Thread: US Needs Teachers of K-12 Math, Science, Study Says

The United State's poor performance in math and science is only partially connected to the shortage we have in qualified teachers.

I am curious if this "Glut" of math and science professionals who can't find jobs in their fields would really be interested in teaching in the classrooms where they are most needed. The article was talking about PhD's who had aspirations of working in math and science fields.

Of course we need teachers who are enthusiastic about their fields, but we still need to work on the reasons why we can't keep teachers to begin with. Some of those reasons do include training, but meeting training needs still leaves salary needs and administrative lack of support and a myriad of other issues. More importantly we need teachers who are enthusiastic about teaching and students who happen to know their field really well.

I believe we can train most people to teach. Some will be excellent, but many will be average. Some will be no good at all -- those we need to toss.

The ones who are excellent didn't learn everything they know about teaching in their training. They are the ones who are called to the profession. The ones who intuitively know what to do and how to explain, when to push and when to relax and go with the flow.

It would be nice if we could move professionals from all fields into teaching. I'm just concerned if we'll get the excellence we hope for!

Bitsy