Discussion: Alabama Teacher Of The Year Resigns After State Calls Her Unqualified

[darrtown]

I miss sarcasm in print all the time. It’s a failing I freely admit to.

[midnight_rambler]

Thank god we’re finally getting rid of unqualified teachers and rewarding good ones.

[ottnott]

Say State Board of Education to any teacher in any state and you’ll get an eye-roll that would cripple Marty Feldman. They have a rulebook where most people have brains and none has been the adult in a classroom filled with students for years, if ever.

I hope they get this straightened out fast enough and apologetically enough [I hear you laughing, teachers, let me finish] to get her back in the classroom.

I can voice such hopes only because the Alabama BOE just recently did something very right for the students of Alabama:

The US state of Alabama has just updated its science standards for the first time in a decade, and the new rules state that public schools will have to teach students evolution and climate change.

[imkmu3]

I think anyone with a teacher in their family / close friend would recognize that. I know two, one lasted two years, but had to get our over abysmal pay. The other was the insane administration and bureaucracy.

[daveyjones64]

If I disagree I can relinquish my license or try to get things changed for the better if I feel so compelled.

Or do like Rand Paul and self certify. Because…FREEDOM!!

Now, lemme look at those eyes…

[daveyjones64]

Why we strayed away from basic teaching methods is beyond me.

I can’t answer for your specific scenario,and its not relevant to this article, but one of the reasons we have to change “basic teaching methods” is because the world has changed dramatically. Memorization of multiplication tables isn’t particularly useful in the age of calculators and computers on everybody’s phone. Its not so much about knowing the right answer, as knowing how to get the right answer. Google (again, on every phone) will give you the answer, if you know how to ask correctly.

Critical thinking becomes much more relevant in today’s world. Even in mundane trivial matters, like…who is the best baseball pitcher? That used to be a matter of who could remember the stats the best…today, everyone can access all of the stats…so the question is now a much more detailed discussion that has to bring in all sorts of other considerations. Who was he pitching against? What sort of team was around him?

[maxi2013]

how can you teach for 21 years and not be qualified?

[epicurus]

Shorter Alabama DoE: “We don’t need no education…”

[chammy]

because the world has changed dramatically. Memorization of multiplication tables isn’t particularly useful in the age of calculators and computers on everybody’s phone. Its not so much about knowing the right answer, as knowing how to get the right answer. Google (again, on every phone) will give you the answer, if you know how to ask correctly.

Thanks DaveyJones64. I never really took those things into consideration. Technology has changed everything. Thank you for your response

[szz]

This may seem such a waste of time for her to go through the extra hoops but it’s CYA time for the school district…because some parent is going to be checking teacher credentials when something is taught they don’t like and it will be an issue.

[ahduff]

It could be worse. She could live and teach in Wisconsin where NO teachers are respected. And the Gov. and legislators couldn’t pass a 8th grade graduation test.

[ignoreland]

Definitely not to mention how frustrating it is to be told to look in the dictionary to learn how to spell a word. ???

Type it into Google - or better yet, speak it into Google - and you get exactly what you want, even if you don’t know how to spell it. (Learned that one from my wife, who teaches elementary school and still has to do units on reference books.)

[martinstett]

Then you know that a lot of those 5th graders were taught by her in the lower grades, and from the sound of her, were delighted to see her again.

[turtles_run]

“This does not carry with it a requirement for resignation.”

Apparently, the board flunked reading comprehension. She did not claim she was required to quit, she said she wanted to quit because she did not want to prove her worth once again.

[fourlegsgood]

No, we need to get incompetent ideologues out of the school business. Different thing altogether.

[fourlegsgood]

Not just a waste of time, but a waste of money as well. The fees to get those extra, unnecessary certifications would come out of her pocket.

[fourlegsgood]

Listen, I’m math challenged and even I think knowing multiplication tables is useful. Sure, I can look it up or grab my calculator, but guess what? I can do it even faster in my head. Like instantly.

Yes, critical thinking skills are important. Always have been, always will be. Welcome to the party.

[red_cabbage]

Unqualified to teach creationism, that global warming is a hoax, gays are devils, and that GW Bush was the greatest president ever?

[bkmn]

Alabama - “Driving good people away, one person at a time”

[sherlock1]

Alabama speaks: "I am forty ninth in education. I wonder who is forty tenth?"

In Alabammy’ they don’t give a damn if little Johnny can read…as long as little Johnny can read a defense.