On Education Challenges

By now, most of my loyal readers probably know that I teach college math for a living.  You probably also know that I'm currently going back to school to earn my Ph.D. (with the intent of landing a full-time, tenure track job upon acquisition of those three all-important letters to stick on the end of my name).  Finally, anyone that read the last couple of sentences probably knows that I've got a lot to say on education, even if I usually don't breach the subject on my blog.

 That's about to change.

You see, back when I was in high school, I think around 10th or 11th grade, I kept a notebook that was "things teachers ought to know about students".  At the time, I was planning on teaching high school mathematics and figured something like that would be useful for me to have down the road.  Unfortunately, I don't know where the notebook ended up, though there is some hope that it's still lurking in my old closet at my parents' house.  Anyhow, although I don't have the notebook, I've realized that it's the fact that I even thought to compile such a notebook that makes me a bit of a misfit in higher education.

Allow me to explain:

While I won't say the revelation is entirely new, the thought was crystallized this week when I was waiting between classes at grad school and fell into a conversation with a fellow student (we'll call her Rhonda).  Rhonda and I both desire to teach college math, but she is only interested earning a Master's degree so that she can teach at community colleges.  I did spend a few years teaching at a technical school, and while it was enjoyable, I think that I'm a better fit at a four year institution...but that's not the point.

After a twenty minutes or so of chatting, Rhonda said something that rang all-too-true:  "You've got to go through all of this bulls*** just to teach and yet none of what we do (in graduate classes) will help me in anything I'll end up teaching."

Now, I don't agree with the sentiment entirely (especially in my case since I plan to teach at a four-year institution), but the essence of the statement does ring true.  In an ironic move, if I flash backwards to the previous class that very day, my professor (when talking about the upcoming midterm) said the following:  "I haven't decided for sure, but I don't think I'm going to tell you anything specific about the midterm.  I want you to study everything.  That's how my midterms were when I was in school, so I think that's what I should do for you guys."

Hold the freakin' phone.

That aforementioned professor happens to be a great guy, and quite honestly, a pretty good teacher.  He's been great when it comes to answering homework questions and he even took time out of his day to help me with a talk I was giving at a different institution.  I'd go so far as to say he's one of the best instructors I've ever had at the graduate level...and yet, he still reverts back to the "it's how it was when I went through this, so it's how it'll be for you too" when push comes to shove (or when pushing comes to exams in this case).

...

While it feels good to vent a bit, and obviously the tale isn't complete, I figured it was time for a new poll.


I figured I'd take the pulse of the blog-o-sphere and go from there.  I know there are a few teachers out there who are also baseball card bloggers, but I also recognize that the combined audience is definitely less than the audience of either baseball card collectors or educators.  I also happen to know that there are a lot of people who do read education blogs - in fact, one of my oldest posts on this blog still shows up in my top 10 visited posts each month, that was my rant on Teacher vs. Athlete pay.