Does your state require teachers to be licensed and certified to teach kids? Does that apply only to public schools or to private schools as well?

In Florida, they are pretty strict about licenses, degrees and certifications. For public and private schools.

LOL

I'm almost certain Texas doesn't require private school teachers to be certified.

But that's good to know about Florida.

It's pretty strict in Colorado.

You essentially need a 4 year degree plus another year of teacher school to get licensed, plus there is an annual continuing education requirement. Half the teachers in my daughters middle school have masters degrees, and at least one has his doctorate.

You actually need a 4 year degree just to home school in this state.

After somebody spends 4 years or more learning their specialty in college combined with hands on application along the way and afterwards, they're pretty much qualified to perform in their specialty area, and continue to develop their skills as they work. Some stupid certification exam administered by the State certainly doesn't make them 'better' at what they do...it just gives the government more control and revenue in the forms of licenses and fees.

You do in NC and don't even get me started on what a BS bureaucratic dog and pony show the licensing is in this state.

It is strictly a money and government make work program for the education "professionals"

That's crazy.

A person can be an expert in a field but not be able to teach it. Often times they can't pass on their knowledge in a manner that the students can absorb. Certified teachers have expertise in how to teach what they know. (Needless to say, not all of them really have the expertise that they were trained to have. )

You can plug any number of govt institutions into that proclamation.

You need a cert in Pa in public schools. Its not required in private schools, pretty sure anyway.

Yep, you can thank the teachers unions for the little diddy.

Wonder how many home school "teachers" can teach calculus?

Even for substitutes at schools for delinquent youth?

TRH? help us out here.

I have a good friend who has a B.S. in Spanish,a Master Degree in English and a Law Degree. He had to go back to college for another year to take courses to get a "Teaching Certificate".

To add to your excellent post, any good teacher is forever a good student, and most will probably learn more in their first couple of years teaching than they learned in formal 'education' schooling.

Well I am Certified to teach people to fly singe and multi engine airplanes , helicopters, instruments in both airplanes and helicopters and unlike teachers in the schools public or private, the FAA will have a serious chat with me if I have a failure rate of more that two out of ten check rides, same for written exams! Oh and if a student while a student pilot has an accident or breaks an FAR its not him or her the FAA goes after its the Flight Instructor that has his or her signature in his logbook and student pilot certificate, The FAA dose not play games with it or let things slide either, like public school where a kid can go 12 years graduate and be not able to read or even do simple math, I would be accountable were they never are!

Wonder how many public school teachers can teach calculus?

If they really care about their students, the answer should be the same for both... Only the people qualified will try to teach it. And if they're not qualified to teach it they'll find someone who is, which is easy enough to do in either setting.

Folks who I'd consider qualified to teach calculus aren't quite so easy to come by.

I didn't realize the slope of a line and area under a curve got so much respect!

I'm thinking more along the lines of high school teachers who can precisely define continuity and uniform continuity, convergence and uniform convergence, produce and precisely explain examples illustrating the differences between the "plain" and uniform versions of these concepts, and do so off the cuff.

That's just for starters.

Calculus can change the way a person thinks, and that's why it receives so much respect (IMO).

Locally, there are four large universities within an hour of the house and at least one offers dual credit to high school students taking core classes such as math, English and such.

It's probably easier to find teachers and tutors here than a lot of places.

My wife was certified and she taught in Christian schools for 25 years. One of her duties for a long time was to test incoming students from home schools to determine where to place them in classes. After years of that, she knew one thing for sure...there were really good home schools and really bad ones. Most of the kids were placed ahead of their age group but some had to be held back. She had one classic - a 4th grade girl whose mother couldn't add 2+2. Mom couldn't do math so she just skipped it entirely. The girl was supposedly in the 4th grade and didn't even know her numbers. They had to get her a tutor for a year to bring her up to speed.

Probably the same percentage of educators that tried to teach me calculus. Which was 2 out of 4. For you homeschoolers that would be 50%.

Calculus taught me that a long derivation of screwing with someone was more satisfying and likely more effective than guessing.

