首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
As at most colleges, our semester at Notre Dame ends with student evaluations of their teachers. Each time I wonder what the stu
As at most colleges, our semester at Notre Dame ends with student evaluations of their teachers. Each time I wonder what the stu
admin
2011-08-28
35
问题
As at most colleges, our semester at Notre Dame ends with student evaluations of their teachers. Each time I wonder what the students—and their parents—make of this exercise. "Wait," I imagine them saying, "we’ve just paid you tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to take courses at your school, and now you’re asking us to tell you if the teachers you hired are any good? If you didn’t already know that they’re first class, you had no right taking our money."
We don’t hear this kind of response because, in fact, the large majority of teachers at Notre Dame do a good job. We don’t depend on our students to judge our basic competence as teachers, although they often suggest helpful adjustments in our pedagogy (and can call attention to cases of clear incompetence or irresponsibility when they occur). Over all, schools like Notre Dame hire people that they are confident will be competent teachers. And, although there are criticisms and room for improvement, students, parents, graduate/professional schools and employers are, over all, well satisfied with results.
Who are these successful teachers? Ph.D.’s from first-class programs, of course, but that’s because college teaching and research require a high level of specialist knowledge. Beyond this knowledge, college teachers do a good job because of qualities that they already have when they complete their undergraduate education: a high level of intelligence, enthusiasm for ideas and an ability to communicate. In this regard, they are like those who go into other knowledge-based professions like law, medicine, engineering and architecture. With faculties of the "best and the brightest" from the pool of undergraduates, colleges can be confident of good quality teaching. Moreover, as in other knowledge-based professions, college faculties can be trusted to do their jobs well with minimal external supervision, assessment and in-service training. The professional community itself is, on the whole, able to ensure a high level of competence among its members.
These reflections lead me to a simple proposal. Adopt the same model for grade school and high school teaching that works for colleges. Currently, few of the best students from the best colleges are grade school or high school teachers. (The most encouraging data merely suggest that high school teachers may be a bit above average, while grade school teachers are considerably below average). This is not because the best students have no interest in teaching.
Top doctoral programs have far more applicants than they can accept, and many excellent students don’t apply, either because they do not have a high enough level of specialized skills or because they do not want to risk the terrible job market for college teachers. Such students would form a natural pool for non-college teaching if the pay and working conditions were anywhere near the level of the college average. There are also many excellent students with no interest in the advanced research that is the focus of doctoral programs who would prefer non-college teaching to less intellectually engaging and less socially useful work in, say, management or sale.
So why not make use of all this talent to develop an elite class of professionals—like those who teach in our colleges—and give them primary responsibility for K-12 education? One objection is that teaching children and teenagers requires a set of social/emotional abilities—to empathize, to nurture, to discipline—that have little connection with the intellectual qualities of the "best" college students. But there is no reason to think that people who are smart, articulate and enthusiastic about ideas are in general less likely to have these non-intellectual abilities. The idea is to choose those who have both high intellectual ability and the qualities needed to work successfully with children at a given grade level. Moreover, it’s important that teachers be—as they now often are not—credible authority figures, a status readily supported by the justified self-confidence and prestige of an elite professional.
It’s sometimes urged that a high level of intellectual ability is not needed to understand high-school, not to say grade-school, subjects. This is true, but with our current low standards it is not unheard of to find teachers who lack even this basic understanding. Moreover, it requires considerable intelligence to respond adequately to the questions of bright students. Most important, the greatest intellectual challenge of teaching at any level is to find ways of presenting the content effectively. Our current system seems often to assume that K-12 teachers will need the guidance of "experts" to tell them how to do this. There’s considerable doubt as to the existence of the alleged expertise. For decades educational theory has produced a series of failed panaceas (new math, whole-language reading, writing across the curriculum, discovery-based learning, group projects, etc.). But, in any case, more intelligent teachers will be both more likely to develop on their own better methods of teaching and better able to understand and apply any wisdom that may come to them from above.
From The New York Times, June 7, 2012
What are the requirements of successful teaching in college?
选项
A、A high level of intelligence and external supervision.
B、Good communication ability and in-service training.
C、Enthusiasm for ideas and high level of specialist knowledge.
D、External supervision and in-service training.
答案
C
解析
本题为细节题。从文章第三段可以看出,The requirements of successful teaching in college are the follows:high level of specialist knowledge,a high level of intelligence,enthusiasm for ideas and good communication ability.所以C选项正确。由第三段倒数第二句Moreover,as in other knowledge-based professions.college faculties can be trusted to do their jobs well with minimal external supervision,assessment and in-service training,可以看出其他选项都是错误的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/AeYO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、thestudentsB、classpreparationC、classatmosphereD、classinteractionA
HowKidsLearnItisabigdayforthe"expertbaby.’AminivanbearinganofficialUniversityofWashingtonsealpicksupth
A、Thepolicecameafterthemanagerpressedthealarmbell.B、Thepolicecameafteronecustomercalledforhelp.C、Thepolicec
A、sciencefictionB、criticalreviewC、sciencereportD、textbookC
Itisin______handsthatdramaticmonologuereachesitsmaturityandperfection,thoughitisnothisinvention.
ThestoryinvolvesashipwreckontheWestcoastofAfrica.ThepassengersontheshipincludeacertainLordandLadyGreystoke
DarwinandHisTheoryDarwinwasbornin1809asthesonofaphysician.Heearlierplannedtobecomea【1】intheChurchofEn
TheRiseofRPHistoricalreasonsReceivedPronunciation(RP)wasoriginallyassociatedwitha【1】______spokenintheregion
______isthebestnovelbyVirginiaWoolf.
随机试题
如果人栈序列为CEDB,以下哪一个是从栈中删除元素的序列?()
登机提示显示终端,应显示旅客登机的()等信息。
构成法律责任或违约责任的要件包括()。
希望和他人订立合同的意思表示是()。
中国公民李某是某企业的高级技术人员,2015年12月李某收入情况如下:(1)当月的工资收入为30000元,当月取得年终奖50000元,企业为其负担年终奖个人所得税款中的3000元。(2)向中科院提供了一项专有技术,一次性取得专有技术使用费400
当前社会主义道德建设的重点是加强()。
社会主义市场经济的根本特征在于()。
我国古代的陶瓷制作技术不断进步,以下我国瓷器品种出现的先后顺序正确的是()。
办公室主任:本办公室不打算使用循环再利用纸张。给用户的信件必须能留下好的印象。不能打印在劣质纸张上。文具供应商:循环再利用纸张不一定是劣质的。事实上,最初的纸张就是用可回收材料制造的。一直到19世纪50年代,由于碎屑原料供不应求,才使用木纤维作为造纸原料。
已知大写字母A的ASCII码是65,小写a的ASCII码值是97,则用八进制表示字符常量’\101,为()。
最新回复
(
0
)