This is a question I ask myself occasionally. But being qualified to teach CS is a somewhat tricky question. In my state, there’s no certification for CS. I can get certified in business and information technology, but I’m not sure what that entails. The web site is a bit Byzantine. In states where there is CS certification, it’s pretty straightforward. You need a bachelor’s in CS plus the education program, standard for any other field. I have neither of those things (and my job requires neither). I have about 20 years of teaching experience. I have taken several classes in pedagogy. I have about 10 years of IT experience and about two years of programming experience (at least in the language I teach). It sounds okay, but it often feels like not enough.
I certainly wish I had the breadth of knowledge in the field a CS degree would give me. If I had the CS degree, though, I don’t think I’d teach. I think I’d be working in industry. The money’s certainly better. And this is the argument made by many about why there aren’t more CS grads teaching CS at the K-12 level. There’s a push by some organizations like the CSTA to increase CS certifications and have more teachers with the “right” credentials teaching CS. I don’t disagree with this idea. But first you need the demand for those teachers, which isn’t there right now. CS isn’t a core academic subject so it’s not taught everywhere, and even where it is taught, there are not enough courses for a full time CS teacher.
So at many places, the lack of certification standards benefits both the school and the teachers. The school makes do with a math teacher who can program or has the tech person teach a couple of courses. And the teacher hones their CS skills in other ways, through online or summer courses or just through reading and practice. Is it ideal? Probably not. But it’s what’s in practice at many places.
There’s a bigger question about credentialing in general that my own anxiety raises. Does having a degree in x qualify you to teach x? Does not having the degree disqualify you? Are there different routes one can take to be qualified? For example, could a well-read author teach not just writing, but also literature? And what about education research and training? Is that more important than experience? Is being qualified to do anything really that cut and dried?
Related posts:
- It’s about the students, stupid
- It’s (mostly) not about the technology
- Online Learning
- The Future of Educational/Instructional Technology
When I was first hired at a private high school the head of school told me he was more concerned with qualified than certified. There is some real value to that. None the less he was taking a chance with me as I had only one year of teaching under my belt at that point and that was at a younger age level. For many certification is the safe way to hire. You can always say “but she was certified so I had to assume qualified.” The problem with CS education as you point out so well is that people with a degree in the field can usually get higher paying jobs in industry. On the other hand some people feel called to teach even though they could earn more doing something else. I know some great teachers in that category. Some times a school takes a chance. Actually often they take a chance. Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Most of our teachers aren’t certified, but most have experience teaching. But not all. And quite a few are teaching in a field different from their degree, which I think doesn’t happen much at public schools. I wish certification were a bit easier. I think I’d go through another year or two of school, but it’s longer than that. I have a Ph.D. so the idea of more school doesn’t appeal.
Certification is a complicated issue, ’cause it’s used both to certify “qualifications” and as a means of limiting the labor pool (and I’m not using this to malign teachers unions — lawyers use it too, and doctors, especially the rules about doctors & lawyers & teachers that limit certification to an individual state in the US).
I emphatically want teachers to be qualified, and I think qualified requires more than an undergraduate degree in a subject (i.e. not a sufficient qualification), and depending on the subject, am unsure of whether an undergraduate degree is a necessary qualification, either. I, for example, have an undergraduate degree in biology, but, in the process of getting that degree, I had two years of rigorous physics and 3 years of chemistry. My undergraduate degree isn’t in physics or chemistry, but I have the breadth of content knowledge to teach either at the high school level (in addition to biology, though, frankly, my biology undergraduate degree is weak in the evolutionary/ecology/organismic biology that plays a more significant role in high school classes.
I think those exceptions make the qualification/certification complicated and am never sure whether those exceptions are common enough that changing certification makes sense (right now, people like you and me aim for private schools. Are we a small enough group that we wouldn’t make a difference to public schools who use rigid certification requirements — especially in the subgroup of people who want to teach, and then teach in public schools).
(BTW, I’m not a K-12 teacher, but I’ve considered it).
I am certified in Montana (one of two students out of U Montana with a minor in CSEd) but I do not consider myself qualified. I looked at the CS degree at UofM and it would definitly not qualify a HS teacher. Totally wrong material. Maybe I could write an OS but I would have no idea how to teach sophomores Small Basic. The required skill set to teach HS CS IMHO is totally different that provided by the typical CS program. I believe the qualifications to teach HS CS should involve lots of programming with different languages at a low level (non-professional) with pedagogy intertwined. Many HS CS teachers get certified with a Business degree. They can run apps but have no programming or pedagogy. Big issue.
Garth, that’s exactly the issue I was thinking about. I’m mostly trained as a teacher. Learning the programming came second. So I feel like I’m good at the stuff that matters–figuring out how to teach complex ideas to students in a way that will stick. Which is why I’m a bit concerned about movements that insist all HS CS teachers have a CS degree. They might be missing the point. This isn’t entirely unique to CS but it seems more of an issue than in say, the humanities where I think lots of people major in history or English and consider teaching. That isn’t true for CS or psychology or a few other majors.
bj, I agree. Whenever I’ve looked at certification stuff, it has such a check this box feel to it, and I never have the right boxes even though I feel like my boxes are better. I wish that certification could be more flexible without making it less rigorous. I wish that if you had a masters or ph.d in your field, plus some education courses, that that could be considered. Instead many places want the masters in Ed later, mostly for increases or tenure, which I think of as mostly an empty degree. A few people I know get a m.ed. in order to get certified.
2 points:
As for lack of demand for CS teachers and classes, this really is weird. In Silicon Valley (Where I live and work), there is such a lack of skilled programers that a person can get rich simply by finding them and convincing them to work for a particular company (Recruiters). I wonder where thi disconnect comes from.
In regards to qualification, I think proven experience trumps credentialing every day. I am actually very committed to this idea as you can see in this blog post I wrote on the topic: http://alexanderberger.me/post/30348350726/self-education-alexander-berger
Alexander, the demand for skilled programmers exists here on the east coast too, but many schools are still stuck in a traditional curriculum. Thank you for linking that post. It’s pretty much what I’ve done, though not as formally.