In April of 2009, I took the content test for all science. This one test covered physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, and environmental systems. I worked for an entire month for 40 hours a week to study for a test that was quite challenging. The chemistry part was not what I was worried about, the physics and the biology were where I spent the most time. I had not had algebra based physics since high school, as the physics I took in college was all calculus based. Biology was never my strong point, so I had to learn the entire subject over again. The last time I opened the biology text book was 9th grade. Still, I studied and took the test. A few days later when I received the score I was delighted to see that I had scored what amounted to an A on the test. I showed those numbers with pride in each interview that I attended. What I found was that the only thing that matters was that I passed. Mastery of specific content was not important.
I took this test really seriously and studied my butt off for it. It was after I got into education that I really started to understand the process. A great example of this process was two math teachers that work at my school. One math teacher took the test and did quite well. The other teacher took it 9 times before passing. This highlights one of the fundamental problems of education. We have teachers out there that are not suited for the job. This concerns me in several ways. The first way is that any teacher that struggles with the content cannot be a good teacher of the material. The second way is that a school would allow a teacher to serve for this long knowing that they struggle with passing a content test. I understand that things happen, and that for some people the first test goes wrong because they prepared wrong, but wrong 9 times is just saying to me that the teacher should not be in that subject. How can I defend an institution that allows this to happen? How can I sit there and ask people to stand up for education when we have teachers that are not qualified to teach the content?
ANAR has an entire section devoted to teachers and what the requirements should be. In the report it states that "Persons preparing to teach should be required to meet high educational standards, to demonstrate an aptitude for teaching, and to demonstrate competence in an academic discipline. Colleges and universities offering teacher preparation programs should be judged by how well their graduates meet these criteria." This small statement says a lot. Content knowledge is important. I came in without any sort of education degree. This gives me an advantage, but it also gives me a slight disadvantage as I lose out on some of the more important theory. I got a crash course in education, and while it is not perfect, I really work hard to try and make myself better every day.
This week I have stated that I am looking at only solutions that we could make now to help promote a better education system. The solution to this is simple. We need to limit the number of times that people can take the test. In Oklahoma, there is a three test limit and then you are banned from taking that test. We need to have people show that they are qualified to teach a subject. We need to show that as teachers that we are willing to participate in professional development. I am required to attend training every year. I attended two weeks of training last summer, and am committed to keep going to push myself to be the best I can at my job. I would also call on universities and colleges everywhere to work with teachers to provide advanced study in their disciplines. Masters degrees in their content area should be prized above all others. We as teachers need to have a passion for our content area and for teaching. As teachers it is our job to increase the knowledge of each student that comes through the door. If we struggle with our content area can we actually do that?
Until tomorrow,
"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."
-- John Cotton Dana
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