Friday, August 7, 2009

English Education: Teachers in the University

10-second review: “Colleges and universities need English education professors who know what it is to teach five classes a day, accommodate IEPs and still take on extracurricular activities.” p. 96.


Title: “The University Needs You.” Allen Webb. English Journal (May 2009), 95-97. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).


Summary/Quote: “Maybe you have had an experience like the one I have had: an education professor who has never been a classroom teacher. Or an education professor who was a classroom teacher so long ago that all that remains of the experience are some anecdotes from a lost era. Or an education professor who may have more recent teaching experience but nonetheless still seems strangely disconnected from real classrooms, for the challenges teacher face all the time, from getting students to turn in homework, grading all the papers, addressing curriculum mandates, dealing with parents and vice principals, and so on. Thus my first point: Universities don’t need more education professors who know teaching only in theory, who pay more attention to research and publishing than to what is happening, in the schools, who aren’t themselves good teachers.” p. 95.


Comment: The author urges good teachers in the real world to become education professors. RayS.

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