In the province I teach in, we used to have a four year B. Ed
program which most teachers went through. There was also a two year
after degree option, but there were very few slots available for
it.

I went through the four year program, as did most of my colleagues.
Then, a while back, the universities here did away with the four
year program and now only offer the two year after degree version.

I've noticed a huge difference in the candidates since then. I'm
sorry to say that, but it's been my experience.

My early (back when I first started teaching and taking in student
teachers), four year program student teachers, by the time they were
in third or fourth year had a pretty decent understanding of what
classrooms were all about (they had done at least one year of
practicum, most did both prior to the bigger chunks in third and
fourth years). If teaching wasn't for them they figured it out
early, and left the faculty, and since the first years were mostly
content courses and only a few education ones, they really weren't
that far behind when they moved to another faculty. I think it was
a good process. It allowed people choices, and usually those most
suited to the job stayed in.

Now we get students with an undergrad degree who start the two year
program hell bent on becoming teachers. They don't have any real
exposure to it, and by the time they do their certification year
practicum (the big one) they often comment that it's not what they
expected, but they feel they've been working toward it for so long
that there's no way they'll give up at this point. So, they adopt
a "get through it" attitude. As someone said before, if they just
make it through eventually they'll get a job.

Recently we've had a much harder time with those student
teacher/teacher candidates. There are still some good ones of
course, but there are definitely more who aren't prepared and don't
have the willingness to learn than we've ever seen before. When I
first started teaching I never had to give a poor evaulation. Most
were really hard workers and go getters. Those who weren't left the
program - no hard feelings.

In the last five or six years there have been lots who aren't at the
level a beginning professional should be, and there have been
several times where we've had faculty advisors write the final
evaluations (without the co operating teacher's input and signature)
because the co operating teacher would not agree to write a
satisfactory (or better) report on the candidate and the faculty
would not allow a substandard/failing evaluation.

I have, for the last three years, refused to take teacher candidates
as a result of a very bad experience with a candidate who was
unstable emotionally, shorted his practicum dates by ten days and
refused to make them up, did not have lessons and materials prepared
ever, etc. I would not give him a passing evaluation, and so the
faculty advisor did it without me. When I challenged him on it, he
said, "This gentleman is a career changer who has put every penny he
has into this. We cannot fail him. And, off the record, he's the
type to take us to court over it. He will graduate and certify.
It's up to the school divisions to weed him out during interviews."
(As an aside, he's a male who wants to teach early years, they'll be
drooling over him I'm sure. That alone will get him shortlisted,
and all he'd need to do is impress in an interview. I've purposely
not tried to find out where he ended up. I don't want to know.)

I think that the teaching part of education degrees needs to be
expanded, and be LONGER in term. I don't think that a year or two
of some education courses is nearly enough. I'm sure that many go
through that route, and manage to do very well, but that's a
testament to those individuals and NOT to the training program they
went through.

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