Other disciplines do this, and for up to a year. My wife recently completed her MS in Speech Language Pathology, and she had a semester of on-site work (unpaid, but not full time) in the middle of her degree, and an entire year (or was it ½ year?) of full-time unpaid work. We paid master's degree tuition of $13,000/year. But I agree that it is a scam. She is currently in what can be called a one-year residency, but she is paid. Not a lot, but paid. I student taught in the 1980s and worked a side job. At that time and place it was not verboten to do so.
It's unfortunate that education as a whole has this boundary which makes it not only harder to break into the system, but then become indebted to the system as a whole.
The only requirement for teaching a particular subject should be that you have a bachelor’s degree in that subject. All of this teacher preparation nonsense is a load of horse-shit designed to create jobs in the bogus field of teacher training. But more to the point, once certified people come to their senses and quit the schools will have no recourse but to hire whatever they can get. And then once those people all come to their senses as well and eventually quit, then the only game in town is going to be online academy tutored by mom and dad or whoever. Because at that point it’s going to be “can you pass the state GED test”?
We've already reached quite a bit of that. Just look to Texas where multiple people have been arrested in a certification fraud scam just in the last week to get teachers who could never get a credential otherwise into the classroom to fill out the massive number of openings resulting from us leaving the profession.
@@KevinTheID People just don’t get it. It was unbearable all the way back in the 1980s. I foresee online academy for all eventually, possibly not even in school buildings. That could create a day-care bonanza for Protestant churches with lots of vacant Sunday school classrooms to rent out. I’ve been assaulted over ten times in just 7 years. I even tried being a Benedictine monk for an eighth year since the abbey I lived in had its own prep school in the Cleveland ghetto just three blocks from the Imperial Avenue crack-whore death house on Buckeye Hill. The serial killer known as Anthony Sowell I believe died of cancer before his execution date. They had 75 monks when I was there in 1994 while today they have less than 25 and of course most of them were high school teachers. Now they’ve gone on to their eternal reward never to be replaced by anybody. People joining monasteries today are more interested in becoming hermits with orders like the Trappists and the Carthusians.
@@geraldstone8396 Good question. The reason why a bachelor's degree and corresponding graduate teaching licensure is needed, is because to be an educator you need a certain level of training in your content area (multiple content areas for elementary grades), an understanding of the science of learning, and a growth not only in your emotional intelligence but also an education in how to manage a classroom. Though the "content" is on the easier side for Kindergarten, the way you teach that information and how you deliver it while keeping kids on task is not easy and takes time to learn. Plus, you're developing foundational knowledge in kids that young which they've never been exposed to before and you need to learn how to do that most effectively.
@@geraldstone8396 Originally elementary school teachers didn’t typically attend universities but rather 2 year so called Normal Schools called teacher’s colleges. But today the secondary school teacher’s job has been so degraded that it really ought to just require two years of college because even having a four year degree makes you overqualified so lame are the vast majority of the students who most certainly are not in very much danger of ever becoming truly literate.
I currently teach and have for fifteen years. I find it is pretty easy to tell which teachers have had no student-teaching preparation because they are not, in fact, prepared for the rigorous workload of actual teaching. They have little understanding of child and adolescent psychology and even less understanding of classroom management. All of these things are addressed in a proper student-teaching program under the guidance of an experienced, effective teacher. Life on the other side of the desk is nothing like being a student. Being knowledgeable about a subject does not equate to being able to teach that subject to people psychologically and chronologically and developmentally younger than the person with the degree was when he or she obtained that degree. Most alt certs are teaching hacks drawn to the profession by propaganda about workday length, quips claiming that “those who can’t, teach,” and hubris. Lack of preparation is one of the reasons there is such a high turnover rate in the teaching profession today. The doors of alt certs’ classrooms are revolving doors.
All true, particularly about drawing in people who think teaching is easy because of the moronic "those who can't, teach" expression. They are woefully unprepared to manage a classroom or the rigors inherent with being an educator in today's culture and climate. Being a teacher is actually very difficult and most make more minute-by-minute decisions than neurosurgeons - something that few are ever effectively prepared for.
