From: masterov@crystallizer.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael Masterov)
Subject: Re: What can we have for an educational system?
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:40:40 GMT

In article <lgl5mfINNakj@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (steve hix) writes:
>In article <BxwrDA.6ns@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov16.143453.22123@news.unige.ch> swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN Philip) writes:
>>
>>>On the contrary, I think that the legal and medical professions contain
>>>about the same proportion of mediocrities and incompetents as the teaching
>>>profession does. 
>>
>>On what basis do you reach that conclusion?  If nothing else, I have never had
>>a medical problem which was not well-treated by my doctor.  
>
>I've had doctors admit to making mistakes more than once with our family in
>the past five years.  Fortunately all on minor issues.  It's a good thing that
>we haven't had to deal with any *major* issues so far.
>
>>I have never had bad advice from my lawyer.  
>
>Lucky you.  Maybe you should talk to my father about problems caused by
>incompetent lawyers.  He are one, he knows some scary stories.
>
I think we need to separate terms here - mainly, incompetents and mediocrities.
If we define mediocrity as average performance, give or take a little, then
the legal and medical profession will contain the same proportion of 
mediocrities as teaching or any other - just by virtue of the bell curve.

What that level of mediocrity is - that is another matter.  It is well
known that those students going to Med and Law programs have consistently
high grades (High School) and SAT scores; the opposite is true of education
programs.  This is an objective statement, and is documented.  The
subjective, and therefore undocumented followup: education courses are
much easier than the courses generally taken by prelaw and premed students.
An education degree certainly requires less intelligence and less effort
to obtain than a medical or law degree, not to mention the fact that it
requires less time.  The incentives are also smaller - teacher's pay is
not in the same class as medical pay, and while the average lawyer may
not make much more than a teacher, the good ones make orders of magnitude
more.

Finally, there is tenure and the teacher's union.  It is virtually 
impossible to have a teacher dismissed for simple incompetence - and
raises are automatic and assigned by seniority and degree category.  A
good teacher makes the same money as a poor one.

So let us recap - the attractions of teaching are 
1. Easy to get the degree.
2. Guaranteed job not dependent on performance.
3. Income not a function of effort or ability.

And we expect the general level of teaching to be anything better than
awful?  I certainly don't; nor have I been disappointed.

Now we can deal with incompetence.  But first, WHAT IS INCOMPETENCE?
A teacher, to be effective, must know the material, know how to explain
the material, and know how to maintain discipline in either a primary
school environment (bunch of little kids) or secondary school environment
(bunch of hormone crazed teenagers).  The first part can be taught, and
evaluted more or less objectively.  The second two are purely a matter
of experience. [Note that this is a personal opinion - PhD's in 
education claim this is a science, and that they have some idea of how 
to get people to learn an understand, while PhD's in psychology claim
that the discipline part is a science, and that they have some idea
of how to get kids to behave that is not related to the time-honored
willow switch or paddle.  I believe neither group.]  In my personal
experience, and the experience of everyone I know who attended High
School in the US, the HS techers who taught the math and science
subjects had little or no knowledge even of the subject they taught.
That is clear INCOMPETENCE.  One can not explain what one does not
understand.

Earlier in this thread, someone suggested using PhD's in HS.  Again,
in my experience, the PhD level professors (and a few teachers in HS
I have had) DID know the subject they taught, with a few exceptions.
These people could answer a clearly stated, well thought out question
in most cases without referring to a text and in all cases after a few
minutes with a text.  But it is only those students who have generally
grasped the material presented with some point missed that can ask
those questions.  Most student questions have a nearly null semantic
content - and require a person who can TEACH to understand where the
difficulty lies and explain in terms that students can understand.
The vast majority of these PhD professors WERE NOT able to do that.
They, too, were incompetent.

Teaching effectively may well be as difficult or more difficult than
the effective practice of medicine - and it is perfectly possible for
a teacher to be above average and still incompetent.