As I am preparing for graduation in December I can't help but get angry at the university for the lack of preparation for an education degree. Any person that I know that is a teacher, was a teacher, or is going to be a teacher cannot believe that I don't have to do student teaching as an undergraduate student. I know that we don't graduate with licenses and it is because we haven't done student teaching, but wouldn't it make more sense to do student teaching earlier in the program that way if a person does change their mind, there is still time to switch programs? It's very frustrating not having confidence in a career choice when I am about to go out into the real world. The university's response to this lack of preparation is "just get your masters!". It seems to me that this pressure to get my master's degree from the university where I am receiving my undergraduate degree is absurd. It's as if we aren't able to do student teaching in undergrad because they want us to HAVE to attend OSU for our master's, therefore giving the university more of our money. Of course getting your master's degree is very beneficial, but being a student who has very little experience with educating children and having a master's degree, finding a job is going to be extremely difficult.
Now, not wanting to be a teacher, I feel sad that I've wasted time in a program that has classes that aren't going to benefit my career. I do appreciate many of my classes because they will prepare me for raising a family, but with that aside, it is hard to find motivation to pay attention in class because most of it is irrelevant to me now.
This article talks about the devalued nature of higher education and how many people who have their master's or doctorate do not receive the appropriate pay because a lot of schools can't afford it.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/loss-of-masters-degree-pay-bump-has-impact-on-teachers-grad-schools-736gavm-168292566.html
Lindsay, I definitely agree with your position on the preparation for an education degree. I have been a declared HDFS major with my specialization in Middle Childhood Education with hopes of getting in to the Master’s of Education program. Without some sort of experience in the classroom before we officially take steps in to the Master’s program, how do we know that we may not step in to the classroom and hate it? I guess this is when we as students should take it upon ourselves to get in to volunteer programs to get involved. To go along with your article, I also believe that a part of the fear of getting a Master’s degree and not just getting our license with our undergraduate degree is whether we will even be hired or if we are hired with a Master’s if we will get paid what we deserve to with our degree
ReplyDeleteI think that education majors need to work harder than other majors, and they need to be highly qualified to be able to teach our future leaders. Unprepared is a perfect example of how many of the current majors are qualified...we need to know basic spelling and arithmetic and I feel that many education majors aren't prepared to have future classrooms.
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