All Together Now

[kenm]

What upsets me the most is that it should not be 'chance' as to what the children receive by way of teaching when they go to school - but it should also not be 'chance' as to the training that student-teachers receive when they go to college - and, yes, they should have a certain level of literacy themselves before being accepted for training.

and numeracy?

Any teacher who wishes to have the freedom to design his/her own methods needs to understand what a randomized controlled trial is and how to assess the value of research evidence.

[Lesley Drake]

"Self-referential statements with a particular sort of internal contradiction are known as "Russell paradoxes"; e.g. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves".

Your point, Ken?

Sorry to have to ask you to spell it out for me, but I'm only a teacher.

My Russell quote was there to point out that just because someone is a brainiac in mathematics doesn't mean they aren't as "thick as a plank" in other areas.

Due to the fact that most whole language dinosaurs are Professors of Education, I'd have thought our teachers would be better off not doing MAs, thus avoiding their influence!

[Debbie Hepplewhite]

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/40 ... es-phonics

Here's a random US video about the effect of Direct Instruction on juveniles and, at the end of the video, on kindergarten children.

So, if the juveniles had received a better start to reading in the first place, what difference might it have made to them?

[kenm]

"Self-referential statements with a particular sort of internal contradiction are known as "Russell paradoxes"; e.g. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves".

Your point, Ken?

Sorry to have to ask you to spell it out for me, but I'm only a teacher.

My Russell quote was there to point out that just because someone is a brainiac in mathematics doesn't mean they aren't as "thick as a plank" in other areas.

My point can be deduced from yours: just because their convictions in other areas have been shown to be dubious doesn't mean that they are unable to make important contributions in the subject they understand. The original point stands: without exceptional pre-university teaching, such as few could afford and unobtainable within the state educational system, he would probably not even have made the latter.

Due to the fact that most whole language dinosaurs are Professors of Education,

I don't believe this, since dinosaur Professors are likely to be outnumbered in their Departments by dinosaur lecturers (= Assistant Professors in the US), and senior staff in such Education Departments by the yearly output of dynosaur graduates.

I'd have thought our teachers would be better off not doing MAs, thus avoiding their influence!

MAs in Education Departments run by dinosaur professors are a rather small fraction of all MAs. Not everything called "psychology" is scientific. Psychology, conducted as a scientific enquiry (which it can be) and neurophysiology have made and will continue to make useful discoveries in education. Teachers who obtain MAs in these subjects in well-run universities would at the very least be capable of understanding research papers.

[yvonne meyer]

The aspect of Finnish teacher training that impresses me the most is that trainee teachers are required to undertake their own evidence-based research project in order to graduate. Implementing their own evidence-based research teaches them the difference between evidence and snake oil.

Having an MA, or even a PhD for that matter, is of itself no confirmation of superior intelligence. There are plenty of Universities around the world which churn out degrees based purely on the student's ability to pay.

[Lesley Drake]

Thanks for your post Yvonne. It echoes what I was trying to get across about our teachers not being "less intelligent," but needing to be better trained.

And this of course is just one aspect of what should be looked at when considering how to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged children.

Schools do not operate in a vacuum. The issue of social integration needs to be addressed as well. This is why Jim's article is so on the ball.

PS: I was being flippant about Ed Professors!