I never even considered undergraduates. I got scared at ‘student,’ and saw a 12th grader. Thanks for the reminder.
I couldn’t say if an undergrad would have enough under his/her belt to be entrusted with the authority to teach a course which is administered and licensed by a particular group and must be run under their strict standards. My first thought is ‘No,’ an undergrad would not be granted permission under AP standards.
I’ll see if I can find out.
As your child has just taken this course, and I assume it is a full-year course (the norm, I think), can you tell me how she is faring? How well does she feel the student teacher is able to teach her?
Assuming that a high school teacher has an undergraduate major in the subject that s/he teaches, along with whatever teaching credential is required, in the math and chemistry cases, one would expect them to know AP calculus and AP chemistry material respectively.
However, it is not necessarily true that a history teacher has taken as an undergraduate all of the college courses that cover all the material in AP history courses. Nor is it necessarily true that a math teacher has taken any statistics course.
Yes, an existing high school teacher could self-study the needed material in preparation for teaching such a course. And a current undergraduate looking at going into high school teaching may want to carefully select in-major electives to cover all possible areas in that subject that relate to high school (including AP) courses that s/he may teach. But it is not automatic that every high school teacher’s undergraduate major course work necessarily covered the material in every high school (including AP) course in that subject.
History may also be under the broader category of social studies for the purpose of teaching credentials (example in California: http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/leaflets/cl560c.pdf ). That means that an undergraduate who wants to become a high school history teacher in California may want to maximize his/her ability to teach all possible high school social studies subject areas by including courses in geography, economics, psychology, and political science, as well as the various areas of history courses.
Probably those in progress in a teacher credential program who are doing their student teaching as part of the teacher credential program.
She is taking it now. She doesn’t do that much work for it and she has a solid A. I haven’t been that wild about so much student teacher instruction, just on principle, but she says the student teachers have been fine. Can’t remember if my older kid also had student teachers in math but I know she did in APUSH and AP chem. I don’t know how extensively they taught the classes. I recall she liked the APUSH student teacher a lot. Oh, and she got a 5 and 800 on APUSH, so I guess the instruction was fine.
These student teachers don’t teach the classes alone. They are under supervision of the regular AP teachers. I assume they get lesson plans from those teachers, and the teachers are usually present during the class, though they mostly let the student teacher run the class.
"Training AP Teachers
Ensure that your teachers are prepared to lead AP courses
There are no rigidly defined selection criteria for who can serve as an AP teacher. The College Board recommends that AP teachers have undertaken some form of professional development prior to teaching AP for the first time."
californiaaa, my daughter did not have a burning interrest in chemistry such that she was interested in enrichment in that field, and she went to Stanford AFTER high school, not during. Stanford was made affordable through financial aid. One reason we probably did not know about the secret pre-req. is that we are not Asian. As I said, we are among the very few non-Asians to try to run the rat race at least a little. All my kids tended to be the only non-Asian in their classes, or one of 2. Most other Americans don’t even try to compete, or try freshman year and then give up precisely because of this kind of thing. Tips of this nature (you should really take that summer class first) likely get discussed at cram schools and from mom to mom. I have an Asian friend, for example, whose kids attend WWP, and she said word on the street there is that our summer honors biology I course is better than theirs for kids that want to advance directly into AP in WWP. Also, teachers will often spontaneously adjust what they teach to what they think the kids already know. If 99% of the class seem to have already learned a topic, they might skip it or skim over it, regardless of whether or not it is in the curriculum. I recall enzymes being one topic the others had learned and D didn’t. Lastly, we didn’t suspect a change since S had not had trouble in the class, but the levels of many courses were upped since he was there, which we didn’t realize at first.
I don’t know why our high school kids were sent to take classes at Princeton rather than at TCNJ, Rutgers or the community college, but it was likely because Princeton is a little closer and was willing to work with our high school to allow it, and parents would probably feel safer with their younger students going there than other campuses. S was offered the chance to take Spanish at :Princeton, having finished AP junior year. He did not because of conflicts with the senior year AP’s.
@TheGFG I have also seen some of the secret society that you mention, although it is not always racial in our area. It seems Asian’s keep it from each other oftentimes and it is really up to the kid/parent to find out about various events, etc. I have worked with my kid’s school to post links on teacher websites and am trying to get a bulletin board with some of the information/events. I do understand that schools may struggle to offer certain things but they could do a better job of ensuring everyone has all information and then let it be based on merit.
