Are all Education majors lazy idiots?

I've posted this in the past but what blows my mind is the minimal amount of knowledge required for a certain field to become a teacher. I have three friends getting their Masters of Education to teach Social Studies at the high school level. Two are economics majors and the other is a sociology major. The school requires them to take a 4 classes in history, 2 in which are a 101 and a 102(either in US or Euro). One of my majors was History, so I proofread their lesson plans and assignments often. Some of it was really pathetic. Thankfully with the current demand for SS teachers is at about zero in my state.

I always got the feeling a lot of the kids now head towards education because they see it as a last resort. It's sad because there are kids in these programs with good intentions and care for their study or craft.

You shouldn't even have to have a college degree to teach elementary ed.

I think an associates degree would be just fine, combined with an extensive student- teacher/ mentoring program.

wqqqqqqq wrote:

for those who are interested: the problem she was helping with was finding the maximum/minimum of quadratic functions, ax^2 + bx + c. she had a formula memorized: the max/min occurs when x = -b/2a. i hadn't bothered to memorize it, but when the first student asked me for help it took about half a second to see that formula via calculus.

Woohoo calculus!

f(x) = ax^2 + bx + c

f'(x) = 2ax + b

Max/min when f'(x) = 0, therefore

2ax + b = 0

x = -b/2a

So much easier than memorizing a formula. You just need to know how to differentiate and realize there is a min/max when the derivative equals 0.

Of course not, but education colleges tend to have amongst the lowest standards on campus in terms of GPA and SAT/ACT required to be admitted (same with the grad programs).

EZ10Miler wrote:

You shouldn't even have to have a college degree to teach elementary ed.

I think an associates degree would be just fine, combined with an extensive student- teacher/ mentoring program.

Two things: You clearly have never had a child in elementary school and experienced the wisdom and expertise of a good elementary teacher, and you clearly have never set foot in an elementary school since you attended one.

You all seem to think teaching is about the subject matter, as if all one needs to do is spout off about the quadratic formula and kids will understand. Teachers teach kids, not simply a subject. This is why many physics majors would make awful middle school science teachers, and why many exceptional athletes would make awful PE teachers. It isn't just about the subject. In fact, the knowledge of the subject is such a miniscule part of teaching, save the last few years of high school.

Comments like yours scream idiocy.

A "degree" to teach kids to tie their shoes, the ABC's, and colors and shapes... seems like a stretch.

We're not talking physics here buddy. Anyone who's kid wants to major in Education should immediately cut off their college funding.

"knowledge of the subject is such a miniscule part of teaching"

True only for teachers with little knowledge

not a philosophy major wrote:

"knowledge of the subject is such a miniscule part of teaching"

True only for teachers with little knowledge

By the way, it's "minuscule."

i know im a dick, the original wrote:

no way. sociology, anthropology, and psychology majors. worthless hippies, mentally retarded jocks, and vapid airhead girls, respectively.

.

Economics is by far the softest of the soft sciences. The fact that it is allowed to be called a science is a travesty.

I got my masters (phys ed) at a major DI university. I was grad asst to the dean of the School of Education, so I got to see the average GPAs and SATs for the students entering the university's various colleges. I can tell you that the Ed majors were the lowest in both areas. Not even close.

I shared several Ed courses with undergrads, and can say that there were some very bright individuals in those classes; but we were rarely challenged intellectually, and never stretched.

This is my first semester as a full time faculty member, and I have never been so discouraged in my entire life. I'm at a small liberal arts college, with mostly education and nursing majors.

Of the 100 students that I have this semester, I have a few very bright students. I also have a few other students who work very hard, and even though the math doesn't come easy to them, I think they will work as hard as possible to understand the material to the best of their ability. I help students outside of my office hours every single day, and I am consistently staying late in order to help these hard working students out. I feel like if these students put in an honest effort then I will do what I can to help them out.

But, easily 80% of my students don't give a crap about their education. These people want to be math teachers, and complain about having to learn Calculus! They think that because they want to teach in a high school that they shouldn't have to learn anything beyond what they did in high school. Forget the fact that they can't do simple calculus, but they can't do the algebra and arithmetic that they supposedly want to teach. It is just really sad.

I'll give them a handout with concise directions, and they can't even bother to read the handout and do what I ask.

I have this great campus, and they put a desktop at every desk in the classroom. I stop 5 times per class to tell students to turn off the computers because we aren't using them. They are off looking at facebook and what ever it is that they want to look at (I'd understand if it was LetsRun, ha ha ha). But then they complain that they don't understand anything.

It's just really frustrating me, and it's making me doubt that I made the right career move. I love doing mathematics, and I love working with probably 10% of the students that I have.

I actually had a math/ed major come up to me today, and claim that he isn't doing well in my class because he can't learn by doing HW. He wants to only have exams (he got below 50% on the midterm), and he doesn't have the time to work on my class every week.

I also had a student tell me that I was disrespecting her because I called her out for doing her history paper in my statistics class instead of doing the linear regression problem that I gave her.

The worst thing is it seems the administration sides with the students. If I fail too many, then the college looses enrollment, and looses money. So they want me to pass everyone along, even though they don't know anything about math! They want me to give projects so that it is easier to pass people! It just totally blows my mind. The USA is failing math and science tests left and right, and we are just pumping out more and more teachers who know less about math then any other generation. These future math teachers can't even add a few fractions in their head! to say that 1/1/2 = 2 is like a huge ordeal to them... IN CALCULUS! In an upper level elective today I asked them to find the inverse of f(x)=x/(x+3), and they looked at me like I had 4 heads... For people who will be teaching high school next year this is freaking appalling!

