Don’t accept a first-year teacher for your child

Imagine if medical school focused mainly on the history and philosophy of medicine, doctor pay and working conditions, tips on cutting toenails, the inadvisability of smoking, and other similarly peripheral matters. Then imagine that newly-graduated doctors were placed in medical practices where they are assigned the heaviest caseload and the most difficult patients and are expected to learn on the job. 

Although it sounds ridiculous when applied to medical training, nevertheless this is the reality for most new teachers. Their pre-service training pays virtually no attention to the skills and knowledge they are expected to teach. Most teacher training is of little practice use. Prospective teachers learn how to make leaf collections but not how to teach children to read, this history of education but not how to write report cards. Few are taught effective classroom management skills or strategies to teach hard-to-teach students.

Without their practicums, new teachers would be totally overwhelmed when they are dropped into their first classroom. As it is, they are only almost totally overwhelmed. Here's a column on how new teachers are welcomed.

Luckily, some teachers figure it out by themselves and eventually become good at the job. Unluckily, some don't. And even more unluckily, the latter group can't be fired. The whole thing is just nuts.

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