To ask if you think secondary teachers should have achieved top grades in their subject area

[Teachersshouldbeclever]

I genuinely wonder how, if a secondary teacher was unable to achieve the top grades when they sat their subject, if they are able to teach their students the skills needed.

Or is it a case of the cleverest students actually surpassing their teachers' knowledge and expertise?

I would say it still is in Scotland. All teachers have to have undergone teacher training, it is fully regulated/inspected, there are professional standards which must be met, and they have to undertake ongoing Continuing Professional Development as part of their standards for registration.

It is appalling that elsewhere in the UK, it is now apparently fine for unqualified TAs to take a class. I have worked with some fantastic TAs, but they were not qualified or trained to teach. If they were capable of being teachers (which some definitely are), why not do the actual training? How this dumbing down of the profession has been allowed to happen is beyond me. Teachers and parents would be up in arms here if they tried that, and I certainly would not be happy as a parent.

I think the teacher has to be ABLE to achieve top grades, otherwise how can they teach to that level?
So messing up your A Levels because you were out in the piss is ok, as long as you have a damn good degree on your CV, imo!

I haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to add that GCSE and A level IT didn't exist when I was at school so I couldn't have got top grades in the subject I now teach and have done so successfully for nearly 20 years.

Cat I do get that your goady little rhetorical questions are supposed to wind me up, and they are not based in any actual understanding of what a profession is, and I shoudln't deign to respond to you but.....

OED definition of profession:

"A paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification"

So teaching a profession is one by definition

To expand: " profession is a vocation founded upon specialised educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested objective counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain"

Sounds pretty much like teaching to me.

To say that teaching is not a profession is yet another way to undermine the it. Yet another stick to be thrown by people who seem to take their opinions from the op ed page of the Daily Mail and its ilk.

Teaching might have been a profession back in the day, but its de-skilling, as characterised, for instance, by the micro-managing lesson/unit plans, constant changing of standards, use of unqualified staff, are not those of the work we would recognise as professional, such as that of doctors or lawyers.

In addition, the lack of a self-regulatory body, such as the BMA, makes teachers the football of every government. The GTC was not a professional body, it was forced on teachers, so not like the BMA

Did you read this, lurker?

Sometimes quite often those who have struggled with a subject make the best teachers. Because they don't think it's obvious and have addressed it from different perspectives.

I struggled with art and PE. I would make a shit teacher of art and PE because I am not very good at them. I'm good at maths, which is useful because when a kid comes to me with a question they are finding hard, I can do it, and then show them how to do it. If a kid came to me and said they were finding it hard to draw a piece of fruit, then me actually being unable to draw a piece of fruit myself would be no use to them.

If you struggled with a subject then that's all well and good, but you need to have actually achieved some measure of success too, otherwise it's the blind leading the blind.

You're right, all the people I know that are teachers from my school were certainly not the highest achievers.

I did read it Cat, I didn;t agree with it. I stand by my point, teaching is a profession.

You can say all you like that you think its not because of X, Y, Z but look at the definitions provided and tell me how teaching does not fit that.

You can't.

I did read it Cat, I didn;t agree with it

Are you able to explain why you didn't agree with echt's post, lurker?

Totally fed up with the level of teacher-goading on here just now. I (and most teachers I know) were not 'low achievers'. We do the job despite the endless bashing, mediocre pay, ridiculous (at times) workload because we genuinely love watching children learn and grow.

Those who can, teach. Those who can't should just bog off and let us get on with doing our job.

"de-skilling, as characterised, for instance, by the micro-managing lesson/unit plans, constant changing of standards, use of unqualified staff."

Is not something that I recognise in my profession. For starters, in all professions there are changes in standards of delivery over time, medicine, law etc. For instance, Junior doctors are about to go out on strike on changes to their working standards aren't they.

Micro-managing of lesson plans? I am really experienced and have been in lots of schools, I've never been told that I have to deliver something in a certain way. I have autonomy, as do my colleagues, over how I deliver my lessons successfully to the students in the room. I plan my lessons based on their abilities, strengths, weaknesses and differentiate accordingly. I see no micro-managment.

The use of unqualified staff has been majorly objected to by virtually all teachers groups and by many schools, but "unqaulified" is a misleading term. Those that are hired will have a relevant degree in the subject they are required to teach, and are required to undertake professional training whilst working, they are also supervised by people with QTS throughout the period in which they are training.

