Group Work Discussion (Lucy / Matt L. / Joe / Jessie-Jo)
What aspect of Education for All has your group concentrated on for this project? Use the comments section of this post to discuss your group's work, research and findings and your opinions about the topic(s) you've been studying.
My groups topic for 20/20 was teacher qualification and lack of teachers around the world. During this project we discovered some programs in the U.S. that are helping this topic. The one that interested me the most was City Year. It is a program where students who have graduated high school can go around the country to become student teachers in poorer society schools. Then the program helps pay for the volunteer student’s college tuition. I thought that this program was a great way to help schools that aren’t doing well, as well as to benefit kids who can’t afford college; but why can’t this program be all over the world? Earlier this year when reading an article for Yolanda’s class, I read about how AIDS impacts the lack of teachers in Africa. What I didn’t read about was that AIDS isn’t the only cause of our lack of teachers. All over the world, for various reasons, there are not enough teachers. As part of our group’s solution we created a program like City Year, only internationally. I hope that someday they will create a City Year international, because it will benefit countries and people everywhere, instead of just the U.S. The other part of our 20/20 project was teacher qualification. I assumed that since I go to Moses Brown that all my teachers would be qualified to teach. But, after my group gave a survey out to the entire Moses Brown faculty, I learned otherwise. Although the vast majority of the Moses Brown teachers have the knowledge to teach, and are amazing teachers, that isn’t the case in all schools. In some other schools, teachers may be not be qualified, and also not be capable teachers. The only solution to this problem is to pass an international law making all teachers required to have qualification. As a group we constructed a plan of how to go about this, so all teachers would equally be able to receive this qualification. Throughout this project I have realized how lucky I am to receive a wonderful education, when children around the world don’t have the same opportunities or privileges. Learning about City Year, and other programs, such as Teach for America, I realized that although things such as solving education problems around the world may seem an impossible task, it starts with the smaller things, such as these programs, than will eventually work itself up the ladder, and solve the problem.
Our group's focus for the topic Education For All was teacher qualification and lack of teachers. Some of the interesting problems to think about and solve were: What should be the standards for a "qualified' teacher"? Do they need to have a teaching degree, or a degree in what they teach? We took a survey of all the teachers that teach here at Moses Brown, and many teachers here don't have the schooling to be able to teach in public schools, although they are very competent teachers and provide an educational experience for students that probably could not be found at a public school. From this knowledge, we have established some guidelines on what a teacher's knowledge should consist of: things like having a grade level knowledge of the subject at or above the grade level they teach (preferably above the grade level they teach), They need to speak the language that they teach in fluently, and they must have a certain amount of schooling themselves. That does not necessarily mean they need a teaching degree, however. This obstacle of forming guidelines is an interesting one; you could have debates about what should be required. But we have to remember a part of the problem we are trying to solve here: lack of teachers. We can't be too picky when it comes to qualifying teachers to teach in countries where there is a huge teacher deficit. We need to be able to trust that the teacher can teach his/her students the right thing in order for the world to have a more proficient, intelligent society. Teacher qualification and lack of teachers go together because one greatly affects the other. If you require too much of teachers that need to be qualified, you create lack of teachers. If you start reeling in people just because you need teachers, that may solve you quantity problem, but quality is where it counts. I'm interested to see what the general public thinks about our plans for solving these issues for these are real issues that show up in the White House everyday.
My group has attempted to solve two major issues governments face regarding education: teacher deficit and teacher qualification. These two issues form an extremely problematic global concern. Because of the global lack of teachers, finding people willing to educate students in impoverished countries is exceedingly difficult. In many countries, there are very few people willing to teach in schools. Therefore, even if a child wants to get a decent education, sometimes, schools are not able to grant him one. In schools that do have teachers, the teachers are, in many cases, unqualified for their job. Even at Moses Brown, only 16 teachers are certified, about 10 percent. Assuming that percentage is globally consistent, 10 percent of the world’s teachers are certified. That means that even students who do have teachers probably are not receiving a good education.
Our group has come up with a solution that resolves both of these problems. We propose creating a program called JJLuM that will enable schools around the world to have enough qualified teachers to properly function. JJLuM has several simple steps that enable it to solve two complicated problems. First, schools anywhere in the world may contact our agency if they do not have enough teachers or do not feel their teachers are qualified. Second, high school graduates who cannot afford college also contact our agency. We then send the high school gradates to other countries for a number of years to help teach underprivileged students. Since the high school graduates are unqualified to teach, they will teach grades K-5, enabling more experienced teachers to teach upper grades. We hope that our solution can successfully solve two of the world’s most challenging educational issues.
I am responding to Joe’s post. I agree with how he says that you have to balance out quantity and quality of teachers. I feel that it is important to have qualified teachers, yet it’s difficult in some countries for good teachers to receive the proper qualification required. After reading what Joe wrote, I changed my opinion about having a law that requires teachers to be qualified. I realize that there are many great teachers around the world that just don’t have the resources to become qualified. I still do believe that to a certain extent there has to be some level of qualification, but not necessarily a degree. Like Joe said, just things like fluency in the language and schooling up to or past the level you are teaching. I hope that the balance between quality and quantity is easily maintained, so education for all is one step closer to being solved.