Yep, ...and some really, really bad ones.....

I've met a functionally illiterate 14 year-old home school kid, it weren't pretty. The single mom was a fundamentalist Christian, and not very bright, between the mom and the aunt the kid was hardly ever permitted out of the home. For better or worse I expect that girl has run away by now, that was her intent.

Birdwatcher

...OTOH, I too have seen some really-well educated and well-adjusted ones. Often home school parents will mainstream their kid into high school at the ninth grade.

A good strategy IMHO.

The kiss of death for a homeschool kid is a parent that wants their kid "above level". They blow through subject material so quickly that they gain no understanding of the material, and the parents have blinders on about how little the kid actually knows compared to peers in a public/private school.

IMO, the best of both worlds is kids in public/private school with very active parents at home participating in the education.

In New York, where I first got State certified to teach high school social studies, we were required to have a Master's Degree and take two certification tests, one being general teaching and the other social studies specific (I didn't study a lick for either test, and scored near the top on both). Florida is more lax in their requirements, not mandating a Master's Degree.

I will relate a bit of what I have run into with the licensed "professional" educators. After the university I was teaching at phased out my position as an adjunct instructor of History I began looking at transitioning into teaching high school.

I spoke with one lady (early 30's) who is in charge of hiring teachers for a local school district. She went on and on about how one must be "highly qualified" in the content area. "Highly qualified" according to her guidelines means at least 18 hours in the content area plus all the 47 credit hours of education classes for things like maintaining a grade book and developing lesson plans, etc.

There was also the "positive student teaching experience." She was concerned that I didn't have enough experience in such things.

I only have an AA degree in education, a BA degree in History (48 credit hours in American History and 30 hours in European and Asian History) with minors in political science and religion, an MA in History (37 graduate credit hours) plus 16 post graduate hours in History at the doctoral level.

I also completed all of this course work with grades in the top 1% of my classes.

I also have 4 years of teaching experience at the university level where I did everything from designing the course, selecting and ordering the texts, preparing and delivering the lectures, assessing the student performance, handling all the required paper work for FERPA and NCAA compliance, and helping the students who were having difficulty in the classes.


In addition I also worked 2 years as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

But I didn't have that silly little teaching license so there is no way I could possibly teach History at the high school level in her district.

In AR you need a 4 year degree ( it differs in emphasis areas by college). When I graduated 10 years ago there was a written exam (Praxis-2) in your certification area. Someone with a license could theoretically take the Praxis exam in any area and teach any subject. I took only the History section. No one wants me teaching their kid math or science. Sometime during the first two years there was (and still is though some tweaks have been made since then) a practical in class exam (Praxis-3). Arkansas has a separate avenue called Non Traditional Licensure. If someone holds a bachelors degree in a subject area with no education classes, he/she can take the praxis -2 exam in their subject and begin teaching at any time upon passage of the exam. There is then a one or two year series of Saturday classes (once or twice a month) covering the education classes that were missed. My alma mater, University of Central arkansas began in 1907 as a teacher training school, and does , what is in my opinion, the best job of turning out teachers. Instead of NTL, UCA offers what is called a Mastees of Arts in Teaching. Someone holding a bachelors in a subject area can then get their masters instead of the non traditional licensure program.

Some colleges go about their teacher programs in a very inefficient manner. At UCA I was able to get a degree in Secondary Social Studies education with a minor for a coaching license ( did require a praxis in PE no biggie).

Have a friend that wanted the same thing from arkansas Tech. Was forced to get a degree in PE and Health education with a minor in coaching and a second minor in social studies. Obviously a minor in social studies to gain enough hours to teach it is far more hours than a minor to coach.

From everything I have heard UA in Fayetnam pretty much requires their teaching candidates to earn their masters before they will certify them for their license. Not that a masters is a bad thing but just to start in the classroom, but in my opinion just inefficient and a grab for more tuition.

