Uneducated teachers

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I spent many months sitting in a hospital as my son was ill (premature) and observed all the work that the nurses were doing while taking care of my son and the other children in their care. I would not consider myself to be a nurse nor would I apply for a job as one.
I think I would make a great nurse and I believe that many patients miss out on my many skills and superior bedside manner but I fear that due lack of qualifications in this field I may kill a patient.
I am sure you consider yourself to be a great teacher but the big reasoning in why you should attain teaching qualifications is because "we don't know what we don't know".
 
as a side note: On the basis that people are allowed to teach with no formal teaching qualifications, why is it that hong kong government forbid home schooling?
 
A doctor isn't allowed to be a doctor without proper credentials. Neither is a nurse, engineer, accountant etc.
A teacher is more than a warm English body.

I'm a fully trained an accredited teacher across 3 countries and it's bloody insulting to see 'teachers' walking around untrained and think they are better teachers because they THINK they are good at it. There is more to teaching than the warm and fuzzy feeling or making a child happy. Pedagogy, Methodology, Assessment (for learning, of learning), etc. are very important tools of the trade and people who think they can go into the class and get it right are just so darn wrong. No decent school would hire a teacher who isn't trained. How would you know what to write in for the curriculum development of a child. How would you know how to stretch a student? How would you know how to manage the development of a child. It's more than going into the classroom to create a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's more than ABCs or learning basic English. I would NEVER place my child in any situation where FORMAL school and curriculum management is concerned into a school with untrained teachers. Or even a school that doesn't invest in continuous professional development. Ask the principal of your school if s/he'd place his/her child in a school with an untrained teacher... the answer would probably is NOT!

Granted that there are good teachers who aren't certified. There are also a lot of lemons out there in the teaching profession. But when these folks go get their proper certification and seek continual professional development, they usually end up realising how they've gotten it wrong - that anyone can be a teacher - Just stick a person in the classroom and get on the job experience. I'm sure I'll be a great doctor that way too. Get me into a clinic now for on the job training! In X no. years, I can tell a trained doctor that I'm a doctor too as most doctors and nurses learn on the job too!

The QM
Accredited teacher
B.A. (Hons), PGDE, MEd, MAppLing
And continuously fulfills HOURS of professional development each year from local and international institutions/conferences just so that I can be better at my job!
 
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I fully agree with you QM (your credentials are similar to mine)! I feel that many schools try to save money by employing clowns who have no regard for a child's educational development. Some schools really like to employ clowns as the children like this, however, there is really no learning taking place in their classrooms- just fun and games.
 
Wow. You guys are very passionate. I totally agree with you "The QM". I feel like teaching children is my calling :) There is much more to teaching than standing in front of the classroom and just what happens in the classroom.

In Australia, we have similar procedures to what cupcakes, AmyH and Bumps have described. ANYONE who could potentially come into contact with children must have a background check done on them, this is to minimise the risk of something awful happening to the children on school premises. In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to carry out such routines and everyone would have a "heart of gold" but this is not the case. When the media report child abuse that occurs in a school setting, it is sickening. A school should be safe environment for children to play and learn. Unfortunately, we have to be pro-active about protecting out children even when it comes to the cost of a poor young male teacher not even being able to give a child a hug after they've taken a tumble in the playground for fear of "how it looks".
 
Just wondering as a working parent, how exactly do you know if your child's teacher has gotten the qualification to teach or not? Most schools here don't exactly list out all the employed teacher's CV and qualification.
 
Just ask the teacher. No big deal for teachers to be asked. If they are qualified they are more than happy to answer you.
 
Hf23

Yes. I was told the most valuable piece of paper in NSW is my security clearance! I hold it dearly. But HK is getting up to speed with it. New foreign teachers employed by EDB, HK are now required to get a CNCC - Certificate of No Criminal Conviction.

Cupcakes
And the thing is, even with the number of years experience and continual PD, I still don't think I know enough. There is always something I need to train for e.g. I'm on the quest of either Sp. Ed in Literacy Recovery & Gifted Ed or going on to a PHD to do field research on an area of interest. So I don't understand how teachers who aren't qualified can get mighty about their abilities.

The worst I have encountered so far has been to hire unqualified foreigners with no teaching experience to teach local teachers how to teach???!!! I mean, that would mean adults who were educated yonks ago with methodologies that may be outdated! E.g. Implementing English taught in a First Language setting directly into an ESL setting without thought! How crazy is that! They don't do that even where I'm from - Australia, not at in the schools I have encountered! Or recently, finding out a certain education centre hiring a high school graduate (white of course) to write the writing curriculum for enhancement lessons of international/local ESL students!

I'm a high school teacher and while my son is in Kindie, I've never once admitted to his teacher that I know how to teach him. At every parent teacher meeting, I always ask how I can support his learning. There are the common sense things we do as parents/home educators but his kindie teacher always gives me a better idea of what I need to do to enhance his development as part of directed fun play/learning.

Schools are no place for unqualified educators who THINK they can. It's not like afterschool care/enhancement. Learning is a long term journey that requires thought and deliberate planning. Only teachers who know their pedagogy can do that. Good teachers don't have short term visions. Good teachers plan for a child's long term development. It's more than a song and a dance in the long run. After a year in K1, you can tell when your child's been developed by a teacher or someone who thinks they're a teacher. I've experienced this first hand from two different schools (where my son's been educated). TEACHER EDUCATION makes a difference.
 
mommybee you could always e-mail the principal and ask the question? Surely you would have a right to know that someody who is a major part of you childs education and development has the necessary skills and qualifications to do the job? I know that with my son (I am a SAHM) I had many conversations with my son's teacher before school every day and we discussed her career (involved teaching in UK in a school). I cannot say the same for all of the teachers in that school but I do know that my son's teacher was qualified to teach.
 
