Scapegoating schools of education

08-17-2011

Blog by Timothy D. Slekar/Huffington Post

When did George Washington cross the Delaware? Why did George Washington cross the Delaware? Can you guess which of these questions my teacher education students know the answer to? Come on and try it. Give up? Most of them don't know the answer to either of these questions. Why, you might ask, and how is this possible? I used to ask these questions (actually I banged my head against a wall most of the time) but I stopped a long time ago (banging my head). I now spend precious time in my social studies methods course (how to teach social studies to children) teaching future teachers the answer to these and many more questions dealing with the discipline of history. And it's not just the discipline of history -- civics, world history, economics, sociology, etc. Future teachers come to my methods course social scientifically illiterate. So when they leave my social studies methods class and Arthur Levine blames me and other teacher educators for failing to prepare future teachers I wish he would do a little more research. (more...)

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