Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!masnet!rose!david.lloyd-jones
From: david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp (DAVID LLOYD-JONES)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Distribution: world
Subject:  Math teaching
Message-ID: <19176214446b281af75c@rose.uucp>
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 91  9:25:00 EST
Organization: Rose Media, ON, CANADA
Lines: 61

Replying to : hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
>
>
>> I think you'll find that the majority of primary and secondary school
>> math teachers do not get their math education from a college's math
>> department in "regular" math courses but either from a regular college's
>> math department's special math courses for wannabes, OR from the math
>> departments of teachers colleges!!  :-(
....
      .....
>The situation is even far worse than this.  The "regular" math courses have
>also declined; even in a good school, the mathematics (or physics, or
>chemistry, or whatever) department cannot really maintain standards.
.....
       .....

>is bad, while an A in a course with 1% of the content is good.  As long as the
>current grade-credit system is being used as information to others, this state
>will continue.
>
>I have argued for change, not merely in these groups.
>


                                       * * *

OK, all true.  But *why* is this?  It is this way because the people who
enjoy math, chemistry, physics, etc. find the best jobs available for their
interests are in industry.

No amount of change in the courses offered in teachers' colleges will change
this fact.  And as long as the best jobs are in industry, the best people will
head up the lines of candidates there.

The change that is needed is a change in the candidate pool applying for
jobs in education, and there is only one way you're going to get that:
offer money.

You'll hear some talk about how we need more respect for teachers, more
acknowlegement of their professionalism, etc. et bloody cetera.  Fact is
all of this comes with money.

When you get people leaving jobs in advertising, securities analysis,
accountancy and so on, to compete for jobs in teaching, then the problem
will be solved.

                                         * * *

Now to the real dismal news: as women find more opportunities in industry,
amny of the better ones will no longer be available to enrich the teacher
candidate pool.  You think things are bad now?  Just wait til you see what
a generation of fair employment opportunity does for education!

                                                 -dlj.



---