Any Teachers on Slashdot? 105
Traxton1 asks: "I am a student in a community college, and I spent all day in a hiring committee for a new Computer Science faculty member. I was wondering if there are many teachers who hang around on Slashdot. One of the people we interviewed had a power point presentation that didn't display correctly, and he said it was because he was using Star Office. I was shocked that someone who wasn't in the tech sector used anything beside Windows. My C++ teacher actually said that if we used anything beside Visual C++ he wouldn't even try to help us compile.I was just curious to know if people who really are very tech-savvy desire to be teachers at all. Oh, one more thing: they tried hiring for this position 2 years ago and got 3 applicants, and none of them qualified for the job." They say teaching is an "honorable profession" and I believe every word if it. If only they got paid more, maybe there would be more quality applicants across all subjects.
FP? (Score:1)
Computer Science faculty member not "tech sector"? (Score:2)
No wonder I found "school" to be such a complete waste of time.
Bob-
Re:Computer Science faculty member not "tech secto (Score:1)
Re:Computer Science faculty member not "tech secto (Score:1)
Re:Computer Science faculty member not "tech secto (Score:1)
Whomybabydaddy? (Score:2)
Re: Microsoft. (Score:1)
Also, there isn't any curriculum for learning to use Linux or something beside MS Office, and while I do use Windows and MS Office most of the time (MS Works at home), I would enjoy being able to take a class involving something else. True that most business positions use MS Office, but the percentage of people who use something else in the tech sector itself is probably quite a bit higher (Of course it is! That's why were at /. :) I think it would probably benefit me pretty well to be adept at more than just what a casual user uses.
Re: Microsoft. (Score:3, Funny)
No, it doesn't.
Re: Microsoft. (Score:2)
Re: Microsoft. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think a lot of schools would like to offer non-Windows courses but you've got to remember community colleges aren't exactly getting the same sort of endowments as a university. You also don't have resident professors that need to fullfil a quota of classroom hours so come out with some elective course that is more fun than work. I don't think Linux would make sense to your school's Board of Trustees either. They'd ask your CS department chair next to Windows is the next most likely environment which they'd probably reply with Macintosh and then proceed to mention Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX. I don't mention Novell because most CS departments have Novell classes already. Linux would probably not be mentioned in actuality. For Office alternatives the next option would be Lotus Smart Suite and MAYBE if you were lucky StarOffice.
Novell? (Score:2)
I can just imagine, "That operating systems class is cake, but my NetWare class is killing me."
From my experience, REAL CS programs will accept anything that compiles with gcc once you get beyound the CS 100 intro classes. That is, if the assignments are meant to be written in C or C++. I doubt that doing my ML assignments in C would have gone over very well with Prof. Ullman.
Re: Microsoft. (Score:2)
Re:Whomybabydaddy? (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is probably a little more prosaic, it's that it prevents students from using the "but it compiled fine on my PC" excuse, and it means the teacher can concentrate on the language rather than the quirks of any of a dozen different tools. You will find even that the best CS schools, if it won't compile on the professor's PC/Sun/whatever it won't get you a good grade no matter if it was fine on the Linux box in your dorm, so it makes sense to pick an environment and encourage everyone to stick to it.
Re:Whomybabydaddy? (Score:1)
I plan on becoming one. (Score:3, Interesting)
I really think teaching is like any other career out there, you are going to find some people who actually like it even though they could do "better".
Re:I plan on becoming one. (Score:1)
South African perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
With this background in mind, the following points need mentioning:
1. Having been through the academic mill and having worked in industry, I'm quite amazed at the utter crap some of the local teachers/textbooks dish up to the kids. Also, these same people need to make policy descisions on what needs to be examined at year-end, what programming environments need to be used, etc. The result is very much hype-oriented which ties the kids very much into a certain tool/methodolody. I'd rather have students who know the underlying concepts and are exposed to many different tools so that they can choose and experiment for themselves, and choose the tool that suits the job at hand the best.
2. With the local currency nosediving against the Dollar and Euro (lost 40% in 2001) software is becoming prohibitively expensive. Free stuff like StarOffice, Virtual Pascal, Cygwin or Linux (including all the nice programming languages) is a REAL lifesaver.
What do you define as a teacher? (Score:2)
My experience is that quite a few Slashdot readers are teachers of some flavor, from junior high through top universities. I'm a professor at a very good undergraduate institution [hmc.edu]. Windows is almost nonexistent in the CS department. We use it mostly under duress. :-)
I was just curious to know if people who really are very tech-savvy desire to be teachers at all.
Before I decided that teaching would be a lot more fun than the dot-com butterfly chase, I spent 15 years in industry. I won't bore you with my resume, but I have to say that the people I have encountered in academia are generally just as "savvy" as those outside, if not more so. However, the savviness is of a different sort, because the needs are different. If you want to know which video card works best on a PCI bus, don't ask me. I don't have a clue. The time that someone else spends learning that information, I spend learning about the latest research in schedulers or file systems.
I make no value judgments here. Both types of knowledge are useful. Just don't make the error of assuming that because another person's knowledge isn't a precise superset of your own, he is ignorant.
StarOffice Tech Savy? (Score:1)
I Would... (Score:2, Informative)
My sister is teaching at a school in Reading, and has to live with my parents.