I did mine, unpaid. The school tried to put me in every role BUT teaching. The first 2 weeks were great! I taught, I created, I engaged. After that, they tried to get me to work in the front office NO, the ISS room NO, grading for all grades NO, permanent other duties, without a break NO. I fought with the Principal and AP's all the time- threatened me that I was going to fail my student teaching. Keep in mind- I was in my 40's when I did mine. 3rd career and ain't taking no one's bs. Parents loved to walk into rooms and be met with the "old lady" who teaches STEM. They backed down immediately. I supplemented my income by tutoring on the weekend. What they didn't know they didn't know. :)
Sounds pretty similar to most student teaching these days where they farm as much work onto you as they possibly can. What's worse is that the youngest and most impressionable teachers rarely can stand up like you did because they're worried about being cut from the program.
Yeah, that's just not okay and I don't understand how we've allowed that to happen over the years. It just sets people up to fail (or at least struggle) in the long-term.
I started substitute teaching BEFORE I even started college. I ended up doing my unpaid student teaching in the same school that I subbed for over the previous 5 years. It was such a waste of my time. And horrible for our finances. We lived on fried bread for the last 2 months before graduation, literally the only thing we could afford to eat because that's all that was left in our house by that point, oil and a bag of flour. Honestly, the entire degree is a waste of money. I advise anyone who wants to teach elementary to just have their own kids and homeschool. I advise anyone who wants to teach middle or high school to get a degree in literally anything else and take an alternative route to certification.
At this point, I would have to agree with you and I likewise started substituting before my student teaching as well. Honestly, I felt like I gained more experience from that substituting than I ever did in virtually my entire credentialing program, save for one class that I did find mildly useful. The system is setup to drain people rather than invest in them and grow their abilities. Now, every business has this to a degree but not to the extent that public education does where they actively find every way to siphon money and time from people and ignore your concerns or life situations. I remember that my credentials expired not long after I quit teaching and all that time, money, and effort I put into them meant nothing to me in the end. It felt like a waste and I wasn't even really able to utilize what I learned as a teacher outside of education. (Which I think is actually intentional to keep people in a cycle of debt to the system that they can't get out of.)
@KevinTheID I can definitely agree that I got more out of substitute teaching than during my entire degree program. Maybe the classes where we learned how to write lesson plans and analyze data were a bit useful, but nothing beyond that. I actually started to feel like the degree program was making me worse at teaching over time, because there was so much to consciously think about. Things I just did naturally when I first started, or picked up from just mimicking the experienced teachers that I worked with, I was now having to analyze. I left to be a stay at home mom and homeschool, but I think if I did ever have to go back to earning money, my best option would be to open up my own tutoring service or consulting service for other homeschool families.
That's a really interesting take and yes, I agree. I think that degree programs actually do start to make you a worse teacher over time because they spend far too much time filling your head with theoretical nonsense rather than things you're actually going to use on the job. My lesson planning classes were among my the most useless of all because they taught us these incredibly long and drawn out ways of creating lessons which literally no educator ever has the time to do. (Think formal methods that would take you a week to create a single day's worth of lessons.) When I mentioned that I just bullet-point out what I'm going to do literally in my first month of fulltime teaching, my department said that I caught onto that far faster than other new teachers they've worked with. I learned more by doing the actual job rather than in those classes, as most realistically do.
@KevinTheID the full-length plans are pretty unnecessary once you actually get into the classroom, but thinking it all out at least once was helpful. I suppose it's not the most helpful when you're given a curriculum to follow, and your job is mostly just finding the extra resources your specific students will need. I ended up in a gifted position for several years where I was writing my own curriculum, though, so I think that's why I found it so useful. I was going so far beyond, even creating my own materials. That was a big help in leading to burnout 🤣 my easiest years were teaching as a push in resource. Just follow the program the computer spit out.
Yeah...creating my own materials and still having them not appreciated by those who pushed for the increasing levels of standardization probably contributed to my burnout too now that you mention it.
I’m in my master’s degree in early childhood education that leads to teaching licensure. And I have to do my student teaching in 2026. This video is making me think of changing my major. I definitely agree, student teaching doesn’t prepare people for the classroom. Therefore, the educational system is really bad.