My group focused on the problem of teacher qualification and lack of teachers in the world. Through out this project we have discovered that the U.S is trying to help this situation, by creating programs like City Year, and Unesco. The City Year program sends high school graduates to different schools through out the U.S where the children need assistant teachers or tooters for after school. By doing this the high school students get money put toward there collage education for all their hard work. This project, from my opinion has a very good background to it but my group and I were thinking why not have program like City Year go international. Unesco is a program that sets goal for education for all; they have a goal that by 2015 the problem of education for all will be under control. It’s a very good goal, but I think it needs more background to it. My group and I had many ideas on teacher qualification we thought something like a traveling training camp that would run through out the summer each year. These training camps would help get teachers qualified enough to teach at different schools. My group and I think we could solve many problems with some of our plans, but the problem of Aids and different diseases we know we could not be able to fix. We hope that the solutions they we have established will help better the problem of education for all.
I am responding to Matt's post. He poses an interesting thought when he says that some schools are not able to provide proper schooling to their students. That is definitely something to consider when you are trying to solve teacher qualification, for in order for teachers to be qualified they need to be able to properly teach children. The thing is, teachers may have the skills they need to teach their students, but do they have enough supplies? There are schools around the world that do not have sufficient resources for a preferable learning experience. Thinking of this problem has gotten me to believe that it is another roadblock in the road to a more educated population. Lack of resources is something that needs all of the major countries involved in if we want to eliminate it. For example, JJLuM could create a world fund for education resources that all of the countries of the world could contribute to. It could pay for things like notebooks, pencils, textbooks, computers and other technology and necessities of the classroom. Lack of resources is not a part of my group's plan, but I think it should definitely be considered on a global scale.
I definitely agree with Lucy’s opinions on this topic. She has stated our ideas towards this situation and how we plan on helping, but she also stated there are some areas that we just can’t fix. But she has also talked about the areas we can fix, and our ideas to do so. She talked about having a company like City Year but having it run all over the world. She explained how it would help the problem of lack teachers. Think that Lucy did a nice job stating her opinion.
I agree with Jessie that there are many organizations currently set up for bettering education, and that several of them should operate internationally. For example, Jessie stated how beneficial it would be to have an international City Year program. I also agree with Jessie that several programs and guidelines currently in affect need to be more specific and effective. Jessie said that UNESCO has a goal that: “by 2015 the problem of education for all will be under control.” I understand that she did not quote UNESCO’s goals, but “under control,” is an extremely vague term, and UNESCO should specify what it intends to do. I would like to add however, that UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and is not run by or in the United States like City Year.
8 comments:
My groups topic for 20/20 was teacher qualification and lack of teachers around the world. During this project we discovered some programs in the U.S. that are helping this topic. The one that interested me the most was City Year. It is a program where students who have graduated high school can go around the country to become student teachers in poorer society schools. Then the program helps pay for the volunteer student’s college tuition. I thought that this program was a great way to help schools that aren’t doing well, as well as to benefit kids who can’t afford college; but why can’t this program be all over the world? Earlier this year when reading an article for Yolanda’s class, I read about how AIDS impacts the lack of teachers in Africa. What I didn’t read about was that AIDS isn’t the only cause of our lack of teachers. All over the world, for various reasons, there are not enough teachers. As part of our group’s solution we created a program like City Year, only internationally. I hope that someday they will create a City Year international, because it will benefit countries and people everywhere, instead of just the U.S. The other part of our 20/20 project was teacher qualification. I assumed that since I go to Moses Brown that all my teachers would be qualified to teach. But, after my group gave a survey out to the entire Moses Brown faculty, I learned otherwise. Although the vast majority of the Moses Brown teachers have the knowledge to teach, and are amazing teachers, that isn’t the case in all schools. In some other schools, teachers may be not be qualified, and also not be capable teachers. The only solution to this problem is to pass an international law making all teachers required to have qualification. As a group we constructed a plan of how to go about this, so all teachers would equally be able to receive this qualification. Throughout this project I have realized how lucky I am to receive a wonderful education, when children around the world don’t have the same opportunities or privileges. Learning about City Year, and other programs, such as Teach for America, I realized that although things such as solving education problems around the world may seem an impossible task, it starts with the smaller things, such as these programs, than will eventually work itself up the ladder, and solve the problem.
Our group's focus for the topic Education For All was teacher qualification and lack of teachers. Some of the interesting problems to think about and solve were: What should be the standards for a "qualified' teacher"? Do they need to have a teaching degree, or a degree in what they teach? We took a survey of all the teachers that teach here at Moses Brown, and many teachers here don't have the schooling to be able to teach in public schools, although they are very competent teachers and provide an educational experience for students that probably could not be found at a public school. From this knowledge, we have established some guidelines on what a teacher's knowledge should consist of: things like having a grade level knowledge of the subject at or above the grade level they teach (preferably above the grade level they teach), They need to speak the language that they teach in fluently, and they must have a certain amount of schooling themselves. That does not necessarily mean they need a teaching degree, however. This obstacle of forming guidelines is an interesting one; you could have debates about what should be required. But we have to remember a part of the problem we are trying to solve here: lack of teachers. We can't be too picky when it comes to qualifying teachers to teach in countries where there is a huge teacher deficit. We need to be able to trust that the teacher can teach his/her students the right thing in order for the world to have a more proficient, intelligent society. Teacher qualification and lack of teachers go together because one greatly affects the other. If you require too much of teachers that need to be qualified, you create lack of teachers. If you start reeling in people just because you need teachers, that may solve you quantity problem, but quality is where it counts. I'm interested to see what the general public thinks about our plans for solving these issues for these are real issues that show up in the White House everyday.
