Really? I wasn’t sure. Thank goodness the study guide I bought for the Indiana State teacher certification test included that important reminder in its social studies review.
Other sections explained that it is incorrect to use “double negatives in standard written English,” that “maps are drawings which show where places are in relation to each other” and that an $80 dress that is 20 percent off cost $64.
The actual test, which I took a few weeks ago, wasn’t much more difficult. Sadly, my experience underscored a recent report by the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization in Washington, that found that teacher certification tests, which are required by 43 states and the District of Columbia, are far from challenging.
I should say that while the test I took was not rigorous, it was long. The test, which covered virtually every area of science, math, the arts and education theory, went from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., save for two 25–minute breaks. From questions about the cold war to classroom discipline, the test required basic cognitive abilities, the fortitude to stay focused for eight-and-a-half straight hours and a number two pencil–and not much more than that.
This test, like so much of what I am asked to do to prepare for a career as a secondary school teacher, is not intellectually challenging, but is instead just plain tiring. It’s as though anyone who can simply survive such a mind-numbing, serpentine process is ready to be a teacher. Forget smarts: what it takes to become a state–certified teacher is not critical thinking, but eighth–grade skills and an ability to follow directions and rules that are often arbitrary.
Consider the education class I had on adolescent psychology. Each student had to give a presentation to the class. Though the content of my presentation was perfectly acceptable to the to the professor, I was marked off on my grade because I didn’t give the class a handout sheet.
“But I didn’t have anything I felt I needed to be written and handed out,” I protested.
“That doesn’t matter,” the professor told me. “You always give the class a handout when you do a presentation.”
I understand that it is difficult for states to determine who is qualified to teach. And I’m happy to be tested. But challenge me. Make me prove that I can reason and think and, in turn, teach students to reason and think. Give me essay questions about John Dewey or Jean–Jacques Rousseau rather than multiple–choice questions about the pitfalls of using an overhead projector.
The Education Trust also states that the scores necessary to pas teacher certification test are laughably low: “Students would receive F’s for producing such scores in the classroom, yet this is all states require of their teachers.” Indeed, unlike on most standardized test, you don’t get an extra penalty for giving wrong answers on teacher certification test. Thus, test takers are encouraged to guess wildly on questions for which they do not know the answers.
Why are the tests so easy, I asked one of my education professors? “If they were harder, not enough people would pass, and then we would have a shortage of teachers,” he replied.
He said it with a laugh, but I fear that he’s right. The number of school–age children is expected to rise substantially in the near future, and thousands of teachers – state certified ones who know that the Allies won World War II – will be in demand.
By Kathleen Mills
Kathleen Mills is a graduate student in education at Indiana University.
This essay first appeared in the
New York Times