More and more people are choosing to not finish their programs (or even enter them) because of how bad education is now. Student teaching fails new educators almost entirely and fills people with a lot of theory and idealized ways of doing things that don't translate to every day classrooms. Classrooms, mind you, that are growing increasingly violent and impossible to manage, even for veteran educators with great classroom management skills. Not to mention that there is no such thing as onboarding for teachers and you're just thrown into the deep end when you're given keys after being hired with little tangible support. Education clearly has more problems than just student teaching failing to adequately prepare people, but if we have such little care for the mental, physical, and financial wellbeing of our youngest teachers, imagine how bad it is for teachers who've been there longer. The old guidepost was 5 years as the make or break it point for new teachers, but now it is 2 at the most, and many (including my partner) burn out during their student teaching itself before ever securing a fulltime position. Since January, 2020, somewhere around 1.5-2 million teachers have quit or retired early. That's roughly between 15-20% of all teachers in the country. I would never tell you what to do, and I'm admittedly biased for sure due to my experiences, but I just can't recommend education to anyone these days and is partly why I started this channel and cohost a podcast on issues in education. I want to be here for those who need advice about either entering the profession or those who are stuck and are desperately trying to get out. In the end, I always say that teaching is a great career but a terrible job. I loved my students and I loved teaching - but that was such a tiny part of my actual job toward the end that I completely burned out and could no longer be the teacher I wanted to be anymore.
@ I have 5+ years in education. And I work in a childcare center as a teacher assistant floater. And I’m always exhausted, being a teacher isn’t easy. Also I’ve been watching TH-cam and TikTok videos of teachers leaving the profession because they are always burned out.
Exhaustion is a constant state for educators and sounds like you're already well-acquainted with it unfortunately. After I got out of teaching, I realized how little time for myself or anyone else that I had since I spent so much of my own time beyond contract hours working. Now, I can actually shut off at the end of the day and there's just no way to put a price on that. I'm so much happier and more relaxed now - and the story is being repeated over a million times now as you've seen all over social media.
@ In this generation, teaching is very dangerous and toxic. And these kids are very violent. I was watching this document based on a student that killed a Spanish teacher because the student didn’t study and failed his test. And the student told his Spanish teacher to change my grade, etc.
Hi Brian. I agree here. Thank you for your videos! I left teaching because kids were behaving dangerously bad and the pay was less than 16000. I'm unemployed and never been happier.
With how much parenting has changed over the years, the level of disrespect and violence in our youth has risen dramatically. It was definitely one of the main reasons I quit education because I felt even those with the best classroom management in the world began struggling to deal with it. I'm glad you got out! BTW, my name is Kevin. Easy mistype!
I never student taught. I moved to South America and taught there. When I returned to the. US, I taught in a private school. When I went to get certified, the actual teaching was counted as my student teaching. That was 25 years ago.
You are really fortunate that they permitted you to do so. I know many who weren't allowed to count their previous experience. In my original credentialing classes, I vividly remember we had two people who couldn't do that, including one from Spain and another from Norway.
I have exposed colleges with the whole “student teacher” crap. I graduated in 2020 with a minor in Physical Education. Since I have graduated I was building substitute teacher for three years as well as a full time physical education teacher for a full school year through a staffing agency with a mentor in the district. I have positive references from both schools and yet universities tell me I can’t translate none of my real life experiences to a teacher certification program. Absolute bullshit.
Welcome to the scheme. They discount any previous experience you may have and expect you to go through the entire program so they can make more money from your tuition and the school districts they partner with get free labor.
@ yeah it’s sad honestly. I’m currently a PE teacher with the same staffing agency this year. I applied for the golden apple accelerator residency program starting summer of 2025. where all the classes are online and they pay tuition and give you a stipend. I passed the content area test so hopefully I can land a job next school year on a provisional license while I complete classes online.