My group has attempted to solve two major issues governments face regarding education: teacher deficit and teacher qualification. These two issues form an extremely problematic global concern. Because of the global lack of teachers, finding people willing to educate students in impoverished countries is exceedingly difficult. In many countries, there are very few people willing to teach in schools. Therefore, even if a child wants to get a decent education, sometimes, schools are not able to grant him one. In schools that do have teachers, the teachers are, in many cases, unqualified for their job. Even at Moses Brown, only 16 teachers are certified, about 10 percent. Assuming that percentage is globally consistent, 10 percent of the world’s teachers are certified. That means that even students who do have teachers probably are not receiving a good education.
Our group has come up with a solution that resolves both of these problems. We propose creating a program called JJLuM that will enable schools around the world to have enough qualified teachers to properly function. JJLuM has several simple steps that enable it to solve two complicated problems. First, schools anywhere in the world may contact our agency if they do not have enough teachers or do not feel their teachers are qualified. Second, high school graduates who cannot afford college also contact our agency. We then send the high school gradates to other countries for a number of years to help teach underprivileged students. Since the high school graduates are unqualified to teach, they will teach grades K-5, enabling more experienced teachers to teach upper grades. We hope that our solution can successfully solve two of the world’s most challenging educational issues.
I am responding to Joe’s post. I agree with how he says that you have to balance out quantity and quality of teachers. I feel that it is important to have qualified teachers, yet it’s difficult in some countries for good teachers to receive the proper qualification required. After reading what Joe wrote, I changed my opinion about having a law that requires teachers to be qualified. I realize that there are many great teachers around the world that just don’t have the resources to become qualified. I still do believe that to a certain extent there has to be some level of qualification, but not necessarily a degree. Like Joe said, just things like fluency in the language and schooling up to or past the level you are teaching. I hope that the balance between quality and quantity is easily maintained, so education for all is one step closer to being solved.
My group focused on the problem of teacher qualification and lack of teachers in the world. Through out this project we have discovered that the U.S is trying to help this situation, by creating programs like City Year, and Unesco. The City Year program sends high school graduates to different schools through out the U.S where the children need assistant teachers or tooters for after school. By doing this the high school students get money put toward there collage education for all their hard work. This project, from my opinion has a very good background to it but my group and I were thinking why not have program like City Year go international. Unesco is a program that sets goal for education for all; they have a goal that by 2015 the problem of education for all will be under control. It’s a very good goal, but I think it needs more background to it. My group and I had many ideas on teacher qualification we thought something like a traveling training camp that would run through out the summer each year. These training camps would help get teachers qualified enough to teach at different schools. My group and I think we could solve many problems with some of our plans, but the problem of Aids and different diseases we know we could not be able to fix. We hope that the solutions they we have established will help better the problem of education for all.
I am responding to Matt's post. He poses an interesting thought when he says that some schools are not able to provide proper schooling to their students. That is definitely something to consider when you are trying to solve teacher qualification, for in order for teachers to be qualified they need to be able to properly teach children. The thing is, teachers may have the skills they need to teach their students, but do they have enough supplies? There are schools around the world that do not have sufficient resources for a preferable learning experience. Thinking of this problem has gotten me to believe that it is another roadblock in the road to a more educated population. Lack of resources is something that needs all of the major countries involved in if we want to eliminate it. For example, JJLuM could create a world fund for education resources that all of the countries of the world could contribute to. It could pay for things like notebooks, pencils, textbooks, computers and other technology and necessities of the classroom. Lack of resources is not a part of my group's plan, but I think it should definitely be considered on a global scale.
I definitely agree with Lucy’s opinions on this topic. She has stated our ideas towards this situation and how we plan on helping, but she also stated there are some areas that we just can’t fix. But she has also talked about the areas we can fix, and our ideas to do so. She talked about having a company like City Year but having it run all over the world. She explained how it would help the problem of lack teachers. Think that Lucy did a nice job stating her opinion.
I agree with Jessie that there are many organizations currently set up for bettering education, and that several of them should operate internationally. For example, Jessie stated how beneficial it would be to have an international City Year program. I also agree with Jessie that several programs and guidelines currently in affect need to be more specific and effective. Jessie said that UNESCO has a goal that: “by 2015 the problem of education for all will be under control.” I understand that she did not quote UNESCO’s goals, but “under control,” is an extremely vague term, and UNESCO should specify what it intends to do. I would like to add however, that UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and is not run by or in the United States like City Year.
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