The GTC was formed by act of parliament, but so was the BMC, the Law society is a much more ancient body formed to protect the vested interests of lawyers. The GTC was abolished by Gove, and actually by many in the profession that was lamented.

Gosh, why am I actually replying? Must write out a hundred times, I must not rise to the bait.

Unqualified teachers, as far as I'm aware, are not required to have a relevant degree in the subject they are required to teach, nor are they required to undertake professional training.

HLTAs can take classes. Cover supervisors end up teaching. Academies and free schools can hire anyone they like.

And I don't know anyone who lamented the abolition of the GTC. Most only knew it as a crappy magazine they never read, and a deduction from their wages they couldn't object to.

longtimelurker

We obviously have vastly different experiences of being a teacher. Everything in echt's post rings true for me and that is what I had in mind when I offered the opinion that teaching is "no longer a profession". You have attacked me for having that opinion, accusing me of being "insulting", "derogatory" and "goady" and culling my views from the Daily Mail. In fact, I feel entitled to hold the opinion I do because I have taught for more than 30 years and have seen the job of teaching change in so many ways - little of it good.

Some of us saw the taking away of the GTC and the changing to the teaching college as a way of increasing government control.

I also think the changes to who can teach is a part of the preperation for the privatisation of national education. Wages take up the most of the budget, lower this cost and schools become a much more appealing to private firms as the profit will increase.

Its sad, but with the way this government is treating education, your children (not mine, they are too far through now) will be educated by private firms whose main objective is profit not education.

And then of course, private schools have always employed unqualified teachers. Is why I'd never pay money for my kids' éducation.

I am now able to write a longer post.

I have found many of the posts interesting, but also depressing - the fact that some are so insistent that not only is good subject knowledge irrelevant to ones skills as a teacher but is in fact detrimental is a depressing one.

It's a view I can't agree with. I might understand why a child would struggle with ballet but I would be unable to teach them!

But there is a big difference between achieving top grades, not quite achieving top grades and not being able to do it (or having very low grades).

I simply couldn't teach ballet because I don't know enough about it.

But you'd be unrealistic to think that your child's ballet teacher was among the best in class. Ballet may not be a good example, because few do it.
But, say maths, which is a main subject and for which there is a great demand for teachers. Those who do achieve the very top grades at maths probably prefer to be challenged and do research and teach at universities. Or go for more challenging jobs (maths wise) than teaching outside universities.
You may get the occasional person who does enjoy teaching and is very good at maths.

And, yes, I've seen people who are very good at what they do and are crap teachers, so I'm not sure you'd necessarily want those with top grades.
What you do want is people who can explain things in a way that the students understand and can help them consolidate their knowledge or search for themselves.

Teachersshouldbeclever

A friend of mine is is the top 2% of mensa, he is by your measure extremely clever.

He has no people skills and frankly the pupils would eat him alive. Qualifications alone do not make a good teacher.

In many papers and often on here, people make reference to 'the good old days' of teaching and schools (O-levels and CSEs), most forget that (some where never there) that many teachers didn't have a degree, some had a cert ed, there was no recognised SEN, any child that misbehaved was shipped out to a 'special' school' some people fell in to teaching and that there was no way of tracking who was good or bad.

I don't think I've stated at any point that excellent qualifications automatically equate to good teaching. However, I do feel that to successfully teach the skills needed to obtain excellence, teachers should be excellent themselves.

I feel that the reality is most are unable to, and as such talented students get A*s through their own natural inborn ability, not through teaching.

You are making lots of odd assumptions there:

However, I do feel that to successfully teach the skills needed to obtain excellence, teachers should be excellent themselves.
Excellent teachers should be excellent at teaching, not necessarily excellent in the subject areas.
Excellent teachers should help less excellent students get top grades.

I feel that the reality is most are unable to, and as such talented students get As through their own natural inborn ability, not through teaching.*
Students get good grades through learning, not only natural ability. It's a myth that grades reflect ability.
Teaching is about facilitating learning. It's not only natural ability, but the work put into it and the strategies to learn.

In any case, a teacher who hasn't achieved top grades at the level that they are teaching, in pretty much all cases, will have reached an excellent understanding of the subjects that they teach later on. Or will put up the work (also being older and more knowledgeable) to fully understand the subjects that they are teaching at any given moment.

Right, so a PG teaching qualification after eg a music degree will ensure better teaching of physics or Japanese than a physics or Japanese degree with no teaching qualification?