Yeah student teachers absolutely deserve to be paid. That's insane that they aren't. I see that the districts are thinking well I'm not going to pay for additional labor that I can instead just heap on the teacher. But they should pay for student teachers because that is the only way they can accrue desperately needed trained applicants while also maintaining their current veteran teachers. The only other alternative is hiring people with BAs and no classroom experience and offering on-site training, but then you will have a lot of turnover while the kids suffer without a teacher because a lot of incompetent people have BAs and teaching is an incredibly skilled job
Yes, absolutely. When teaching has already reached a point where most aren't really interested in entering the profession, all the thought of working a year for free does is ensure that new people will look elsewhere instead of choosing education as a career choice.
Principal internships are also unpaid. Teachers pursuing admin use their personal and sick days to intern. They sub for principals and don't get paid, while using their sub days to cover their own classes.
How else are teachers supposed to prepare for how poor they will be and how hard they will work if they don’t prepare to live frugally and feel overworked during student teaching?! 😂 What is sad is, it truly is preparing you for all the un-fun you’re about to face with your 4 year degree. (I know I shouldn’t be making jokes, but your points about eating ramen and working for free at night are spot on. It sort of made student teaching feel like it probably did better prepare me for what my life would be like. 😂)
Oh yeah, it's nothing to joke about at all - but at the end of the day you have to make jokes to get the absurdity of student teaching across to laypeople. It really does prepare you for the level of hard work that goes uncompensated and unappreciated your entire career.
Agreed. I did an internship in my career as well. Totally useless. The things they had me do were busywork a child could do. No preparation for my career as well.
That seems to be the norm these days and why student teaching and most internships don't actually prepare you for what they're designed to anymore. It's been a constant criticism from educators through the years how little student teaching gets them ready to be on their own and that it is more theory and busy work rather than genuine practice for what's to come. It's amazing after so many teachers burn out within the first 2-3 years now that they still don't realize that.
Yes, which is why people with other degrees don’t do transition to teaching too. Single people can’t afford to go that long without getting paid or insurance. If they got rid of student teaching, there would be other people who later in life would try teaching.
Yep! That's why there's not only a significant teacher retention crisis, but also teacher recruitment crisis. Credentialing programs around the country are virtually empty.
Student teaching in Alabama is less than one semester, not an entire year. It would probably be better to let new teachers act as paid substitutes rather than unpaid student teachers. But there is a need to have a veteran teacher oversee what the new teacher is doing for a while but not a year.
I'm not sure if less than a single semester is enough time to really gain enough practical experience to learn what you need to though. That being said, the sticking point is really the free labor problem where student teachers are exploited and used by districts instead of being paid a wage that makes it possible to sustain themselves during their program. If anything, we're actually paying them for the right to work for free with our tuition. I did substitute occasionally during my student teaching but it wasn't very often and it didn't pay very much at the time.
@@KevinTheID The thing is a student teacher does not really provide any value to the school at the time. The supervising teacher, which I have been several times, gets nothing from the deal and it just a hassle for him or her to take on this rookie. Believe me having a student teacher does not make the work of the supervising teacher any easier. The students are subjected to a sub par teacher for several months. Most student teachers just don't know what they are doing. I remember when I was a student teacher. I was just awful.
@@glennwatson3313 I agree and disagree with you there. On the one hand, yes, student teachers are inexperienced and don't always provide a boon to the school they're at in that sense or the mentor teacher. Hence, why they're called "student" teachers. On the hand though, classifying all student teachers as awful or who don't know what they're doing is a generalization. Many substituted before or were given good education prior to student teaching, myself included. I formed relationships with the students immediately and it actually angered one of my mentor teachers to the point that she tried to get rid of me due to her jealousy that the kids preferred when I taught them over her. Not tooting my own horn, rather just providing an example. Importantly though, how else are they going to learn how to teach? People need practical experience before being given a classroom of their own. The short term benefits for schools are may just be free labor, but the long term benefits are a more qualified workforce to draw from. Seems like a win overall to me for the schools.
@@KevinTheID I'm sure that are some very good student teachers but they are few and far between. There are long term benefits to helping student teachers, but for who? The individual school that takes on the student teacher and puts in the work to make him better is not going to get that teacher. I had a student teacher last year. She did well and then moved to Chicago. Young teachers do need experience but the school and the students she works with rarely benefit from work they put into the student teacher. The problem is an economic one. The interests of the school and the student teacher are not aligned.
