can't put it across, last year's 6th former might do a better job. (IMHO)

Not entirely sure that can be taught any more effectively in 6months than it could in 6 years..

Spent 10mins yesterday showing a 16 year old how to add up without a calculator. Scarey.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Gazza77

There's the key, irrespective of age or experience. Someone with no interest in a subject will never inspire someone else to learn it.

Conversely, someone with no interest in the subject will never be persuaded to learn it.

I have never understood the logic of forcing kids to attend classes that are irrelevant to their hopes/aspirations. In my case my lad who had learning difficulties was frequently excluded for being disruptive in French. I am not surprised was my reply when summoned to school. He cannot read bloody English why waste yours/his time trying to teach him French.

[Messie]

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

Forget Dolly the Sheep - we need to clone Messie

Then we can deploy the Messie Teacer army to educate the children of the nation.

We will, however outsource the spelling.............

Lol OK!

TBH I think 6 months training is sufficient; I say this because almost all of the one year training courses (PGCE, GTTP, SCITT) include a lot of stuff that is irrelevant. Outstanding teaching is an art and is mainly due to enthusiasm and personality (and at secondary school a high level of subject knowledge).Primary school teachers need more child development knowledge than high level subject knowledge, and probably for them the 3 or 4 year BeD degree is more suitable. Teacher training courses spend a lot of time telling you how to fill in the forms, tick the right boxes and understand new initiatives. Good teaching comes from being in the classroom, much like good riding comes from doing the miles not passing the test. Sense of hunour and thick skin are the essential qualities

But I'm not sure about all these newly redundant people suddenly becoming teachers. As a training school we have many people from industry or business who think they know all about the 'real' world and will therefore be brilliant in the classroom. Far too many of them run away screaming within a few weeks with the ironic comments that school's are nothing like the real world! No S*** Sherlock!

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

First question, would you be tempted given the current worries about finding jobs?

No, I've been offered a teaching job with zero training/preparation before, and I turned it down.

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

Second question, as a parent would you be happy having your children taught by someone who's only been in the business 6 months, would you consider them properly qualified? Or would it not bother you as long as they got the syllabus across and got your child through school...?

That depends on the teacher. I can't say I disapprove of this fast tracking, it'll provide people to much needed schools. The system just needs to be careful about who they employ.

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

Is teaching even a serious career option anymore if you're able to just walk in and take it up?

IMO, yes, it's still a serious career option, and not one to be looked at lightly.

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

The problem doesn't stay in school though, the lecturing standards are slipping at uni also. I'm in my third and last year and I can safely say the lecturing is getting to the point I'd rather not turn up and just read in my own time. The difficulty now is finding well-educated people to pass the baton so to speak. We have some damn clever people at uni but that certainly doesn't mean they automatically have the ability to teach based on their brainpower.

Funny you should say that.

I'm helping a friend of mine, who is actually studying at the place I stated above offered me a job, and she's doing the course that I would of been teaching if I'd accepted.

According to her, I'm able to pass more information on to her, in a way she can understand, via MSN in one evening than her lecturers have been able to in the last term. She's literally gone from knowing nothing about programming (in either C or Java) to being able to write simple applications in one day!

There's another lad doing the same course as her, that always likes to boast about what he knows & generally put the other students down. So I take every opportunity to knock him down a couple of pegs.

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

I think it is ridiculous in today's day and age that there is so much illiteracy in this country. We are meant to be one of the most forward countries in the world yet our teenagers can't read?

Whatever the problem, it needs to be addressed. If these kids can't read, write or count, how are they meant to find jobs?

It's not so much a matter of teenagers not being able to read but more to do with how much later they are learning these skills. Reading is a skill that should be second nature by the time kids hit teenage years, so more important skills can be devloped to prepare them for later life. It is indeed very worrying that reading is being neglected, even spelling should be a fundamental skill these days but I guess that's more easily overlooked

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

It's not so much a matter of teenagers not being able to read but more to do with how much later they are learning these skills. Reading is a skill that should be second nature by the time kids hit teenage years, so more important skills can be devloped to prepare them for later life. It is indeed very worrying that reading is being neglected, even spelling should be a fundamental skill these days but I guess that's more easily overlooked

It's not just reading though, it's all the basic skills that should be gettin taught in the first few years of schooling. Numerousy isn't good either.

I'm not blaming the teachers, they have thankless job but something needs to be done, sooner rather than later.

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

It's not just reading though, it's all the basic skills that should be gettin taught in the first few years of schooling. Numeracy isn't good either.

What was I saying about spelling skills? (only kidding Milky)

Yeah, yeah! Fair point!!

More speed, less haste!