Trina

It's hard to get a teaching job here. My state (CT) requires teachers to get their Masters degree within 10 yrs. after earning their BS or they can't get recertified. New teachers fresh out of college have a mentor teacher and are observed and evaluated often.

hwnorth

I TOTALLY disagree with forced retirement.
Actually one of my best teachers EVER was in grade 6..and I thought he was about 175 years old then ... AWSOME man and Ive never forgotten his lessons.

Where I live there is a shortage of labor, especially skilled labor. to the point where you can pretty much name how much money you get... its not uncommon to see an electrician get $40/hr. I just paid $35/hr cash (under the table) for a drywaller.

PennQuaker09

I suppose the No Child Left Behind legislation can be considered both a good and bad thing. It's great because one pretty much has to major in an academic subject to become a teacher (if elementary ed, they major in elementary ed).

I double majored in chemistry and mathematics. I would have to say I'm more passionate about chemistry, but I love math nonetheless. Of all of the people that majored in chemistry in my class at Tulane, I am probably the only one crazy enough to become a teacher. I say that because Tulane's program is more about preparation for graduate education in chemistry or something related. A chemistry major is very BRUTAL. One of my lab exams basically consisted of the professor handing use (my partner and I) a vile of something unknown and we had to provide the molecular structure, chemical analysis, and the composition in addition to drawing it - whatever it was. Like people cried that day. I digress.

Someone mentioned the PRAXIS exams earlier. Depending on the state one lives in, they have to take certain PRAXIS exams in order to teach a specific subject. I've taken so many that I have personally lost count. I have to best honest, becoming a teacher in the present is not cheap. In order to get certified to teach both math and science, I had to take multiple exams. This is in addition to background checks and finger printing.

Before, NCLB all of the testing was not required. Sure, I think having some idea of a teachers' content knowledge is great, but one thing a test doesn't measure is one's passion and dedication to the profession. My dad is totally against me becoming a teacher. That wasn't in his plan for me, lol. But I had to explain to him, that my high school chemistry teacher helped mold my passion for the subject and I want to be able to do the same.

I put a lot of money into my education, but one of the main problems with the majority of school systems is that people simply don't want to fund their schools. I think taxes are one of the keys to improving our schools. The other would be more uniform standards across the entire country. The current administration seems to think that testing kids to death is good for education, but it's not. That is the fundamental flaw of that stupid law.

This is what teachers have to deal with now. Not only do we have to be highly qualified but we have to teach them a bunch of things for some arbitrary test.

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musicmom