Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Michael Yates wrote:
>
> >Two comments: Most teachers are not
> >very good at it and do not take the time to learn how to teach
> >effectively.
>
> Do any graduate programs actually teach people how to teach? In my
> brief career as a graduate TA - one semester of composition, one
> semester of 20th century American literature - we were just thrown
> into class with virtually no preparation. Since everyone had been a
> student, it was simply assumed that everyone knew how to teach. Is it
> any different elsewhere?
Not here. Sixteen years of (hopefully not altogether betrayed) guinea pigs
got me to wherever I'm at. We do have an expensive new centre offering to
teach us to teach now. But they seem mostly concerned with stuff like
power-point, web-notes and benchmarked standards - the kinda technoboosting
instrumentalism some of us might not instantly associate with the job at hand.
Actually, I do think (perhaps I need to think it) that a sincere person, with
the confidence of experience and a genuine warmth for and faith in his/her
charges, usually makes a pretty good fist of it. I think there are many many
good teachers.
Mind you, they're the ones hardest hit by this 'progress' of ours - so, yeah,
if we do have good teachers now, we might not have 'em ten years hence ...
Cheers,
Rob.