Simple maths:
If teachers salary == 20000 pounds (which my sisters does not - its less)
Bank will loan 3.5 - 4 times the salary for a house, ie 70000 - 80000 pounds.
Average house price for the UK is now 98000 pounds, the average house price for Reading is far higher.
Steve.
Re:I Would... (Score:2)
Re:I Would... (Score:2)
I don't understand why people would pay more to live near a city. It's like "Here I'll bend over so you can more easily fuck me in the ass".
I make less than most IT/IS people, but once you figure in how much cheaper everything is, and how much better life is away from the city, it's well worth it.
Re:I Would... (Score:1)
Even CSUN has problems hiring teachers with that, because it means you have to get $80,000+ a year in order to even qualify for a house loan, and first year Univeersity professors start at $50K and change.
It's not about the money (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with teaching is not the money. There are many teachers who don't care about the poor pay. The problem is the non-teaching crap you have to put up with - governments who want you to have all the i's dotted and the t's crossed by making sure you follow the exact strict rules laid down by them, and fill in a dozen forms so they can check you're doing things right. The problem that arises from that is that you end up working 3, 4 or sometimes 5 hours into every evening doing paperwork and marking. So teachers end up over tired and stressed out.
However teaching is still probably one of the more rewarding proffessions out there. My job seems incredibly minor (stopping spam) in comparison to training young minds to think for themselves, and often dealing with their social education too.
So often it's not about the quality of applications, but more about the constant drain on their sensibilities that leads those who are top in their field to eventually leave teaching, not because they don't love it, but because they need to maintain their sanity.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:1)
I would seriously think about going into teaching at a College or University but the reality is you do research first and foremost and teach as an afterthought. Many people have said I would make a good teacher, but the research has been too much of a turn-off for me to want to go into it.
Maybe I should look into teaching certification training classes instead. Oh, wait. The, uhh, quality [cough,cough] students I'd get in the MCSE classes would drive me insane.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:1)
Re:It's not about the money (Score:2)
Many of us have the intelligence necessary to teach (whether it be K->12 or college), but it takes a the right personality, especially with the younger children (something I don't have, but my wife does). It is a special gift to have both. A good teacher can really make a huge difference in a child's development (something I know from my own childhood), and it is sad that some of the best people for the job get driven out by the administrative junk, and even more sad that more are lost to other, higher paying careers that (honestly) don't have as much of a positive impact on the world.
My wife let her career forcus change because of what would be rewarding to her, not to her pocketbook. We should all be so lucky to have that choice and be able to take it.
Re:It's not about the money (Score:1)
If they we're being paid $150,000 a year, no one is going to have them fill in crappy forms that add no value.
Now, of course they don't get paid by the hour so you may be thinking - it wouldn't cost any extra no matter what their salary, but that isn't how organizations value staff. Commercial organizations will pay the secretary overtime/use a courier/buy the right hardware to free up the CEO's time even though the CEO pulls a salary too.
Many highly qualified staff in the public and nonprofit sectors end up spending way too much of their time on crap because their wages aren't high enough to make people think twice. It's a terrible waste of talent and training.
Helen
Paid more? (Score:1)
See, that's the majority assumption, that they're underpaid.
In a lot of places, they're not.
Think about it - they're paid 12 months of the year, but many don't work that. The school year isn't a full year.
Many are under-educated. However, the job security is extremely high after you've put in your dues. The salaries are low when you start, but once you're vested, your salary is pretty good and your unionized (for lack of a better word) if you're in some of the larger districts. Pretty good job security!
And don't even mention those with tenor at the universities, some of those idiots really abuse the position they're in. (and yes, obviously there are those who busted their asses to get their, have student loans out the wazzu and fully deserve to be where they are).
I think for most teachers, it's not about the money - they have a talent for teaching, or a love, and that's what they do.
And besides, I think for most teachers, its the BS that drives them off - the paperwork, lack of good tools of the trade, the regulations, the *teaching to get the kids past the proficiencies tests* instead of teaching them the information.
Re:Paid more? (Score:1)
In the district where I work, we are paid to work 184 days per year. There are no checks rolling in in the summertime unless you choose to have your 10 months of salary spread across 12 months (for those people who can't handle budgeting their own finances accordingly).
Finally, the ending comment is pretty much accurate. The salaries aren't bad (who wouldn't want to be paid more?), but the main problem lies in the situation we're put in: Government "oversight" (that is, the amount of testing and paperwork is absolutely maddening). And while sometimes the kids are a challenge and the parents are insane, it's our overall love of helping children learn and the desire to make the world a somewhat better place that keeps most of us in the classroom...
Re:Paid more? (Score:1)
Re:Paid more? (Score:2)
They sure do. Every time I go by the music department I just can't escape that constant singing. Do they really think that people actually like opera? Even if I did, I'd much prefer a bass over a tenor any day.
Re:Paid more? (Score:2)
Re:Paid more? (Score:1)
Re:Paid more? (Score:1)
Los Angeles School District [k12.ca.us]
Re:Paid more? (Score:2)
The one thing I did notice - it looks like if a person's language skills are very good they have the chance to receive a lot more cash then for advanced degrees!
Re:Paid more? (Score:1)
I am a teacher.
I am actually currently a corporate Java trainer, but my primary love is teaching rather than technology.
