Teacher. A noun. The word means “a person who educates.” Synonyms for the word teacher include these nouns: abecedary, advisor, coach, disciplinarian, educator, faculty member, guide, instructor, lecturer, mentor, pedagogue, scholar, trainer, and tutor.
Teach. A verb. The word means “to educate or instill knowledge.” Synonyms for teach include these verbs: advise, break in, brief, catechize, coach, communicate, demonstrate, develop, direct, discipline, drill, edify, enlighten, exercise, explain, expound, form, give instruction, ground, guide, illustrate, imbue, impart, implant, improve mind, inculcate, indoctrinate, inform, initiate, instruct, interpret, lecture, nurture, open eyes, pound into, prepare, profess, read, sharpen, show, train, tutor.
Today there is a shortage of people who want to be teachers. There is even a more critical shortage of people who can teach.
“Currently, there are not enough qualified teachers applying for teaching jobs to meet the demand in all locations and fields,” said the Learning Policy Institute, a national education think tank, in a research brief in September (2017). The institute estimated last year that if trends continue, there could be a nationwide shortfall of 112,000 teachers by 2018.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/health/teacher-shortage-data-trnd/index.html
The scarcity of teachers has caused a variety of responses by school district and state educational leaders. Substitute teachers are the first local school district response. When a licensed teacher cannot be found for a classroom assignment in September, substitute teachers become classroom teachers. Daily subs are hired to be short-term subs, short-term subs are stretched into long-term subs and long-term subs become year-long teachers. Another local response is to drop courses. If the course is elective and and not required by statute or local promotion or graduation requirements and there is no teacher, then the course is removed from the daily schedule of classes. Or, classes without teachers are combined with classes with teachers. Class sizes are increased with the apology that “at least the course is not dropped.” These are local responses. They do not address the underlying issue that there are not enough qualified, trained, licensed teachers. These responses only meet the daily needs when the school bell rings.
State educational leaders take a different tack. In Wisconsin, the legislature is liberalizing the professional preparation requirements for classroom teachers. Traditional teacher preparation is part of a baccalaureate degree program, often in the liberal arts. A baccalaureate teacher prep program requires an academic major, statutory courses in human relations, cultural sensitivity, conflict resolution, and working with students challenged with disability or disadvantage, teaching methodology and instructional design courses, and a semester of student teaching. A baccalaureate typically is a four-year endeavor. For a variety of reasons, including low career salary status and decreasing esteem for public employees, fewer college students select education as their career choice.
The Wisconsin legislature has created alternative “pathways” to classroom teaching. A new pathway, for example, connects academic-based vocations to public education teaching. The connection: schools teach math and science and technologies and there are non-educational careers that significantly apply math, science and technologies. The concept is that a person trained as an engineer, almost any field of “engineering,” applies concepts of mathematics and science. Hence, this person can be a math or a science teacher. A person trained and working in laboratory or field sciences can become a science teacher. A degree in computer science is a pathway to teaching mathematics and computer applications instruction.
Pathway requirements include a baccalaureate degree in a math or science-related field, five years of verified work experience in a math or science related job, and 100 hours of training in “modern curricular applications” in math or science. With the exception of the 100 hours of training, a would-be-teacher does not not need any further education or preparation to be a teacher.
Liberalization assures several important attributes of teaching and reduces others. Specifically, liberalization values content knowledge and disciplinary skills sets and devalues trained teaching skills.
The issue is this: We are improving the quantity of people willing to be the noun “teacher,” but not giving equal attention to the quality of the verb “to teach.”
I have observed persons who love mathematics and are very successful students of mathematics. They thrive on the challenge of understanding mathematical concepts, solving math problems and frequently choose to extend their math learning beyond a high school math curricula. When the rest of use “hit the math wall” in Pre-Calc, these math wizards breezed on through. They major in mathematics in college, because they are mathematicians. However, these same persons frequently are fully incapable of teaching another person to understand math concepts and solve math problems. They frown when a person they are trying to teach says, “I don’t understand.” When mathematics comes so easily to a mathematician, they often cannot comprehend why it is difficult for others.
I hear mathematicians telling non-mathematicians, “Let’s do it again.” “Do these problems tonight for your homework.” “Do what I do.” “Copy this down.” “Memorize this.”
I hear science majors explaining the scientific method to science-shy students who do not reason deductively.
Mathematicians, lab and field scientists, and computer scientists achieved their degrees and employment based upon their learned knowledge and skill sets, not their ability to teach others to be mathematicians or scientists.
This said, 100 hours of “modern curricular applications” may provide the label of teacher but will not prepare a person to teach. Pedagogy did not achieve “-ogy” status because it could be learned in two and a half weeks time. It is an “-ogy” because it is based upon the theories and practices that influence a person to learn. Pedagogy that works for one student may not work for another. Pedagogy that works for unchallenged students may not work for challenged students. Pedagogy that works for motivated students may not work for unmotivated students. Teaching methodologies and instructional designs are learned and developed over time and they are the heart of the verb teach.
It is very likely that a shortage of teachers will be the new status quo. It will take solutions far beyond licensing pathways to make teaching a career of choice. A shortage of numbers however is not a reason for accepting teachers who cannot teach.
The focus of finding teachers must be on finding people who can teach.