Technically they aren't supposed to but they do it anyway in many places around the country. I often was left to instruct classes for an entire day on my own with no supervision while my mentor teacher was off doing other things. Now, could I easily teach without them there? Sure - and I did successfully countless times. But that doesn't really make it right either.
It's that way here in California! It's a total joke. We're required to complete a semester of observations and then follow that up with a semester of actual student teaching - a totally exploitative system.
@KevinTheID that's how it is here...one semester of going one day a week which is reasonable followed by a semester of going everyday...but now the geniuses want to add another whole semester!! Meanwhile the pay is not good enough and the debt keeps piling up...a racket to say the least...glad to see you are calling them out on it!
@@samstan4462 It's a scam for sure, pure and simple. One of my followers on LinkedIn said after watching the video that she had never heard this called out before but that I was totally right about it. I feel like it's one of those things that we only really notice in hindsight these days.
@ Wow. I’ve been teaching for 40 years and all of my student teachers have been semester assignments. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but an entire school year is too long for student teaching.
@@Offsides09 I agree wholeheartedly. What's becoming common now is a semester of observations and a semester of direct classroom instruction where we take over from the mentor teacher.
Nothing wrong with student teacher requirements. But fully certified teachers with masters degrees should start off at six figures. What's exploitative is putting in all the hard work and still ending in a career that keeps you poor.
@truthisland56 Indeed, and educators are often kept in a cycle of debt they can't get out of because they aren't paid enough to cover what it took to obtain their degrees and certifications.
@@KevinTheID You have to be careful, because if you lower the barriers of entry for the profession, you will end up with even more exploitation. Take Charter schools for example. They will hire people straight out of college with only a bachelors degree (no education degree, no student teaching) and these teachers are put through a meat grinder and are lucky to survive six months. High standards keeps the profession a bit more walled off, which should give us better leverage for salary, but sadly teachers and teacher union's never bother mentioning any of these things when they are sitting at the negotiation table.
Agreed, and I actually made a video on the dangers of lowering teacher qualification quite a while ago now. Only seems to be more relevant than ever: th-cam.com/video/40IQzroZTrg/w-d-xo.html
Other disciplines do this, and for up to a year. My wife recently completed her MS in Speech Language Pathology, and she had a semester of on-site work (unpaid, but not full time) in the middle of her degree, and an entire year (or was it ½ year?) of full-time unpaid work. We paid master's degree tuition of $13,000/year. But I agree that it is a scam.
She is currently in what can be called a one-year residency, but she is paid. Not a lot, but paid.
I student taught in the 1980s and worked a side job. At that time and place it was not verboten to do so.
It's unfortunate that education as a whole has this boundary which makes it not only harder to break into the system, but then become indebted to the system as a whole.
The only requirement for teaching a particular subject should be that you have a bachelor’s degree in that subject. All of this teacher preparation nonsense is a load of horse-shit designed to create jobs in the bogus field of teacher training. But more to the point, once certified people come to their senses and quit the schools will have no recourse but to hire whatever they can get. And then once those people all come to their senses as well and eventually quit, then the only game in town is going to be online academy tutored by mom and dad or whoever. Because at that point it’s going to be “can you pass the state GED test”?
We've already reached quite a bit of that. Just look to Texas where multiple people have been arrested in a certification fraud scam just in the last week to get teachers who could never get a credential otherwise into the classroom to fill out the massive number of openings resulting from us leaving the profession.
@@KevinTheID People just don’t get it. It was unbearable all the way back in the 1980s. I foresee online academy for all eventually, possibly not even in school buildings. That could create a day-care bonanza for Protestant churches with lots of vacant Sunday school classrooms to rent out. I’ve been assaulted over ten times in just 7 years. I even tried being a Benedictine monk for an eighth year since the abbey I lived in had its own prep school in the Cleveland ghetto just three blocks from the Imperial Avenue crack-whore death house on Buckeye Hill. The serial killer known as Anthony Sowell I believe died of cancer before his execution date. They had 75 monks when I was there in 1994 while today they have less than 25 and of course most of them were high school teachers. Now they’ve gone on to their eternal reward never to be replaced by anybody. People joining monasteries today are more interested in becoming hermits with orders like the Trappists and the Carthusians.
