Additionally, many professions pay better than being a teacher, and unfortunately, that includes package handling for FedEx and UPS (just drove by a sign promising $24/hour starting) in some areas.
Additionally, many professions pay better than being a teacher, and unfortunately, that includes package handling for FedEx and UPS (just drove by a sign promising $24/hour starting) in some areas.
Thank you for saying this. I am/was a high school math teacher and this was always the biggest problem when we got students in. The teachers at lower levels just don't understand it well enough to teach it. And, sadly, the same can even be said to be true for some of my coworkers. Our calculus teacher hasn't retired yet because there's nobody she trusts enough in the math department to understand pre-cal/calculus well enough to teach it (I'm on a leave of absence and have switched to the science department, though I've been asked by her and admin to teach those if I return).
To me, common core math makes perfect sense. It's how I do math in my head. But it's also because I feel like I understand math. If I'm subtracting 26 from something, I'm going to subtract 30 and add back 4. It's just quicker and simpler. That's what I've seen parents struggling with, and even teachers struggle with it too! Because they don't get how numbers work. It's really frustrating and harms the kids. I wish I could overhaul how elementary school teachers are trained as in my state they're not even required to do well in math, or take any upper level math courses, before teaching math.
We need teachers who have trained in those areas, and then wanted to become teachers. And it needs to go all the way up through middle and high schools, but I truly think the focus should be on primary first. It's why we get so many kids who don't understand multiplication when they get to high school, let alone division -- their teachers don't either and they just give them calculators at a young age! And it all boils down to how teachers themselves are trained.
Back to math at the school I taught at, there are two there who understand it. Funnily enough, they both came out of retirement to teach again (one has been doing it for 15 years, and the other just retired from her VP job a few years ago), and they're related. The older one married the younger one's uncle. It's funny how it stays in the family. The younger one's dad was also a math/chem/physics teacher, and was an amazing teacher until he just got too old. They were the only teachers I know or had at that school when I was there who truly knew math, and it showed in how they taught and the general outcomes of their students -- A "C" student in the accelerated algebra II class made an easy "A" on college algebra when they got there two years later, simply because it had been imparted to them that well.
Is that the reason? Or because they've been told to "do it the right way"?
In California, teachers' retirement benefits include defined-benefit pensions, with some inflation-protection. They also don't work the same hours as package handlers. Total pay+benefits for teachers in SF is about 50% higher than base salary.[0]
[0] https://transparentcalifornia.com/download/salaries/school-d...
A middle school algebra teacher should of course understand middle school algebra. This is not an unreasonable expectation for a job that requires a college education. If a teacher lacks the ability to master middle-school algebra, how on earth did he get into college?
Me and all of my friends were thaught the fundamentals of algebra & trigonomatry (admittedly not calculus) at 13 years old. I had no idea the wasn't the case in the US and it honestly kind of blows my mind.
7: Algebra I
8: Algebra II
9: Geometry
10: Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus
11: Calculus
12: Calculus-based Physics
8: Algebra I 9: Algebra II 10: Geometry 11: Trigonometry 12: Pre-calculus
Advanced class was -1 year. This was Upstate New York 90s/00s. Though I guess to be more specific these courses were actually combination. So it was 3 years of mixed algebra/geometry/trigonometry. Math A, B I think New York called it. Until Pre-calculus Which was actually year and a half courses of mixed topics.
The first level of math acceleration moves that high school progression up a year and has seniors taking calc 1 (limits/derivates & single variable integrals. The second level of acceleration has calc 1 in 11th grade and calc 2 (multi-variable) in 12th grade.
There are a handful of schools, mostly private, that move faster or have more diverse math curriculum offerings, but this is the most common.
So, when do American kids his algebra?
Standard curriculum: 9th grade, ~14yo
It's that a teacher which did not master high school and college math is not necessarily a good candidate to teach high school or advanced middle school math, and it absolutely occurs when the primary focus of the teacher's college career was teaching and not Math or another STEM field.
The model in the US seems to have become that the Teaching degree is the most important degree for a public school teacher regardless of the subject that is going to be taught. At some point that breaks down in a big way in the STEM fields in the range of middle or high school. Certainly you are not going to be taught Math at the College level by someone who does not have a Math degree. But in public school they've decided at some point that a math teacher doesn't need to have a math degree.
For anything pre-high school that would seem sort of overkill. A "good" teacher in the earlier grades is more of a function of how well they work with children.
Yes. Exactly.
> If a teacher lacks the ability to master middle-school algebra, how on earth did he get into college?
Knowing a subject well enough to pass a class or pass a test is not the same as knowing it well enough to teach. STEM in schools is a real problem because, well, non-education jobs pay 3-5x what teaching jobs do for math, CS, and robotic.
By eliminating all testing and objective standards.
The other problem you alluded to is that if they do understand well enough to teach it and teach it well, there’s a good chance there’s an engineering position they can get instead.