Quick Google search provided the following:
$40,574 as the national average teacher salary (1999 number).
Is this a fair salary to pay a college-educated person who is educating our young? Perhaps it's low.
Of course, this does not count a couple pieces of important information.
1. 9-10 months a year of work, 2-3 months a year of vacation.
2. The teachers, I seem to remember, have lower GPAs, lower entering SAT's, etc. than anyone else coming into or exiting college.
So...maybe that $40k for 9 months of work for the lowest tiers of college graduates is not all that bad.
of course, those numbers are for the public schools. Private schools tend to run lower salary, and higher satisfaction/lower turnover.
but what do you expect?
Government sponsored semi-monopolistic competition makes running any business kind of tough.
--K
Poll?? (Score:1)
teaching computers... (Score:1)
problem is, the money isn't even close....my parents are both elementray school teachers, and they make a lot of money, but that's because they've been teaching for 30+ years...i know what teachers of 3 or 4 years in their school district are making and even if you adjust for them only working 10 months, it's still not near what i make, and i'm less then a year out of college...
of course they do get other benefits, like the aforementioned 2 months off in the summer, and a pension...so i dunno, maybe it balances out...
maybe i'll consider that if/when i get burned out from my job....
Money isn't everything... (Score:2)
Swings and roundabouts, my friend. The salary in teaching isn't great, but that's not the only form of remuneration. Remember all the stories of dotcom employees getting laid off, their erstwhile employers bankrupt? Now when did you ever hear of teachers being laid off? There's always a demand for them too, and teachers can work anywhere, again that's something that can't be claimed for most high-tech jobs. In Britain at the moment, there is a lot of worry that private pensions (what Americans call the 401k) won't be enough for people to retire on - but teachers have their pensions guaranteed as a percentage of their final salaries by the taxpayer. Hi-tech workers are notorious for the long hours they put in, everyone reading this has probably experienced a >24hr coding session, but teachers work 9 am to 3:30 pm every day and get 10 weeks vacation a year.
If you want to attract people into teaching, don't focus so much on the salaries, focus on the job security and quality of life aspects. It should be easy for you to attract idealistic open-source types who don't care about Manhattan lofts and SUVs but do care about a stress-free environment with lots of time for coding, and the opportunity to shape the minds of the young.
Teachers have cush hours? (Score:1)
> Now when did you ever hear of teachers being laid off?
Both of my parents are teachers, and my grandfather was shocked to find how little they made. You see, he lived through the great depression, and he could remember when teachers were the ones who had things, because they had jobs. His best tip as a paper carrier came from a teacher. So when he found out that my parents make the same or less than he did (he was a farmer) he was quite surprised. In fact, I'm about to graduate, and in a couple of years, I can expect to be making nearly as much a year as my father, who has more than 25 years experience teaching.
> but teachers work 9 am to 3:30 pm every day and get
> 10 weeks vacation a year.
I hear this a lot, and let me tell you, it's not true. At least not here in the USA. I live in Iowa, which is supposed to have one of the best k-12 education systems in the nation, and my parents work their butts off. During the school year, they generally have to supervise students in one form or another for 7 out of the 8 hours (8 am to 4 pm) they are required to be there. That one hour isn't nearly enough to grade all the tests, quizzes, and papers that they need to grade, as well as prepare the ones to be used in the future, as well as prepare lesson plans for the school board/government/parents to view to see what will be happening in the next two weeks, as well as help any students who come in asking for help.
Above and beyond those 8 hours a day they are supposed to work, they are also expected to alternate being faculty advisors for a grade; so when, say, they sophomore class wants to make some money for their class by holding a car wash, if my dad is one of their advisors, he is expected to be at that car was as well to supervise. As well as any other class-related activity, such as whatever the class ends up using that money for.
Now, beyond this even, the teachers are expected to show up and support the various extracurricular activities that students participate in, such as sports, band, etc. Additionally, when the sports games are hosted at the school, the teachers alternate in manning the concession area, so they absolutely have to be there for those times. At least for those times, they aren't charged admission as well.
So, from my experience, my parents usually end up working 9-10 hours a day. And it can be a stressfull job, too. My mom started teaching full time a couple of years ago, when I was in college, and she went from mostly blond when I left for college in Augest to completely silver when I got back for Thanksgiving, in November. It was a startling change.
I know, I know, you (and most people) still think that teachers get the summer off, at least, right? Well, that's not exactly true either. Granted, they can usually find a week or two to take off for themselves, in addition to the couple of weeks that they get at Christmastime, so maybe they do get a bit more vacation than most jobs. However, teachers are never considered "good enough" in our teaching system. Once every three summers, my parents have to take classes themselves, to make sure that they are keeping up on all the latest teaching techniques. Some teachers take a class or two every summer. Again, and this is a newer law I believe, once every three summers a teacher is required to work in a job related to what they are teaching. So my father, for instance, teaches Spanish, and once every three summers he has to look around and find a job that allows him to use spanish on the job, and do whatever he can to be able to work at that job. It usually means working for a very reduced salary, because most companies either have someone there already, or don't want to hire someone for just the summer. That leaves one summer every three years. For that summer, my dad looks around and finds a summer job to try and supplement the money that he actually makes teaching, so that my parents can have silly things like running cars to take them to work and back. (Carpools are a possiblity, but no other form of alternative transportation exists.) And whatever is left over from that usually goes into repairing the house they live in. They don't really have much time for luxeries, although I've found that they have more now that all of us kids are on our own, and not draining them completely dry.
