Notes On Teachers Not Knowing Certain Information

Hi there. Here is an education post by me. This one is critical. There are times when teachers may not know the material they are teaching. This is unfortunate for the students as time is wasted and more topics could have been learned.

I cover some possible reasons on how and why teachers may not know certain things.

 

Bad Hire?

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It is not just in the teaching industry, it can happen in any industry. There are cases where a person who may not be competant nor knowledgeable is hired for the job. The teacher in this case could have had a good interview where the selection process is not strict enough. The teacher could have been knowledgeable but not great in communication or preparation work.

 

Forgetfulness & Not Trained

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Being forgetful does happen to us all. There is a lot of things to do and to remember. With teachers it is easy to forget things that you don't really use often. To recall information from a long time ago is not easy. In addition remembering details on top of that is even harder.

There are cases where teachers are put into positions where someone is needed to teach certain topics but the teacher may not it as they were not trained in the past. Take me for example. My algebra, calculus and data management skills are good for the most part. When it comes to teaching geometry that is not my strength. There are geometry concepts that I don't remember well or don't use often. Some of the geometry topics are some things that I don't recall learning as a kid. To fix this I have to learn fast on the spot and then teach it to my student clients.

On the bright side, gaps in knowledge can be filled by doing review. Review and homework must be done in order to pass down information to others.

 

Curriculum Changes

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The main motivation behind this post is based on recent curriculum changes in the Ontario province area in Canada. I did have a previous post mentioning how there is a new curriculum change. One of the biggest changes was to have computer programming taught to kids as early as grade 1 up to grade 10. I was against this as grade 1 students should learn how to read, write, talk, type on a keyboard before programming. There is no need to teach programming this early. Maybe starting grade 8 or 9 but have it as an option. To me it is too ambitious of a government policy.

Another thing to note is that teachers in the province are not really provided materials on how to teach programming. It is more like "Hey, we want our kids to learn programming. Follow our curriculum.". I could be wrong here as I have not consulted actual teachers on this.

Teachers for grades 1 to 9 in the region are required to teach programming. Generalist teachers from grades 1 to 8 are most likely not exposed to any computer programming so they would have to learn it fast in order to teach it. Even if they learn it, they may not teach it well and cause confusion for the kids.

Grade 9 math teachers generally don't know computer programming. But they have to teach it for the grade 9 provincial math assessment. The recent changes also included testing programming knowledge for the grade 9 province wide assessments. Stuff like if statements and for loops. These two topics are simple for those trained in programming but not easy for those new to it. In this case the teachers do get a bit of pass of not knowing something they weren't trained in due to curriculum changes.

 

Thank you for reading.