Why would you need a bachelor degree to teach kindergarten? Wouldn't a high school diploma and an efficiency test do just fine for kindergarten?
@@geraldstone8396 Good question.
The reason why a bachelor's degree and corresponding graduate teaching licensure is needed, is because to be an educator you need a certain level of training in your content area (multiple content areas for elementary grades), an understanding of the science of learning, and a growth not only in your emotional intelligence but also an education in how to manage a classroom.
Though the "content" is on the easier side for Kindergarten, the way you teach that information and how you deliver it while keeping kids on task is not easy and takes time to learn. Plus, you're developing foundational knowledge in kids that young which they've never been exposed to before and you need to learn how to do that most effectively.
@@geraldstone8396 Originally elementary school teachers didn’t typically attend universities but rather 2 year so called Normal Schools called teacher’s colleges. But today the secondary school teacher’s job has been so degraded that it really ought to just require two years of college because even having a four year degree makes you overqualified so lame are the vast majority of the students who most certainly are not in very much danger of ever becoming truly literate.
I currently teach and have for fifteen years.
I find it is pretty easy to tell which teachers have had no student-teaching preparation because they are not, in fact, prepared for the rigorous workload of actual teaching.
They have little understanding of child and adolescent psychology and even less understanding of classroom management.
All of these things are addressed in a proper student-teaching program under the guidance of an experienced, effective teacher.
Life on the other side of the desk is nothing like being a student.
Being knowledgeable about a subject does not equate to being able to teach that subject to people psychologically and chronologically and developmentally younger than the person with the degree was when he or she obtained that degree.
Most alt certs are teaching hacks drawn to the profession by propaganda about workday length, quips claiming that “those who can’t, teach,” and hubris.
Lack of preparation is one of the reasons there is such a high turnover rate in the teaching profession today.
The doors of alt certs’ classrooms are revolving doors.
All true, particularly about drawing in people who think teaching is easy because of the moronic "those who can't, teach" expression. They are woefully unprepared to manage a classroom or the rigors inherent with being an educator in today's culture and climate. Being a teacher is actually very difficult and most make more minute-by-minute decisions than neurosurgeons - something that few are ever effectively prepared for.
I did mine, unpaid. The school tried to put me in every role BUT teaching. The first 2 weeks were great! I taught, I created, I engaged. After that, they tried to get me to work in the front office NO, the ISS room NO, grading for all grades NO, permanent other duties, without a break NO. I fought with the Principal and AP's all the time- threatened me that I was going to fail my student teaching. Keep in mind- I was in my 40's when I did mine. 3rd career and ain't taking no one's bs. Parents loved to walk into rooms and be met with the "old lady" who teaches STEM. They backed down immediately. I supplemented my income by tutoring on the weekend. What they didn't know they didn't know. :)
Sounds pretty similar to most student teaching these days where they farm as much work onto you as they possibly can. What's worse is that the youngest and most impressionable teachers rarely can stand up like you did because they're worried about being cut from the program.
My brother is a Family Therapist and while he did get paid internship a lot of his classmates did over a year of free labor.
Yeah, that's just not okay and I don't understand how we've allowed that to happen over the years. It just sets people up to fail (or at least struggle) in the long-term.
I started substitute teaching BEFORE I even started college. I ended up doing my unpaid student teaching in the same school that I subbed for over the previous 5 years. It was such a waste of my time. And horrible for our finances. We lived on fried bread for the last 2 months before graduation, literally the only thing we could afford to eat because that's all that was left in our house by that point, oil and a bag of flour.
Honestly, the entire degree is a waste of money. I advise anyone who wants to teach elementary to just have their own kids and homeschool. I advise anyone who wants to teach middle or high school to get a degree in literally anything else and take an alternative route to certification.
At this point, I would have to agree with you and I likewise started substituting before my student teaching as well. Honestly, I felt like I gained more experience from that substituting than I ever did in virtually my entire credentialing program, save for one class that I did find mildly useful.