So no, teachers may have a lot of things, but they don't have the cush hours that most people think. At least, not basic-education teachers. College/University professors may be different, but from my experience, they're pressured pretty hard to work on research when they aren't teaching classes, so they don't seem to have a life of luxery either.
Re:Money isn't everything... (Score:1)
I work for a K12 district as the network administrator. I receive a decent salary, but could definitely make more in the industry sector. I do not have summers off (12 month appointment) but have decent retirement, insurance, yadda yadda.
I chose to work in the district because I want to make a difference in my community and my children attend this district (and I want them to have the best education they possibly can).
Salary is great and all, but that's not how I chose to measure success in life (of course maybe I'd feel different if I had a 6 figure income).
I think a main reason people get involved in education.....is not for the money or summer's off but to make a difference in a child's life. What greater calling can there be?
Not sure why... (Score:1)
Netscape was installed as the default browser Corel Word Perfect was the most commonly used word processing program, Lotus 1-2-3 was the spreadsheet of choice.
It's true that Microsoft OS's were used (MS DOS, Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95 and NT...outdated by many's standards, bute still in use as of 2001), it was done mainly as a comfort level thing for most students and teachers. Linux hadn't exploded the way it has now, and for us, Net acess was limited so little knowledge was there.
What makes a good teacher? A degree? (Score:2)
Over my 30-year professional career, I have been a guest instructor at a couple of universities and community colleges. Each venue lasted less than a year, because in every single case the school would pass a rule while I was in the middle of a course requiring all instructors be degreed.
Like another famous person in the computing industry, I am a high school graduate with some college. No degree.
My reason for not having a degree is long and boring, so I won't go into it. That didn't stop me from working in what is now called IT at universities -- they weren't so picky about having sheepskins when skill was necessary to actually get the job done. That included the ARPAnet; indeed, the Center for Advanced Computation welcomed my work with open arms (and paybook).
The academic myopia hasn't stopped me from teaching, though. I did my "teaching" in the pages of magazines like InfoWorld, Byte, ComputerWorld, Computer Shopper, Federal Computer Week, and others. I did my teaching on CompuServe on IBMNET and other forums. I did my teaching on BIX as conference moderator in telecom and, for a while, as an Exchange Editor. And I tutor today on Internet principles for more money than I ever recieved as a guest instructor.
I'm a tech guy who teaches, not a teacher trying to teach tech. (Say that three times fast.)
StarOffice =/= Tech Savvy (Score:2)
Knowing quite few teachers (including my spouse, and my best friend) and through them other teachers, I would have to say that there are very few tech-savvy teachers out there. Many are computer literate to the extent of using Office aps, but given that my best friend is this most tech savvy teacher in his school, and he relies on me for anything more complicated than installing a modem in his PC, I'd have to say that finding one qualified to teach a Community College CS course would be a challenge.
Your best bet might be to find a Grad student in CS at a nearby university who can work teaching the courses at your school into his/her schedule.
Teachers on slashdot (Score:1)
some of the newer courses like CIW are platform independent (I teach building both IIS and ZEUS webservers, i like to show alternatives, some websites use *nix ) personally i'd like to teach what students want to know (and sometimes i'll indulge myself and will teach what people want)but more often course contents are governed by the syllabus and examination body.
Teaching vs. Industry (Score:2)
Just the same, there are some who have an enormous capacity for learning CS theory, and are inclined toward teaching. It would make sense for them to do so.
And then there are some who just want to do reasearch, and are forced to lecture twice a week.
I've seen CS instructors' comments on
Teaching Younger Students On OSS (Score:1)
Re:Teaching Younger Students On OSS (Score:2)
In retrospect, I wish I would have taken as I didn't understand at the time how important connections are but perhaps if you have any say in the program you may consider adjusting the program to suit the desires of those who truely want to learn. Understand that my choice was spending a few weeks writing scheme or spending a few weeks writing C. Being the geek that I am, I choose C.
I do know someone who took the course and they still couldn't code their way out of a paper bag so I definitely felt vindicated.
Tech to teach - my experience (Score:2)
Money is an issue. Before becoming a teacher, I had decided that a sane life was more important than money. But then I discovered the overworked side of the equation. My first year teaching I virtually never got to bed before 2 AM. Summers off are nice, but very few teachers actually take more than a few weeks off. Instead they teach summer school, participate in curriculum development or take courses to work their way up the pay-scale.
It was a good career change, but I look forward to being a technology coordinator / teacher trainer / technology consultant. I'd like to be able to use technology to make teaching a more humane, more relational, more respected profession.
I'm a teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost didn't see this question because it's not on the main page.
I teach three years of high school Computer Science and will add a webmastering course next year. Currently CS is taught in C++, though we'll be moving to Scheme and Java in the future. Webmastering will cover HTML, CSS, SQL, Perl and maybe PHP.
I use Linux as my primary OS at home, but the kids use Windows 95 and Borland C++ because that's what we bought licenses for 5 years ago. I keep hoping to move to Linux in the lab, but the biggest holdup has been a NetWare client for Linux so the kids can access their home directories.