Sorry for the long rant, I just saw this post, and I agree with the original poster. There are a few really great education majors where I am, but I feel bad for them, because there are a lot of real jerks going into that field giving them a bad name. I think this country is screwed. There are so many lazy students. I don't know how they think they will get jobs when they graduate...

Hey dude, remember to use the first or second derivative test. f(x)=x^3 has a critical point at x=0, but it doesn't have a local max nor local min there.

But I know what you mean.

The thing is, these kids can't think logically enough to do it that way. They don't memorize ideas in math, they memorize examples... Instead of learning how to integrate by parts, they just remember specific examples and then try to mimic it every where they see it.

I mean, by Calc II, nobody should have a hard time finding sin(Pi/6)... It shouldn't be hard... It's something you should learn in 11th grade Trig/Pre-Calc... And so they get mad at me when I think it's something that they should know in college Calculus. They feel like they don't need to know it. So they give this attitude about not wanting to have to learn all of this math for their degree, but they don't know the content of what they will go and teach.

How can a teacher teach about continuous functions, when they can't even give a rigours definition of what a continuous function is!?!?! It is mind boggling to me.

Johnny Rotten wrote:

Since we're overgeneralizing, let's include their "professors," who, generally speaking, seem to have no idea about anything that actually goes on in a real classroom.

Especially if they spend too much time on running forums.

Education majors at my school get destroyed by work, its not easy by any means

This is my first semester as a full time faculty member, and I have never been so discouraged in my entire life. I'm at a small liberal arts college, with mostly education and nursing majors.

Of the 100 students that I have this semester, I have a few very bright students. I also have a few other students who work very hard, and even though the math doesn't come easy to them, I think they will work as hard as possible to understand the material to the best of their ability. I help students outside of my office hours every single day, and I am consistently staying late in order to help these hard working students out. I feel like if these students put in an honest effort then I will do what I can to help them out.

But, easily 80% of my students don't give a crap about their education. These people want to be math teachers, and complain about having to learn Calculus! They think that because they want to teach in a high school that they shouldn't have to learn anything beyond what they did in high school. Forget the fact that they can't do simple calculus, but they can't do the algebra and arithmetic that they supposedly want to teach. It is just really sad.

I'll give them a handout with concise directions, and they can't even bother to read the handout and do what I ask.

I have this great campus, and they put a desktop at every desk in the classroom. I stop 5 times per class to tell students to turn off the computers because we aren't using them. They are off looking at facebook and what ever it is that they want to look at (I'd understand if it was LetsRun, ha ha ha). But then they complain that they don't understand anything.

It's just really frustrating me, and it's making me doubt that I made the right career move. I love doing mathematics, and I love working with probably 10% of the students that I have.

I actually had a math/ed major come up to me today, and claim that he isn't doing well in my class because he can't learn by doing HW. He wants to only have exams (he got below 50% on the midterm), and he doesn't have the time to work on my class every week.

I also had a student tell me that I was disrespecting her because I called her out for doing her history paper in my statistics class instead of doing the linear regression problem that I gave her.

The worst thing is it seems the administration sides with the students. If I fail too many, then the college looses enrollment, and looses money. So they want me to pass everyone along, even though they don't know anything about math! They want me to give projects so that it is easier to pass people! It just totally blows my mind. The USA is failing math and science tests left and right, and we are just pumping out more and more teachers who know less about math then any other generation. These future math teachers can't even add a few fractions in their head! to say that 1/1/2 = 2 is like a huge ordeal to them... IN CALCULUS! In an upper level elective today I asked them to find the inverse of f(x)=x/(x+3), and they looked at me like I had 4 heads... For people who will be teaching high school next year this is freaking appalling!

Sorry for the long rant, I just saw this post, and I agree with the original poster. There are a few really great education majors where I am, but I feel bad for them, because there are a lot of real jerks going into that field giving them a bad name. I think this country is screwed. There are so many lazy students. I don't know how they think they will get jobs when they graduate...

_______________________________________________________

I just got my bs in math and am currently getting ready to go back for my phd, man this sounds depressing. I love math and I love teaching but I can't stand all the lazy people.

I agree with you 100%, this is why our country sucks at math!

Discouraged Math Professor wrote:

Hey dude, remember to use the first or second derivative test. f(x)=x^3 has a critical point at x=0, but it doesn't have a local max nor local min there.

Actually we just learned this today (after I posted!). For some reason they introduced the concept of how f'(x) and f"(x) affect f(x) a few sections back, but they're just now getting back to the first derivative and second derivative test after we took a detour into the product rule, quotient rule, chain rule, derivatives of trig and logarithmic functions, linear approximations, and related rates.

Honestly, I'm loving it, math is fun.

The problem, guys, is incredibly ironic. Perhaps during your own schooling you spent a little too much time with your math, and not enough time developing your teaching skills. Perhaps taking some basic methods courses would help you learn to structure your classes a little more effectively.

Work less on your derivatives, and more on your pedagogy. Teaching isn't easy; you must know more than your subject area, as Mr. Math guy is finding out. Good luck.

Hey Math Professor,

It's "loses" not "looses."

From a community college developmental reading instructor and education major.