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James Turner

TEDCRED 10+

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All educational administrators, consultants, college professors must teach a class in a public school at least once a year to stay employed

Educational administrators, education professors, and educational consultants rarely if ever have current experience in the public school classroom. I am proposing that there be a requirement that this group of people be required to teach in the public school one class every year so that they can see the impact of the ideas they teach, the decisions they make, and the actions they are asking teachers to implement on a first hand basis. Not AP classes or gate classes but just the same classes as every other teacher gets to deal with on a daily basis.
My thought is that it will give them time to pause and rethink what they are doing with out the aide of Teaching Assistants, Administrative Assistants, or the ability to come present and leave.
I am asking the folks of the TED community to comment on , improve, or disprove this idea with out resort to such complaints of not enough time to do this and do the job. It can be a summer course to any grade level below college and any subject they are credentialed or trained in.

Topics: education leadership education revolution
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  • Robert Galway 20+

    • +1
    Sep 24 2011: I am not an educator,but it would seem like determining age-appropriateness of material might be a challenge.Having someone unfamiliar with the process, age appropriate expectation levels, adolescent behavior issues, and other aspects of being a teacher besides just subject matter might not be fair to students in class. The best teacher for the students may not be the best subject matter expert, but rather the best overall communicator of the defined course subject matter.

    Like the idea of further engagement however. Perhaps seeing them as guest lecturers, program volunteers or in some for of TED-liike lecture series for high school age kids would be a more viable option. A partnership with some industry people, such as professionals in the career area of interest to the students might also be very beneficial.

    Like the idea of engagement to gain insight into realities of teaching though.

  • Nicholas Thompson

    • 0
    Sep 24 2011: I like the idea of having college professors teach high school level classes, because from my experience college professors are often far better teachers then those we find at the high school level. But I don't know very many who have the time to teach an additional class, and I also don't like the idea of it being a requirement for employment, id much prefer the professors to receive some sort of incentive to teach these classes.

    What my question is though is would the professors teach a college style class with high school level material? (Ex. Less class time then a regular high school class but more homework) or would they just be a glorified substitute teacher? Id much prefer the first option because it would also expose the high school students to a class that emphasizes personal responsibility to learn and gives a taste for what college will be like.

    My only other concern would be that although it wouldn't be an "AP" or "Honors" class per se, only students that would be taking classes like that anyways would enroll, meaning it would leave a large chunk of students totally unaffected.
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      James Turner 10+

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      Sep 25 2011: Good questions. I am not thinking of all college professors but only of those who are so called education specialists that are supposed to be teaching teachers at all levels how to teach effectively. As to the second part no they would not be AP or honors classes but classes with regular kids that all teachers face every day. Kids with ADD, ADHD, bad homes, drug issues, disconnected parents, kids who want to go to college, kids who could care less about college, truant kids, kids who do not know where they are going as yet. Just an average class for these Education professors and administrators. Yes, that is the kinds of classes I face every day in public education with all those problems.
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