I do have a degree in CS from a top-ten CS university [utexas.edu] and was among the top few in many of my classes. I can say that money is definitely an issue for many. I started at $24K five years ago and am now up to $32K in Austin, TX. I have friends with comparable skill levels that graduated with me who are making double to three times that amount in industry.
Teachers should be the best and brightest but often aren't because the pay is so much less than they could get in industry. If teacher salary were only 10% less than industry (rather than 50% or more), you'd see a lot more qualified people looking into teaching.
Oh, and to those who say that teachers only work 8:00-3:30... keep in mind that is only the lecture times. In addition, teachers must deal with parents, grade student work (and we don't have grunt TAs like college professors) and generate new assignments/lecture material. And any teacher who can get all that done during a single "planning period" probably isn't doing a very good job.
I know one industry person that left a job at places like IBM because she wanted to work "shorter hours". She lasted one year as a teacher.
Obligatory self-promotion: you can see what my classes are doing [tenet.edu] right now, and also find out more than you ever wanted to know about me [grahammitchell.net].
Re:I'm a teacher (Score:1)
Speaking as somebody who aspires to teaching in the long term, I disagree. The best and brightest should be out doing the research and advancing the frontiers. Teachers should be from the next echelon, taking that material and presenting it in a way the rest of the world can learn.
Another point: many of the "best and brightest" can't teach worth a damn. Aside from the idea that it requires a different talent to teach than to study, which different people have in different measures... people who are far ahead in their fields often don't relate well to those who can't keep up with them. A teacher has to teach everybody. Especially below university levels, it requires more people skills than just standing up in front of a room and talking. A book, a scanner with OCR, and voice output would do as well -- but I don't see any proposals to replace teachers with computers.
And finally, about giving teachers more money -- it's not the money for the teachers (well, there are exceptions), it's the money to support the teachers. Books. Maps and journals and course materials. Things as prosaic as pencils for the students. That's what's been skimped so often.
Re:I'm a teacher (Score:1)
You are completely correct across the board. However, I believe we would both agree that there are some highly qualified individuals who could teach excellently but don't go into teaching for primarily financial reasons.
If we divide the world into four types of people (obviously there's really more of a continuum than this...):
Unfortunately, below university levels, there are a lot more teachers at levels 3 & 4 than there should be. And raising teacher salaries would almost certainly increase the number of 1s going into teaching. That was really my point.
Different Expectations and considerations (Score:2, Informative)
Most full-time Instructors have little to no industry experience. Part-timers are the ones with active computing jobs. The education field is very centered around the concept that you can teach anything; direct experience is not necessary with a good curriculum. Perhaps for some fields (especially ones which are relatively static) that might be true, but the small tidbits, workarounds, and hints that accrue from real world projects make the difference between a class and a learning experience. There is no way to maintain current knowledge in this field without have hands-on work experience. Return to Industry is underutilized in many community colleges.
Teachers with associates in business become depressed with they see salaries double, triple, or higher for similar knowledge sets.
A lot of tech-savvy folks don't consider teaching for a few reasons, including low pay and fear of public speaking.
Remember that teaching is s stability position. Many folks who are willing to sacrifice pay for security are often corncerned more with maintenance than discovery.
NB: Since becoming full-time, I have maintained at least 10 hours/week in outside or contract work. Without that, I'd still be teaching Netware 3.12.
What would he be teaching? (Score:2)
As for tech savvy people being teachers, I agree with many below that its probably not even a consideration for those who are more interested in salary than job satisfaction. I work at a college and think that our CS/MIS teachers might be working here because of a shortage of tech related jobs in our area of the country. That's why I'm here.
That may also be why you got so many unqualified applicants. Do you have a shortage of tech related jobs where you live? People tend to look for anything even close to the field they want to work in, rather than move to a new industry.
Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:4, Insightful)
It amazes me that people actually believe this. It's sort of like all those folks who believed that one could throw a bunch of VC at a bad idea and all the sudden get a great product (And now we observe the fallout).
The problem with education is not that teachers do not get paid enough, but that the entire education system is geared to mediocrity. Students are not encouraged to excel, but encourage to simply complete the assigned work.
Likewise, teachers are held down tightly by the government and their own union so that they simply could not teach students well.
To speak strictly of the relation between money and quality, the best means to increase the quality of teachers would be to eliminate the teachers union and allow teachers to be paid according to merit. Why should a teacher strive to do their job well when they get paid the same either way? Teaching is one of the few professions were there is absolutely no accountability.
Even if schools were de-unionized, that would not solve the problem. The students who could truely excel are constantly discouraged, the students who do not belong in school are forced to remain in it, and then the rest of the students simply learn to perform the kind of mondane work that will be a part of the rest of their lives.
If we really care about educating youth, then lets actually educate them. I, for one, would absolutely engage in the equivalent of a start-up school. Unfortunately, there is no way to do such a thing since the name of a school more important than the school itself so the students who attended would have no chance of getting into a decent college.
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:3, Insightful)
Money doesn't always solve problems and it obviously wouldn't solve the problem here.
What would you do if everyone at your work made the same amount (even if it was high) and while you worked 50 hour weeks to get the job done, everyone else only worked a 30 hour week? Would you work a 30 hour week too? Would you look for another job? Yet, we ask good teachers to go the extra mile without any kind of reward. Worst of all, we ask them to do this while also not punishing teachers who slack off.
