REPA III – Deprofessionalizing Education
ON BEING A PROFESSIONAL
This weekend Anthony Cody posted the following video on his new blog site…
The three minute talk by Visiting Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Howard University, Denisha Jones, speaks right to the heart of the matter of allowing (or encouraging) people to walk into public school classrooms unprepared.
Dr. Jones (Ph.D in Curriculum and Instruction from Indiana University) focuses her comments on the 5-week TFA (Teach For Awhile?) training program which places minimally trained college graduates in public school classrooms. In its early years, TFA aimed to fill unfilled positions in low income neighborhood schools. Now it’s also being used to replace laid off teachers with cheap temps in school districts around the nation.
On the other hand, REPA III, which was adopted last week by the Indiana State Board or Education, doesn’t even require 5 weeks of pedagogical training before you can be hired to teach in one of Indiana’s high schools. You have to be well trained or experienced in your subject area, but developing the skills needed to transfer knowledge and develop understanding to the students in your classroom is apparently not necessary. If an unlucky high school does hire you to teach, only then do you have to start your training in pedagogy. You can “learn how to teach” from…
…school-based professional development, college or university-based course work or professional development, an entity that is not an institution of higher education, or a professional education organization
This pedagogical training must start within the first month you enter the classroom. The seven members of the State Board of Education who voted for REPA III apparently believe that you can 1) make it through the first month in a high school classroom without any knowledge of how teaching actually works or 2) learn how to teach instantly once you are exposed to “pedagogy training.”REPA III – Deprofessionalizing Education | Live Long and Prosper: