I don't know about you, but my education students have often groused about what they perceive is the lack of teaching experience among those tasked to teach them how to teach. Every term, after my self introduction, my students come and tell me how happy they are to finally have a professor with significant teaching experience. But my students are only speculating. Perhaps they surmise a lack of experience because their other professors do not claim any when they introduce themselves.
On the other hand, I found myself also often speculating. I would listen to my colleagues and shake my head. Once I checked all the online resumes of my colleagues in the education department. I was disappointed. Most have of my fellow education professors lacked what I would consider significant teaching experience. Maybe they spent some time as a guest in an elementary or secondary classroom for the purpose of completing a thesis or dissertation. But real, in-the-trenches experience? Not there.
I mean, the kind of experience where you are held responsible for the academic achievement of anywhere from 20 to 180 students at a time while receiving no administrative support routine suffering the indignation of having your professional judgment undermined, because as everyone knows, US teachers are no good. The experience of maintaining classroom control in difficult circumstances. The experience of being called a professional while expected to teach from a scripted, "teacher-proof" curriculum.
Most of my colleagues had never really taught students For many years, I wondered if my university was unique, or if the lack of teaching experience is a common characteristic across the board, anywhere in the country. I knew conducting such a study would be difficult. Department chairs would be unlikely to grant me access to curriculum vita, the fancy academic term for resumes. I did not want to conduct a survey. Respondents self-select, and I was not sure I would be able to trust the data. Respondents often try to tell you what they think you want to hear, or what will reflect positively on them.
I made an attempt to find resumes online, just as I had for my own university, but the results were sparse. I have off and on repeated the attempt. This past year, November 2009, I finally felt I got enough hits in my Google search to take a random sample. I did not include myself. I could have collected data on hundreds of resumes, but after seventy I got tired. It seemed I had more than enough. A clear picture was emerging.
A full 25 out of 70 resumes had no teaching experience listed. However, I cannot positively conclude that the professor had no significant teaching experience, only that there was none listed. It is possible the professor omitted it from the resume. People often leave earlier job experiences off resumes in favor of more recent experience. If I were looking at typical one-to-two page resumes, omission of early experience is perfectly sensible---except these online resumes were very long and detailed. They can run to ten pages or more, and list every conference or workshop ever attended, every publication even if only a letter to an editor, and evidently, every education job ever held.
I can only speculate why so many professors of education neglect to list any teaching experience. The most ready conjecture is that professors who list no teaching experience actually have none. But in the interest of being fair, I will only go so far as to say 36% of education professors did not list teaching experience. I did not count what appeared to be short-term guest appearances or student-teaching experience. Many of the professors who did have significant teaching experience had never been student-teachers. The student-teaching requirement is actually fairly recent. I, myself, with 35 years of teaching experience have never been a student teacher.
Another 26% either did not specify the number of years teaching or taught three years or less. In fact, a mere two years is the most common number for years of experience, accounting for 9 out of 70 resumes. Therefore, a total of 43 education professors (61%) our of 70 have little or no significant teaching experience. Furthermore. What teaching experience there is tends to be very old. Thirty professors have not taught for twenty years or more. Only five had teaching experience within the present century.
For rest of study and raw data, please go to School Crossing.
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