In an article for the New York Times titled ”Teach Your Teachers Well” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/opinion/02engel.html?_r=1&em), Susan Engel claims that ”These new teacher programs should be selective, requiring a 3.5 undergraduate grade point average and an intensive application process”. In other words, Universities need to tighten their criteria as to who is accepted into the credential programs also known as Teacher’s College here in Canada. One of these criteria would be to accept candidates with a 3.5 GPA or higher.

Although students with a high GPA can make excellent teachers, I believe that students with a lower score have equal chances of becoming exceptional teachers.

A student’s GPA is a very weak indicator about someone’s intelligence. A teacher needs to reach out to all her students, meaning he or she must use teaching strategies that will engage and motivate the visual, auditive, mathematical, literal and analytical student. Many university professors will present their lectures  in a magisterial manner, which engages very few students. Does this mean that students having a harder time understanding learning concepts in this fashion will not make good teachers? I think not. Teachers in elementary and high school need to focus on developing skills just as much as knowledge for their students. It does not take a perfect GPA to excel at these tasks.

Other qualities that make a good teacher, that are irrelevant to someone’s GPA, are eloquent speakers (maybe not as eloquent as Obama but you know what I mean), patience, motivation and a really good sense of humor, which I think I have but need to develop more the last one.

There is a huge lack of exceptional teachers. Why limit potential candidates based solely on the GPA.

In my opinion, past experience in teaching (paid or volunteer) needs to be more of an important prerequisite. If past references are proof of the candidate’s teaching abilities and motivation, then these individuals will be more likely to become excellent teachers.

I wonder if anyone has done any studies about the correlation between a teacher’s GPA and their performance. Maybe it would be an interesting doctorate thesis. Oh and what is up with professors that teach in various Faculties of Education and have never actually taught in a real classroom. But I digress. This subject will be blogged for another time.

So up until I saw the movie Julie and Julia on a plane from Montreal to Paris, I never really understood the definition of a blog or its purpose for that fact. Man that was a great movie. I would just like to forgive my potential readers if I ever have any, that English is not my first language. My boyfriend recommended I start a blog to improve my writing skills in Shakespeare’s language.

This blog is for all new teachers out there and for all of you who are interested in starting this extremely difficult but rewarding career.

Having worked as an environmental and outdoor educator for about 4 years right out of college, I decided to obtain my teaching credential and enter the dark world also known as the indoor classroom. Turns out it is not so dark after all. For those of you who don’t know what an environmental educator does, just think of your field trip at the local state park as a kid, there was always someone guiding you into the woods and showing you cool nature stuff, well that was me! And I was darn good at it too. It is because I think I am funny and I would say jokes only teachers would laugh at and therefore obtain really good evaluations from them. But alas I grew tired of being overworked and underpaid so I decided to teach in schools where you are also overworked and underpaid. I guess I thrive on it. Working for a consulting firm for 2 months, not even, I quickly realized I was physically and mentally allergic to office work.

And for all you skeptics out there who think that teaching is not a true profession  since you get 2 months off in the summer(it is less than that), I believe if you want to be a good teacher you are going to take a big chunk of that time and make teaching interesting for you and your students for the following year. I think it is really unfair for students to have a boring teacher don’t you?

So I don’t want to make this first blog too long. Stay tuned for my next blogs on my training of being a new teacher and what I think is required to be a good teacher. Being a teacher is not that hard, being a great one takes alot of work my friend, as a teacher in training I quickly realized that.