Getting Ready

Students improving their skill sets should be sure they’re ready to teach.

Fourteen teachers in the Philadelphia School District proclaimed they quit not by giving a two weeks notice, but by simply not showing up for work on the first day of school Sept. 7.

On Sept. 8, 201 additional teachers did not show up for work, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. Though some of the instructors had approved excuses, most “did not follow protocol.”

Meanwhile, as reported by Cary Carr in “Certificate better prepares teachers,” on Page 2, 138 graduate students at Temple are working toward improving their teaching skills through the Teaching in Education Certificate Program.

Through the program, students are learning how to “improve their teaching practices” and working toward having a one-up in the job market, said Dr. Pamela E. Barnett, associate vice provost and director at the Teaching and Learning Center.

The Temple News encourages graduate students working toward this certificate to look at the city’s current education system – particularly the absent-teacher issue the district has been facing for years – and consider whether they are cut out for teaching.

We do not doubt the graduate students in this program are intelligent, caring adults who want to touch children’s lives through teaching, but The Temple News also wants students entering the education system to think about the type of permanence necessary to enter the classroom as an instructor.

Of course there is opportunity to move up in education, and teaching within the Philadelphia School District is a more-than-difficult undertaking, but for teachers to simply not show up isn’t acceptable. The absence of teachers without proper excuses questions how well prepared they were for the classroom in the first place.

The Teaching in Education Certificate Program should consider this as well, as instructors teach graduate students how to improve their skills.

A high number of Temple students graduate and go on to work in the Philadelphia School District. Let us hope that of those 14 teachers who failed to show up for school, there was not a former Temple student among them. If so, it would be a failure on part of the university, as well as the alumni.