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15 Feb ’12
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Sounds like a good program to get more qualified applicants, I always got more from teachers that actually had life experience
Savannah, GA (WSAV) – Savannah-Chatham schools are feeling the hurt of a growing problem nationwide.
As more students flow into Savannah-Chatham classrooms, fewer teachers are around to meet their needs.
Across the United States, there is a huge drop in the number of students pursuing education degrees.
Here at home, we’re also dealing with factors like military deployments that often send off spouses, leaving another hole to fill.
So right now, Savannah-Chatham schools are holding up the help wanted sign—with 450 openings!
They’re making an extra push to a program that’s been around, but people may not understand as a way to recruit new talent.
Stephen Routh, a teacher at STEM Academy at Bartlett, never imagined himself as a teacher 20-plus years ago.
“Interestingly enough, it took me a long time to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up so I kinda bounced around,” Routh laughed.
But when the STEM Academy at Bartlett opened its doors in 2013, Routh was also on the path of something new: a career in education, despite his history in managing for construction, landscaping and utility companies.
“I don’t think I had a lot of that built in prejudice that comes in with that teaching education that this is the way you have to do things,” Routh said.
He’s one of the many Savannah-Chatham schools hired through the Alternative Pathways to Teaching program.
It’s a way those with a Bachelor’s degree in any field can become a teacher in Georgia, through a work-as-you-go certification program that takes one to three years to complete.
“We want to bring in those people who have a lot of field knowledge and a lot of skills,” SCCPSS Human Resources Heather Bilton said.
8 Mar ’12
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I approve. Degree + practical experience is superior as long as you're not working with disabled or learning impaired kids.
At the school I attended, i had a class in the education building which was located next to the science complex. The education majors always caught hell from 80% of the other majors for having a curriculum that an orangutan could master. I went to take a leak in one of the ed buildings restrooms and found a poster board sign over the urinal....it said "Dear education majors, please don't eat the big white mint."
Apparently there were several of the placed in the building's restrooms by science or engineering students. If you've ever had dealings with school administrators and policy makers, I'd say the warning on the urinal was rather fitting.
And the monkey presses the button.
19 Feb ’12
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I used to listen to G Gordon Liddy back in the day when he had a talk radio show. He was really against our current education system. Basically from top to bottom. You have Boards of Education that are money vacuums and don't teach a single child, companies that create and sell curricula, outcome based education, artificial requirements on teachers (people like Einstein, and Mark Twain would be "unqualified" to teach in their respective fields), and the list goes on. Then he would rail against the teacher unions. I can only imagine what he things of Common Core.
Having said that, my wife is a teacher, and they burn through curricula. The school system will buy a new different one every 2-4 years. I don't think it's planned, it's just what happens. They implemented Common Core, and are pretty much scrapping it already. (and I don't think it's because of parent outcry either).
15 Feb ’12
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probably the best teacher I ever had was for mechanical drawing 1 and 2, he worked as an architect for a number of years and got burned out on it so he decided to teach, at the time I was leaning towards architect school and he was very upfront and honest about the positives and the negatives of the field, I never pursued it. Man I loved that class.
19 Feb ’12
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KVR said
probably the best teacher I ever had was for mechanical drawing 1 and 2, he worked as an architect for a number of years and got burned out on it so he decided to teach, at the time I was leaning towards architect school and he was very upfront and honest about the positives and the negatives of the field, I never pursued it. Man I loved that class.
Looking back on it, do you regret not pursuing it or do you feel like you dodged a bullet?
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