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How Important is Teacher IQ to Education?

posted by cmn32480 on Friday July 01 2016, @01:46PM   
from the those-who-can,-do,-those-who-can't,-teach dept.

bradley13 writes:

In the US: this article presents an analysis how a person's chosen college major corresponds to their IQ. The interesting thing is that the relationship has remained essentially stable over the past 70 years. At the top of the list are math, science and engineering. At the absolute bottom of the list: education.

These data show that US students who choose to major in education, essentially the bulk of people who become teachers, have for at least the last seven decades been selected from students at the lower end of the academic aptitude pool. A 2010 McKinsey report (pdf) by Byron Auguste, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller noted that top performing school systems, such as those in Singapore, Finland, and South Korea, "recruit 100% of their teacher corps from the top third of the academic cohort."

The article points out that it isn't quite this simple: Top schools place high requirements on all of their students; poor schools generally attract lower quality students in all of their programs. Still, the national averages are clear: overall, the least intelligent students go on to teach. This is an odd priority.

Educational organizations, of course, have a different view. This article claims that teacher quality declined from the 1960s through the 1990s, but has since recovered, with teachers being barely below average (48th percentile) among college graduates.

On a related note, there is a strong international correlation between teacher pay and student outcomes. The (rather obvious) theory is that higher pay attracts better candidates to the teaching profession.

No conclusions - just thought this might spark an interesting discussion...

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Original Submission

• De Schoolmeester (Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday July 01 2016, @09:06PM

  by fritsd (4586) on Friday July 01 2016, @09:06PM (#368631) Journal

  Gerrit van de Linde A.K.A. De Schoolmeester [wikipedia.org] wrote a famous poem about teaching which reflects the situation in 1859 in the Netherlands (kids had to go to school on saturdays until half the 20th century, hence the "three pairs of days").
  (He also wrote the *best epitaph ever*, about the poet Poot [wikipedia.org], the rhyming farmer)

  I don't know if I can be bothered to translate it to English. The poem gave me a very strong feeling of: "DON'T become a school teacher" when we discussed it in Dutch lessons.

  The author's been dead for 158 years, so I'm going to quote in full (let's hope TTIP doesn't bring 160 year copyright or I'm screwed)

  De Schoolmeester, door "De Schoolmeester" (pseudonym van Gerrit van de Linde), uit: "Gedichten van den Schoolmeester" (1859)

  Hij die, uit vrije keus,
  En in zijn achter kamer,
  Met hoofdpijn als een hamer,
  En volgestopten neus,
  Met klemming op zijn water,
  En lusten als een kater,
  En met een stijven nek,
  En vijf gebroken ruiten,
  En deuren, die niet sluiten,
  En 't Pootjen in zijn kuiten,
  Eruitziet als een gek;
  Is min nog te beklagen
  Dan hy, die drie paar dagen,
  In 't woelziek schoolvertrek,
  De veestlucht en den drek,
  De snotneus, d'Ezelsvragen,
  't Afzichtlijk nagelknagen,
  Het krabblend luis-verjagen,
  De vuile witte kragen,
  En 't hartverduiv'lend plagen
  Der Jonkheid moet verdragen.

  Okay... here goes.. this English translation © 2016 fritsd (license: CC BY-SA 4.0)

  He, who, voluntarily,
  and in his back room,
  with headaches like a hammer,
  and a stuffed nose,
  and some bladder disease ["klemming op zijn water"],
  and horny like a tom-cat,
  and with a stiff neck,
  and five broken windows,
  and doors that won't close properly,
  and some disease in his calves [" 't Pootjen in zijn kuiten"],
  looks like some kind of fool;

  is less to be pitied
  than he, who for six days per week,
  in the tumultuous schoolroom,
  has to endure
  the fart smells and the shit,
  the snotnose, the idiotic questions,
  the disgusting nail-biting,
  the scratching louse-hunting,
  the dirty white collars,
  and the heart-rending bullying
  of the Youth.

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Interesting=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3