As for home school I don't think a degree is required. It is not uncommon for a parent of a student that is about to be suspended or expelled to "just homeschool em." Interesting to say the least. I will say however that the vast majority of homeschool students I meet are very well on their way to college and ahead of many of their peers. I had the privilege to teach two of five siblings that were homeschooled until 7th grade and then were sent to public for 8th grade and chose whether they wanted to stay public or back to homeschool for 9-12. The two I had in my AP WH class did very well. The youngest of the family is currently playing Div 2 WBB.

I'm thinking my youngest's math teacher may be able to fulfill those qualifications. But it's over my head to determine such.

I love basic math, but I have a real admiration for you folks that can do the higher math, you're either gifted with cognitive abilities I don't possess or never developed fully.


regardless I'm thankful for folks like you in those disciplines.

I see what you did there
and it made me ROR


and yes we homeschooled our daughter for awhile

Yes and if you want the good jobs and mo' money you will have your Masters as my sister does. Although, it came from Clemson!

The success of a homeschool situation reset squarely on the parent in charge. A profession's wife can have great success. Load the kids in the Volvo and head out on a field trip to the museum, etc. But a woman who home schools her kids because she is too lazy to get the kids up and ready for the bus will have another outcome entirely. I have seen both types.

We had a kid move in while in 7th grade who did not show up in 8th, but the kids at school said she was still there. We checked and the story came out. She had gone to visit family during summer break and came home pregnant by a cousin. Mom was too embarrassed to send her to school. The staff collected the money necessary for her to home school.

Another family used some kind of home school curriculum that would have prepared their kids well for a 19th century farming career. The kids liked to brag about how superior their education was. When I found out their ACT scores, it was hard not to laugh. Both my kids had really outscored the home schoolers, even when my son was just coasting in high school.

And therein lies the problem. The notion that some classes that experienced teachers will tell new teachers to immediately forget automatically qualify someone to teach!

Yes in ID.

You need a Bachelors degree along with being certified as having gone through teaching program and passed the Praxis for the area they want to teach in. The certificate portion (and most important part) is where prospective teachers put in their student teaching time in a real classroom.

But recently, ID is facing a teacher shortage due to paying lower than neighboring states. In some cases ID schools are hiring people to teach who need to take classes concurrently with teaching. This is mostly at the secondary level. I've talked with people who were hired and have no experience with teaching. Not a good deal.

There is a group who think that anyone can walk into a classroom and teach. The same group also thinks that certified teachers are absolutely ineffective. From my 38 years as a classroom teacher, I can say that it is not the knowledge that a teacher possesses that counts most, but it is the ability to pass that information on to the students that is most important. I worked with a few teachers whose scores on state tests were marginal but who were very effective teachers. I think they better understood the struggles of the students and went the extra mile to help the kids.

Classroom management is something that is of utmost importance in teacher success. In my opinion the tow things that teachers must possess, but often don't, are a love of learning and a love for their students. Some teachers think of students as little robots waiting to be programmed.

+1000

I have seen the same things among those I have taught with for the past 10 years. It is also painfully evident in college professors (some, not all) that have tons of content knowledge but can't convey simple concepts. The best teachers have no problem with their students understanding exactly how much they care about them!!

Noting your tendency to point out exact wording, I noticed you didn't claim to actually have a Florida certification/license.

Hmmm

Do substitute teachers in Florida need a certification/license?

Or a pulse?

Exactly!!

People who equate ability to DO a task with ability to TEACH it to others are fools. Unless the student is themselves a savant, they will learn much more, much faster, from someone with a quarter the ability but 4 times the ability to teach than from the master of the skill who cannot teach.

BTDT way too many times.

Tom

I agree completely. But I'd add that it also holds true for kids in any school setting. No matter how good or educated or certified the teacher, many kids are doomed from the start because of the awful parents they have.

That is true. When we had a parent conference night, I usually only had the parents of the students who were doing well. Rarely did the parents of a weak student show up.

Randy, if it is Hannibal then you are right. Hannibal has published with both John Conway and Paul Erdos.

