Relax. I'm not credentialed.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 7 comments link this postHere's the money quote from an article on a recent California ruling which will wreak havoc for homeschoolers in that state:
The ruling was applauded by a director for the state's largest teachers union.
"We're happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."
I can see the importance of kids being taught by a person being credentialed versus a parent who is not.
We had a credentialed teacher who had us watch The Silence of the Lambs instead of reading Shakespeare for Advanced Placement English when I was a junior in high school. And of course, those teach-all credentials make it safe to leave your kids with teachers. Credentials ensure that teachers make wise choices in literature for students. I also had an astronomy teacher who repeatedly likened the solar system to atoms, insisting that electrons had a neutral charge no matter what I said in disagreement.
I'll never forgive the teacher who messed up on the atomic structure.
Both sides could sit all day and throw out extreme examples of bad teachers and parents teaching badly, but I'm mainly just curious about the "we always think" and the "no matter what the setting" part of the above quote.
I question the accuracy of those statements.
But I'm not a credentialed blog writer.
So take that for what it's worth.
UPDATE: For your convenience, I've made available some generic credentials. This should cover it.
Labels: current events, education
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 3/07/2008 09:31:00 AM
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7 Comments:
Julie --
As a teacher I have very strong opinions concerning education and what I see as the horrible decline in preparing our children for a lifetime of learning.
I can't speak for California's teachers union, but so often the union leadership expresses sentiments that do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of many of the members.
My experience has been that, while the NEA likes to pretend that it is a professional organization like the AMA or the ABA, it more closely resembles the Teamsters in the James R. Hoffa days. For all of their platitudes about what is best for children, when push comes to shove it is all about protecting the membership, quality of teaching be damned.
I tire of having to be associated with positions that are anathema to me. I further resent having dues extracted, with no say in the matter, to support people and positions that are diametrically opposed to my beliefs.
Even though I teach in the public schools, I applaud any parent who takes on the responsibility of homeschooling their children. I am also in favor of vouchers if they can help to improve poor schools and create the competition necessary to producing a quality education.
I am sorry for the poor experiences you had in some of your high school classes and can only hope that the majority of your teachers were highly qualified and challenged you to be your best.
By 
Rey, at
7/3/08 12:26
I was hoping you'd weigh in on this, Rey!
I had pretty good teachers in school. My math teacher was excellent, as was my music/band instructor, and I had a pretty good English teacher for a few years, until she left.
The year I taught full-time in a public school, I was "invited" to join the NEA but I refused. I was warned over and over that I was opening myself up to legal issues if a student/family sued or whatever, and there were plenty of other things I was told as to why it was all but a requirement to join, but I didn't. I didn't like the things the NEA stood for on some issues, or the way they threw their weight around.
Plus, I'm not a joiner. I don't join groups/unions and give someone permission to speak for me, because the concept of a group having one voice means there is a lowest-common-denominator element and there is no way it can accurately speak for the majority as it tries to cover all the bases.
I don't join stuff. In fact, despite attending my church my entire life and being active and a regular attender...I've never officially joined it. I don't join stuff -- no political, social, professional or religious organizations.
My say is my say.
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
7/3/08 12:33
Well, it appears the comments are up again.
I couldn't agree with you more about group voice meaning that the lowest-common denominator becomes the expressed group element. How often has this led to idiotic positions becoming the norm I cannot say, but certainly it is more often than not.
Unfortunately, we have no option of not being a part of the union. It is a condition of employment.
By Rey, at
7/3/08 14:02
That has always struck me as being odd: required participation in a union in order to be employed.
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
7/3/08 14:07
I'm not a credentialed teacher. Not even a college graduate. Not EVEN a High School grad... I dropped out and got my GED. Then I had the audacity to homeschool both of my children for many years.
My son, who is mildly autistic, graduated several months early and now has a paying job (something we were told would never be possible for him). His employment is not supportive. He even handles money and does math. The public school had told us that if he was able to do basic addition and subtraction in 12th grade, they would count it a success. He did algebra and geometry here at home...
My daughter elected to go back to public school in 11th grade so she could pursue a teaching internship our local school offers. She was 15 at the time. The school looked at our transcript and bumped her up to 12th grade. She graduated with a 4.33 average and was immediately accepted at a rather exclusive private college... at 16 years old. She's earned mostly A's so far...
So tell me... where exactly did this uneducated hick go wrong?
By Kathi, at
7/3/08 16:37
Ha! Ha! A perfect credential certificate. Certainly it has every bit the value of anything state issued, and it is better looking. Not quite sure of the connection between an impressionist (okay, he preferred realist) and a libertarian, but ...
By Rey, at
8/3/08 07:11
The connection between Degas and Hancock is...they both have distinctive signatures.
Yeah.
That's really my reasoning.
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
8/3/08 07:38