It's not about the money. It's about the grave abuse by the teachers union. Have you ever been in a district where a teachers strike happened? Happens all the time out here. Do you know that teachers in New Jersey have to receive a 40 minute lunch no matter what? When I was in High School, we had a few fire alarms go off at just the wrong time and even though most of the school day was completed, since forty minutes of time was lost during the time when teachers had lunch, the day had to be made up in the summer.
The best part was that teachers could not be asked to work past like the 21st of June under any circumstance one year, the school had to resort to Saturday classes. It's absolutely insane. I am not even mentioning the incredibly political glout of the teachers organizations. In jersey, it is an absolute requirement that the teachers union supports a candidate in order for him to be elected. There is absolutely no integrity.
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:1)
This is simply not true, and is becoming less true by the day. Standardized testing is almost universal now, and who do you think bears the brunt of blame (blame is effectively equivalent to accountability) when test scores are low? Administrators? The elected school board? Students? Parents? Nope. Teachers.
There are those in the profession that support this, and those that oppose it. One positive is that it provides hard evidence with which administrators may weed out the "bad teachers". And there are bad teachers, no doubt about it.
A negative is that it narrows the focus of the entire school year to "pass the test", resulting in ineffective teaching methods, repeated "practice tests", and administrators saying "If it isn't on [the test], don't teach it. Period." In terms of helping young citizens develop into intellectually capable adults, that's completely and totally wrong.
Dustin
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:2)
You are obviously basing this statement on political rhetoric and not on experience. Inquire at your local high school on the difficulty to remove a teacher who has tenure based on poor performance.
To say that teachers as a whole take the brunt of failure in standardized testing may be true, but individual teachers do not suffer if their students perform worse than the rest of the school. Such programs have been proposed but the teachers union has kept them from happening to the best of my knowledge.
I have been told that it would literally take a year worth of paper work to remove a teacher with tenure. It is tedious and dangerous as the adminstration tends to get hammered by the teachers union.
I don't think standardizes tests really fit into this argument as they do not effect individual teachers.
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:1)
I would be interested in teaching, but im not interested in being poor
Case in point: My brother and I both goto the same university, we both took 2 years at a JC before university, it took me an aditional 3.5 years to get a BS in CS, and it took him 1.5 years for a degree in Sociology.
This may sound crass but guess what? its the real world. People who stay an extra 2 years and get a masters will get paid more then me, and phd's will be paid better yet. Unless the economy is just tanked, you choose how much you make by how well you are educated... and schools simply are not offering salaries that compete with peoples expectations
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:2)
The brighest tech minds are those who enjoy technology. Many folks are good at technology, but to teach someone, one has to be more than just good at it. A teacher should be passionate about what they are teaching. It's one thing to simply show a student how to do something, but so much more meaningful to inspire them.
To be honest, many good programmers would probably teachers as such a profession would allow for a large amount of time to pursue side projects (such as Free Software). The summer break makes it even better. The lack of money isn't really an issue if you love what your doing.
The simply fact of the matter though is that no self respecting tech person is going to teach somewhere when a) they are not rewarded for doing their job well b) they are forced to adhere to an absurd curriculm. To work in an environment where one is not respected for doing a good job is incredibly demeaning. It doesn't matter if you only make 25.5K over another making 25K. It just matters that your being recognized for doing a good job.
While you may have suffered through school, many folks - including me - absolutely loved it. You probably make a great employee granted you made it through the program, but you likely lack the passion to be an inspiring teacher.
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:1)
Passionate teachers would be great, but what schools need is competent teachers, I haven't had many of those either.
Re:Slashdot crowd is truely jaded. (Score:2)
I'm a teacher.
How do you pay a teacher according to merit? The number of As that I give? How much fun the students have? Tell me!
There is no possible way to pay a teacher according to merit. Also, raising teacher salaries won't help the problem either.
People who truely want to teach will teach. Money has very little to do with it.
Microsoft Irony (Score:1)
Call me old fashioned but if I were applying for a CS teaching job that required me to make a presentation, I'd DAMNED sure want to use a product that didn't leave me looking like a ninny to the people I wanted to hire me!
Is it just possible that Microsoft Office has reached a position of dominance because for the most part it works and is pretty easy to use? Nah, must be some conspiracy...
Say what you will, but Word and Excel were the first really good products for Windows. Ami Pro was OK, but WordPerfect for Windows sucked (once it came out MUCH later than Word) and Lotus 123 just never kept up with Excel in usability or features. Under DOS, WordPerfect and 123 dominated (although I liked Quattro Pro better than 123...).
Don't forget that until Microsoft bundled Word/Excel/Powerpoint together as Office, each one could cost hundreds of dollars (as did their competitors). Granted it was a strategy to kill off the competition, but so far they haven't spiked the price after the demise of the competition. The whole XP licensing scheme could be the first sign they are about to drop that hammer, but I doubt it.
I personally use Microsoft products for the same reason I chose a VHS VCR instead of a Beta: compatibility. Yeah, if you work at it you can usually get Star Office (etc.) files to transfer back and forth with Office, but with MS Office, I don't have to screw around because 98%+ of the people I'll ever need to share files with are using MS Office...
If anyone wants to knock off MS (open source or otherwise), they'll have to do it by making a product that is dramatically better than MS Office. Being almost as good will simply not win the battle.
