Bar Exams or Continuing Exams

This is very interesting.  I am not sure I totally agree on a “bar exam” for teachers but there is one thing for sure that I do know, educators are never completely proficient in their field.  Take for example doctors and lawyers, they are always referred to as “practicing medicine” or “practicing law”.  Why can’t teacher ever view themselves as “practicing educators”.  In my 10 years of teaching the field has changed drastically.  When I entered the classroom there were computers in schools but mostly in the form of computer labs and a teacher computers for use in their room.  Now we are heading into 1:1 schools with iPad and laptops.  I never thought it would come down to that.

As the times change, we need to as well.  If you put a doctor from a hundred years ago into an operating room they would be totally lost.  Place a teacher from a hundred years ago in today’s classrooms and they wouldn’t skip a beat.  Nobody would want a doctor using outdated methods to cut on our bodies but why is it ok to have teachers using outdated disengaging methods on our children.  Kids don’t need to memorize tons of information, they need to know how to apply the information.  Teachers are aware of this, but administrators are the ones that are keeping most schools behind.  For the administrator that has been out of the classroom for more than five years, don’t ever tell a teacher that what they are doing is incorrect. They may not be doing a great job at engaging students in the curriculum, but your words don’t mean anything since you are not on the battlefield.  Teach classes on top of leading the school.  Be on the battlefield like the rest of us.  When you say to me that you do not know the kids as well as the teachers, that is a problem.  You are supposed to lead the school and should know the kids just as much as the teachers.  If you say “we are in this together”, be in it with us together.

Effort to create “bar exam” for teachers moves forward – Related Stories – Accomplished Teacher� by SmartBrief: Effort to create “bar exam” for teachers moves forward
The recent proposal by the American Federation of Teachers that teachers would have to take a test similar to the bar exam that lawyers take is advancing. Ronald Thorpe, president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, said that within 90 days, he will move to create a commission to work on a list of standards that beginning teachers should know. “It’s an opportunity for the profession to step back and say these are our expectations based on what the profession sees as important to have when you step foot in the classroom on the first day,” Thorpe said.