Reply #22: let teachers and schools develop their own learning plans [View All]

I recently interviewed for a teaching post. It was fascinating, as a professional software person to chat with a teacher who had never worked in the software profession... and to discover that her view on my qualifications was questionable, yet the facts on the ground are that i've put over 20 large scale software applications from scratch to production in companies and governments the world over... and this interview was less designed to see if i could teach the students (at a community college) rather if i was a proper teacher.

As i found it, the process of becoming a teacher is the total erasure of all common sense and true learning. I told the head of the computing school that their reliance on microsoft products was foolish and that java should be core to the internet curriculum. I don't need a shit paying job with arrogant school assholes who could not write a software system if it bit them.... I told them that the job was not about money, rather a chance to inspire people to take the next step in computing education, whatever that be.

It seems that the very institutionalization that claims to improve teaching is in fact the very antithesis of quality education.

I don't have answers, but letting teachers be free to use their own materials, curriculum and license is the way to go... as long as they deliver an inspired learning classroom, let them be free.