I find MS just as distasteful as anyone, but I am also a realist. Simply believing with all your heart that the enemy shouldn't have any bullets will not keep him from turning you into Swiss cheese.
The fellow who chose to prepare his presentation with a product other than the defacto standard (MS Office) did so at his own peril. His choice made a statement, but the software didn't back him up and left him looking like a chump... If he had used MS Office and the same thing happened, I suspect the hiring committee would have likely have been more understanding. If I were a betting sort of person, I'd bet he didn't get the job...
Re:Microsoft Irony (Score:1)
Websites (Score:1)
Also see http://www.seul.org/edu which is one of the groups that began the schoolforge alliance.
A lot of the teachers involved have been doing some great things with Linux on very small budgets, both in the US and around the world.
I'm a teacher (Score:2, Interesting)
Prior to becoming a teacher, I spent a lot of time around schools and youth-assistance nonprofits. I was appalled by the state of technology, particularly in the schools.
There are many problems with the technology itself -- the kinds of computers, network connections, management and administration, etc.
There are also enormous problems in the *use* of technology -- teacher training, student training, availability, emphasis, etc. In the end, I find that many educational uses of technology are extremely shallow -- instructors either let the computer do the teaching, or use the computers as glorified pen-and-pencil.
Teachers are required to take technology courses for recertification credit in most states, but most of those courses are abysmal, as they do nothing to build fundamental understandings or relate new concepts to possibilities for real student learning.
I strongly encourage every
If you have a shred of social conscience and know a NIC from a NACK, the educational world can use your help. Bring your deep understanding, your vision, and your willingness to help to your nearest school. You might spec and build a new lab, or help a teacher to understand how the web *really* works. You may just save the school from making a big investment in something they do not understand and which will not be used. Whatever happens, you'll find it very rewarding.
Dustin
Find Geeks Who Want to Teach (Score:5, Insightful)
I teach in the MBA program at DeSales University [desales.edu] in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I teach the introductory concentration course for E-Commerce majors in the program--I'm a software developer by trade, and I'm an adjunct lecturer.
"Adjunct" is an adjective derived from the Latin word for "doesn't rate a faculty parking sticker"--and in a lot of institutions the adjuncts are regarded as lower than dirt. Our program is a bit different: practically all of the MBA faculty are adjuncts--we're (mostly) teaching at night what we do during the day. The balding guy teaching FN503--Financial Accounting for Decision Makers? He's the Director of Corporate Financial Services for the largest corporation in the area. The guy teaching the E-Business Models class? He's the CEO of a venture capital group in suburban Philadelphia. The nut job standing on the chair shouting at his EC506 class about the importance of XML and distributed processing as a means to eliminate friction in business? (Uh...that would be me.)
We're not here for the money
The money is essentially a joke. I get a few bucks each month--most of my check I simply have withheld to pay my quarterly estimated tax payments (I'm self-employed). Sure--there are a couple of benefits: the biggest being faculty discounts on everything from software to my subscription to the Wall St. Journal. But the reason I teach for 3-1/2 hours every Wednesday night is because it is a lot of fun to preach technology to a group of business managers over the course of a term. There is a kind of jazz that comes when a sales manager takes ownership of a particular area: for example, a young woman who is just starting graduate school with a background in Finance. She works for a consumer products company, she's advancing rapidly in the corporation, and she fits much of the "tall, good looking, with really good hair" stereotype of the MBA. (Well--she's short. But she's pretty, and she has terrific hair.)
She had to write a paper on DNS that was due three weeks ago, and defend her paper in online discussion with the rest of the class. She's just turned in a paper on VOIP--how it works, who the players are, and the prospects for the technology--night before last. She nailed both subjects--drilled them. Zippo tech background when she walked into my classroom, and now she's scaring the daylights out of her employer's IT staff because she understands how DNS works. Sure--I'll take the bucks, I'll appreciate the U. paying most of my taxes, and I'll cheerfully come to the faculty dinners. But seeing the lightbulb come on over Barb's head is why I teach.
What makes our program work
In two words, "Mohamed Latib." He's the dean of the program, and all of the faculty regard him as a personal friend. We're all deeply enthusiastic about the guy--and we have all bought his vision of what an MBA program ought to be. He's fully aware that the stipend is chump change to each of us--and he constantly demonstrates his appreciation for what we bring to the program. He works, hard, for our personal loyalty. That's a lot different from the typical teacher's situation. (Quick quiz: does your community college president know any professor's preference in beer? Has he ever called a new faculty member to ask if he or she has a preference for a particular brand of Scotch, in order to be sure its on the bar at the cocktail reception?) He describes the MBA faculty as a family, and he means it. He works at cultivating personal and business relationships among us.
The key to Mohamed's success is that he's interested in finding people who have something to say--experts in their fields who want to talk about what they do. Yup--there's a textbook. But for each of us, there is a wealth of practical experience that we bring to the class.