95% of his students and that is two sections of 35 students get 5s on the AP AB Calculus test and have done so for the last 10 years.
His Math Madness team made the finals out of the top 256 high schools both public and private in the US.

Toni Hawkins also has a very high pass rate for BC Calculus.

In NJ, public must be licensed. Privates can do as they wish in that regard.

Home schoolers need not be licensed as far as I am aware, but they have to show evidence that they are following a curriculum. Lots of great resources for home schooling now.

Thomas, I'm pretty happy with the quality of teachers our lil district has within it.

Not all of them are A + teachers, but we've many that are along with very many good B type teachers

it's a source of pride living in this community that we have so many dedicated and professional teachers.

count you as one of them sir, appreciate what you do for our community

Y'all nailed it.

Regarding knowledge of a subject versus being able to teach it, paradoxically, it often happens that the 'smarter' people have a tougher time transmitting that knowledge to the lesser gifted. This seems particularly true when dealing with High school students as opposed to advanced college classes. Perhaps they find the subject too 'easy' and can't fathom why others can't do likewise.

kilik's observation was spot on in my experience. While one certainly must have adequate knowledge of their subject matter, personally, I would've been much further ahead had I been required to complete more student teaching before graduating. I knew several students who spent nearly four years of college (and the money that entails) only to discover after a semester of student teaching that they made a big mistake. They never went on to teach. Although, it makes you question what made them think they wanted to teach in the first place!?

do homskoolers actually get a lesson?
I thought they just sucked on pb&j and watched blues clues while mommy plays on facebook and sells soiled panties on craigslist

My MIL was a concert pianist that had her career interrupted by WWII prior to traveling to Paris for study with Felix Fox, a noted classical piano teacher, who had to flee the Nazis. She then set up her own piano school in San Francisco. She then attended San Jose State University, earning a B.A. in education and a teaching credential, thereafter she taught elementary school. She went on receive a M.A. at Stanford University and an Administrative Credential. She continued her education until her health declined and she retired. She was the finest individual I had the pleasure of knowing, I considered her my second mother. Many of her former students I met always remembered her fondly. My second in command at work said she had taught him to read in First Grade, and he was forever grateful for her patience and kindness.

My wife attended San Jose State and completed a B.A. majoring in English and American Literature. She could also read and speak French as her grandparents were Flemish, speaking both Flemish and French at home. She received a Lifetime Teaching Credential, however she couldn't land a teaching job as the push was on for affirmative action hiring. Yet she went on to other fields, working in the county Training Division where she became noted for helping employees refine their skills in reading and math in preparation for promotional exams. She has been referred to as a Bodhisattva, by one who should know of such things, for her enlightened compassion and selfless devotion to teaching through word and action. Living with her is always a challenge, for she knows my mind before I do - spooky. What I learned is that such women are the foundation of civilization lest men remain grunting louts bent on mischief.

I on the other hand am an outlier. I am an observer, watching that which is mankind being deluded and misleading himself. I loved school up to high school, when I awakened to reality. Thereafter I became self-educated. I flunked high school, and went to work. Later I attended college classes, earned a 4.0 GPA, three licenses in environmental engineering fields, and enjoyed the doing. Learning is life's desert, similar to the dirty job of shucking oysters only to find a perfect pearl. I learned that performing a job, no matter how menial or low, to perfection is our highest accomplishment. My horse stalls were always clean and banked. My horses were always perfectly groomed, turned to living art. This is what I learned:

Everyone we meet, everyone we work with, everything we do, all of life's experiences, both the good and bad, are our teachers. We learn of ourselves, our weaknesses and strengths, what brings us joy and pain, and who is learning and who is teaching. It all boils down to us, for it all happens inside our mind, we are the teacher and the student. Let not one day pass without learning something new, about ourselves and how our ego interferes with our objectivity to change ourselves. We ultimately learn our world and ourselves are one great becoming, and that skill in living a righteous life is the path to eternal joy. Of course, it helps to have a few stealth masters, and a Bodhisattva or two, to cajole us into sticking to the path.