I've taught a course entitled "Application of Math Teaching Principles into the Classroom" seven times for the Secondary School Teachers' Training Program
Being a parent of a junior high kid myself, I am deeply dissatisfied with the quality of our future teachers and the existing teacher education program in the non-teachers' universities as well.
I believe professional knowledge and a sense of mission are indispensable to a good teacher. Ideally, if future teachers are required to start taking general education courses while they are freshmen or sophomores, they can then focus on particular teaching skills in their junior and senior years, according to the subjects they are going to teach.
Such a systematic method would help students realize what teaching really is and might also eliminate those who are not really interested in the field and don't have a sense of mission, by forcing them to give up teaching at an early stage.
Teacher education programs rarely give future teachers a chance to take more practical courses until their junior or senior years. As a result, they have to finish 20 some units of the required teaching courses in the last one or two years at university and can easily get a teaching certificate after finishing their one-year practical training in a secondary school. How can we expect our future teachers to possess a great sense of mission if the current education system has failed to give them proper training?
My ideal training program for secondary school teachers would open up general education courses to all university freshmen and sophomores. Those who are really interested in teaching would continue their training in their third and fourth years and focus on more specific or more difficult courses. The total units required to obtain a teaching certificate should also be raised.
I believe that just like the Senior-grade Civil Service Examinations
Those that pass such an exam with high scores should be allocated -- through a public selection process -- a suitable post for their one-year teaching practicum in a public secondary school or any private schools that would like to join the process. Those who passed the exam but with lower scores would also obtain a teaching certificate, but they would be responsible for arranging their own practicum. Private schools would also be restricted to hiring only those who have passed the qualifying exam.
The grading policy for the teaching practicum should be regulated both by the universities that provide education programs and the schools where the teachers-in-training are working. Those who do not receive passing grades would have to start all over again, at another school, for another year. Failure to pass on the second attempt would result in automatic disqualified from becoming a secondary school teacher.
It goes without saying that there are many difficulties when secondary schools are selecting their practice teachers. I failed to be selected and therefore decided to pursue advanced studies abroad, eventually receiving my Ph.D.
But I question whether the existing selection model is really fair, since selection committee members can only judge candidates on their university grades and an hour-long teaching demonstration. In addition to the pressure to pick candidates with special backgrounds or connections, committee members usually judge applicants by their appearance or the fame of their universities.
There are good education programs and bad ones. A qualifying exam for teachers would also help weed out students from universities which don't take teacher education programs seriously -- thereby indirectly forcing all universities to enhance the quality of their programs.
Education is of vital and lasting importance. If new teachers cannot be fairly selected our education system can never be enhanced.
Hsiao Chih-ru is the chairman of the mathematics department at Soochow University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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