Find the enthusiasts, and hire 'em
Imitate Mohamed's success: don't look for academics who understand technology. They're all trying to get jobs at better-paying (or more prestigious) schools. Look for geeks who can teach. Find the consultant, find the reseller, find the IT guy at a local corporation. Find somebody who can express enthusiasm about the subject--find somebody who does programming for a living, who understands why source code control matters, who understands why documentation is important. Offer the guy an adjunct role, pay him a couple of bucks, and show him that he's appreciated. Give him a soapbox to stand on, and let him rant away--he may well be the best teacher your students ever have.
teacher in Providence, RI (Score:1)
Relevant points:
am i seeing an IBM advertisement in a story? (Score:1)
I'm not talking a banner ad, but a big-ass box right under the story, but before the comments...
Comments on your faculty search (Score:2)
The future of faculty hiring (Score:1)
To begin with, faculty hiring in electrical and computer engineering is -damned- difficult right now, and won't be getting better anytime soon. Ten years ago you could advertise a faculty position and get hundreds of resumes, with at least half a dozen outstanding candidates in the pile. Nowadays you're lucky to get a dozen resumes, and typically most of them are a complete joke. Most ECE departments have had open positions for -years-, with little prospect for filling them.
The tech sector boom of the 90's, coupled with stagnant faculty salaries and declining budgets, has been the direct cause. Many CS and CE departments suffered enormous attrition during the dot-com boom. Unfortunately, the current recession did almost nothing to improve the situation, since (a) the really bright, good people have remained employed rather than return to university positions, and (b) the CS and CE departments are no longer cranking out Ph.D. candidates in significant numbers. Graduate enrollment by U.S. citizens in Ph.D. programs has simply collapsed. You can barely get domestic students to hang around for an M.S. nowdays, much less a doctorate. Industry money is just too good, even now.
So how do universities fill in the gaps? Adjunct positions are one way, but take my word for it - an adjunct professor is the lowest of the low at most schools. Rotten pay, long hours, and the best you can hope for is that you're left alone by the tenure-track faculty.
However (and this is the part many people do not realize), adjunct and part-time teaching help is politically and economically undesirable at most schools. Parents do not want to hear that their kids are being taught by part-time hired help. Furthermore, schools want full-time faculty who can pursue research grants and bring in the big government bucks. Adjunt professors are a necessary evil, but one we'd rather not have to deal with.
So what's the future of CS, EE, and CE faculties? IMHO, I think faculty hiring is going to go the way of graduate student enrollments over the next ten years. Nowadays the majority of graduate students in our department are international students. This is the norm even at the top universities in the U.S. My guess is that eventually U.S. schools will have to recruit most tenure-track faculty overseas, and sponsor their visas just as companies do. Granted, this is politically even more undesirable than hiring adjuncts, but you're not going to find qualified full-time professors who are able to pursue research funds otherwise.
I teach at a CC (Score:2)
Think about it. A community college decides to start teaching computer or networking classes/programs. So which software do we want to start with? Microsoft. That's a no brainer. But where do we go from there?
Start teaching Novel? Cisco? Unix? C?
At my school the program is very well organized. It has been around for awhile and many other schools try to replicate our program.
Here is a list of what the students do in our program:
Cisco NetAcademy (Net Basics, Routers, Switches, LANs & WANs) A+ Novell Netware 5.0 Windows NT/2000 Pro/Server (+ active directory) C and Visual Basic (C++ is an option) Fiber optics Network Security Documentation and this year we've added the new Cisco UNIX course. (Solaris)
After graduation most students get jobs, others get certifications.
Our main objective is to make a very well-round Network Technician\administrator. We hope to get more UNIX training in as well.
Iowa Central Community College: CNT [cc.ia.us]
Bzzzt! Wrong! (Score:1)
Perhaps the biggest mistake you make is in the assumption that anyone who teaches or manages or serves in the military (or serves others period) is somehow inferior because they could be making more on the outside. Bzzzt! Wrong!
Bear in mind that some people (thankfully enough people, and apparently not you) are interested in serving something more than themselves and are happy, yes happy to do it for less money and power than they could earn by serving themselves.
Mellow out for a moment and meditate on that one.
Regards,
Justin McMichael
Re:Bzzzt! Wrong! (Score:1)
Very Sad (Score:1)
Re:the usual suspects (Score:2, Informative)
George A. Akerlof [berkeley.edu], an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. This took me 1 minute to find. And I could find another 10 in 10 minutes. But it is easier for you to just make things up than to actually do a bit of research first.
SO, teachers, by the nature of passing on information that is already known CAN NOT be cutting edge.
Are you really that ignorant about university research that you are unaware of the hundreds of nobel laureates that are professors. It is the research that they pursue in addition to their minor teaching responsibilites that is cutting edge nobel material, and if you are in a good graduate program, you will be studying cutting-edge research--the only places in the corporate world that can compare are places like Xerox PARC, and they are anomolies. Truthfully, there are a lot of bad teachers, but as you go higher, the quality changes radically. University professors in a good program are just about as intelligent as they come--which is not to say that they can teach, 'cause they often can't and don't care.
If you only mean to say that teachers through community cutting edge are not cutting edge, then no shit. Who would argue otherwise? How many of the millions of programmers of the world actually do anything cutting edge? less than .01% I would estimate. If the commercial world is so cutting edge, why are commercial OSs so far behind research OSs. Compare any extant commercial operating system of today to the Mach OS of ten years ago.
I think that probably you are trolling, so I won't respond any more. But look at a list of physics nobel laureates and see how many of them were professors when they did the work that led to the nobel.
Re:the usual suspects (Score:1)