@mathyone- I certainly cannot speak to what “every” teacher is able to do. But I can tell you- that (as in life) different people are suited for different things. I have a colleague who teaches our lowest level of US history amazingly well. He spends all year working on getting his kids to do stuff mine could do on the 1st day- and they thrive, and do really well on our state mandated end of course exam. I could teach his class- but I would struggle, and feel frustrated- because remedial is not my focus. He knows US history incredibly well (civil war buff and the whole deal) but he would struggle to do what I do - because working with, and pushing the brightest kids, is a different sort of skills. He has often joked to me that the whining alone (from students AND parents) would send him over the edge in the 1st week.
Many states (including mine) offer degrees where you can be certified to teach anything within a subject at the secondary (7-12) level. We all start there (as student teachers- and btw, different schools/states have different rules about student teaching and AP classes- I would never have one at my school b/c I am all AP) but then we specialize. I am certified to teach Econ, but I’m not good at it- and if I was asked to take over the AP Macro class at my school - I wouldn’t want to.
I am certain my information/examples will do nothing to influence to influence your opinion on this matter- your disdain for educators is still coming through loud and clear. There are so many people out there who think they understand HS education b/c they went to HS. But it’s like me saying that I have been a passenger on an airplane, so I know how to fly.
I tend to agree with @mathyone about the competence of teachers. Any teacher should be able to teach an AP course in their field of expertise or they simply shouldn’t be employed. It should be noted that a teacher need not be “AP Certified,” and a course need not carry the “AP” designation for a student to take the AP exam. So if there isn’t a properly “trained” teacher to teach an AP course, just teach an honors course aligned to the AP curriculum and then encourage the kids to take the AP test.
I also don’t understand the notion expressed by some that providing AP classes will cause a teacher shortage. Students are not being brought in from outside the school to take these classes; they are being shifted around. No new teachers are needed, and it costs the school district absolutely nothing.
Some of these people are taking AP classes as a way to impress elite colleges. Others are doing it to save money. There is no way we could afford to send our kids to one of these expensive elite schools. We look at AP courses as a way to reduce the cost of an undergraduate education, and should our child receive a rollover scholarship, receive a free graduate degree. To that end, my son will start college with about 39 credits through AP (assuming he passes all the tests!) and 15-21 through dual enrollment, which will save our family anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000. This will allow me to be far more generous in terms of car, allowance, etc., which is a good thing.
@TheGFG - What steps, if any, do you think your district could take to level the playing field?
One of my concerns about a shadow system, is that it eliminates incentives for public schools to identify and promote promising educational practices if achievement is inflated by supplementary instruction, even if parents are not trying to keep private tutoring a secret, and even if teachers are motivated to improve the curriculum to reach more students.
Regarding that editorial, the teachers in Singapore and some other countries are world class and see that their kids learn all the material IN school. Our teachers are not world class, hence the need for the shadow education. Singapore targets their best and brightest for the teaching profession and pays them well. It is a prestigious job there. That used to be true in the US, but no longer.
it is definitely not just you, but our school district is at the extreme opposite and I wish we were closer to her school district’s opportunities offerred
A school district’s cost for AP classes varies a lot by state/district. In Florida, for example, the school district picks up the cost of the test ($92) plus pays the teacher a bonus for each student that passes the AP test. In some cases, the district will also pay for teacher certification. Much of these expenses are then refunded by the state (the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on AP),
@toowonderful, I wouldn’t expect a history major to be able to teach economics. I would expect an economics major to be able to do this. Within the sciences, I wouldn’t expect a physics major to teach AP bio either. I never said such a thing. Also, our teachers have it in contract that they don’t teach more than two different courses. I wouldn’t expect an AP Euro teacher to also teach APUSH and Macro. And yes, some teachers may be better qualified to teach remedial level. I am just saying that teachers should be able to learn to teach AP and that a school should not, year after year, say that they cannot offer AP because none of the 10 or so teachers in that department could possibly be capable of teaching it. Are they all specialists in teaching the remedial students? One of us is showing disdainful attitude, but I don’t think it’s me. You apparently think that teachers can’t learn to teach new classes and don’t have sufficient mastery of their field of concentration to learn to teach the first course in it.