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Mommybee, most schools divulge this. If it's a local school, they have to account for their teachers' qualifications to the EDB. So if you ask, they'd be able to tell you. If it's a reputable international school, they'd post it on their website. I know what qualifications my son's kindie teacher has and how much experience she has.
 
I know what you mean QM! It is refreshing to hear your thoughts on this as I thought it was just me who found employing unqualified teachers a joke. I am the most qualified teacher at my school and I am always correcting other teacher's mistakes. Pulling them up on errors in their speech (one teacher always says 'I seen' instead of I have seen or I saw - drives me made!), classroom management, report writing, behaviour in front of the students etc. In fact I continually correct the mistakes of the English Supervisors who send out newsletters with mistakes all through it.
 
Thanks a lot for this useful discussion. As I research kindergartens, pre-school and formal playgroups for my son, I'll keep these issues in mind. As for those unqualified teachers without formal education, degree, training, certification etc, it sounds that they are finding ways to rationalize and justify how good they think they are. Degrees/certifications in any profession are a labor market signal for a reason, no matter how many years of professional expertise one gathers.
 
Yes, bagel, from my experience, unqualified teachers DO rationalise how good they think they are. "But I have been this or that in the past and I have X number of children." NO! SORRY! This does not give them the knowledge needed to teach. Might give them the knowledge to entertain children, but not teach!!!
 
Actually, I really wonder why some parents are so concerned with the education of their child in HK and not with their teacher?
 
I have NEVER said that I no longer need to learn anything about what I do. Nor have I said that teachers who are unqualified should be teaching in schools. I think it VERY important that in primary and secondary schools, teachers SHOULD be qualified. But just because they are qualified does not make them good.

You can think that I am rationalising all you like. Yes, I have 15 years of experience, but NEVER have I stated ANYWHERE that I am qualified more than I am. All of my students/parents can see my degrees and those of my other teachers, we post them up just for that reason. If presented with the opportunity to further my education and get a PGDE, I will take it.

I think that we should also distinguish where/what is being taught. Personally, I think experience is more important for what I do. Of course, the playgroup leader must be a native-English speaker who speaks correctly and with an intelligible accent, but for me, personality/experience is much more important. Now, I'm talking children 1-3 years of age. For children in primary school, I would have far different requirements for hiring a teacher.

If I open a kindergarten as I've been asked to do by many parents, I would ONLY hire fully qualified teachers. I have no problem with that whatsoever and would insist on it.
 
This discussion reminds me of someone in my husband's family - he arrived in Hong Kong in the 60s or so from Shanghai. He did well at school but never had the chance to go to university so he forged his "degree". He was the first person in his field in Hong Kong and is still highly recognised in this area today - when you google him there are all kinds of articles about him and he's been on the board of all kinds of organisations etc... but he never went to university at all. No one outside of family knows that though - although now with something like 50 years experience in the field, it's hardly relevant any more anyway. He's brilliant at what he does and deserves his positions, even though he was never properly qualified.

I also know some great teachers who aren't "qualified" and some not so great ones who are. I do think there's a place for qualifications, but I also don't think that we should be so "qualification-focused" that we lose sight of what a good teacher (or good anything) really means.

As a university graduate, I know that most of what you do with your degree after uni is on the job training, and the "knowledge" that you learn at uni often is just the ticket you need to enter that particular career. Experience in my opinion is worth far more than education.
 
I agree to some extent Nicole but I do still think it is necessary to have a teaching qualification in order to teach in primary/seconday school. In Cara's situation I would have no issues there at all, as she is running a play group, which is completely different.
I would love to say that I could be a doctor as I grew up watching ER and House and have taken some first aid courses but would anybody volounteer to let me diagnose and treat them?
 
I agree with AmyH. In Cara's situation, she runs a playgroup/enhancement activities that support learning (for early learners). And in a such a situation, qualifications are not a necessity. Experience is. Cara's English-Adventures supports a lot of non-native English speakers outside the formal curriculum and positively from what I hear.

But in formal schooling, it is unfortunately a necessity. There are targets to be met/ curriculum that have been split over a 10-12 years in most countries. And this, requires knowledge, experience and training.

It's a combination of experience and qualifications. Not just qualifications. But it is a necessary beginning.

What I think irks Cupcakes and I are the fact that unqualified teachers THINK that they know better when us trained and experience teachers don't profess to know everything. We are continuously seeking improvement as the diversity in ALL classrooms across all countries are just too wide to be dependent on experience.

Teachers in formal school settings need both. In good schools, beginner teachers (Teachers with less than 5 years experience) are guided and not even thrown into the deep end as such schools know that both are required and new teachers are mentored and given lots of on the job PD. Being a good unqualified teacher is only the beginning. Training and accreditation is still necessary. So to that extent I do agree with Nicole, there should not be just a focus on qualifications.
 
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Thank you, that is much clearer. I cannot agree with you more, if that's what you meant.

However, my brother IS a qualified middle-school teacher in Canada. He WAS thrown into the deep end. He had one prep period per week if he was lucky. He HATED his first two years as a teacher because he got NOTHING of what you described above. He's finally getting a little more support at his new school and enjoying life a bit more, too.
 
From my point of view, I believe that anyone who sets up a learning centre should in fact be educated in the teaching profession and be police checked.
 
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