The system is setup to drain people rather than invest in them and grow their abilities. Now, every business has this to a degree but not to the extent that public education does where they actively find every way to siphon money and time from people and ignore your concerns or life situations. I remember that my credentials expired not long after I quit teaching and all that time, money, and effort I put into them meant nothing to me in the end. It felt like a waste and I wasn't even really able to utilize what I learned as a teacher outside of education. (Which I think is actually intentional to keep people in a cycle of debt to the system that they can't get out of.)
@KevinTheID I can definitely agree that I got more out of substitute teaching than during my entire degree program. Maybe the classes where we learned how to write lesson plans and analyze data were a bit useful, but nothing beyond that. I actually started to feel like the degree program was making me worse at teaching over time, because there was so much to consciously think about. Things I just did naturally when I first started, or picked up from just mimicking the experienced teachers that I worked with, I was now having to analyze.
I left to be a stay at home mom and homeschool, but I think if I did ever have to go back to earning money, my best option would be to open up my own tutoring service or consulting service for other homeschool families.
That's a really interesting take and yes, I agree. I think that degree programs actually do start to make you a worse teacher over time because they spend far too much time filling your head with theoretical nonsense rather than things you're actually going to use on the job.
My lesson planning classes were among my the most useless of all because they taught us these incredibly long and drawn out ways of creating lessons which literally no educator ever has the time to do. (Think formal methods that would take you a week to create a single day's worth of lessons.) When I mentioned that I just bullet-point out what I'm going to do literally in my first month of fulltime teaching, my department said that I caught onto that far faster than other new teachers they've worked with. I learned more by doing the actual job rather than in those classes, as most realistically do.
@KevinTheID the full-length plans are pretty unnecessary once you actually get into the classroom, but thinking it all out at least once was helpful. I suppose it's not the most helpful when you're given a curriculum to follow, and your job is mostly just finding the extra resources your specific students will need. I ended up in a gifted position for several years where I was writing my own curriculum, though, so I think that's why I found it so useful. I was going so far beyond, even creating my own materials. That was a big help in leading to burnout 🤣 my easiest years were teaching as a push in resource. Just follow the program the computer spit out.
Yeah...creating my own materials and still having them not appreciated by those who pushed for the increasing levels of standardization probably contributed to my burnout too now that you mention it.
I’m in my master’s degree in early childhood education that leads to teaching licensure. And I have to do my student teaching in 2026. This video is making me think of changing my major. I definitely agree, student teaching doesn’t prepare people for the classroom. Therefore, the educational system is really bad.
More and more people are choosing to not finish their programs (or even enter them) because of how bad education is now. Student teaching fails new educators almost entirely and fills people with a lot of theory and idealized ways of doing things that don't translate to every day classrooms. Classrooms, mind you, that are growing increasingly violent and impossible to manage, even for veteran educators with great classroom management skills. Not to mention that there is no such thing as onboarding for teachers and you're just thrown into the deep end when you're given keys after being hired with little tangible support.
Education clearly has more problems than just student teaching failing to adequately prepare people, but if we have such little care for the mental, physical, and financial wellbeing of our youngest teachers, imagine how bad it is for teachers who've been there longer. The old guidepost was 5 years as the make or break it point for new teachers, but now it is 2 at the most, and many (including my partner) burn out during their student teaching itself before ever securing a fulltime position. Since January, 2020, somewhere around 1.5-2 million teachers have quit or retired early. That's roughly between 15-20% of all teachers in the country.
I would never tell you what to do, and I'm admittedly biased for sure due to my experiences, but I just can't recommend education to anyone these days and is partly why I started this channel and cohost a podcast on issues in education. I want to be here for those who need advice about either entering the profession or those who are stuck and are desperately trying to get out.
In the end, I always say that teaching is a great career but a terrible job. I loved my students and I loved teaching - but that was such a tiny part of my actual job toward the end that I completely burned out and could no longer be the teacher I wanted to be anymore.
@ I have 5+ years in education. And I work in a childcare center as a teacher assistant floater. And I’m always exhausted, being a teacher isn’t easy. Also I’ve been watching TH-cam and TikTok videos of teachers leaving the profession because they are always burned out.
Exhaustion is a constant state for educators and sounds like you're already well-acquainted with it unfortunately. After I got out of teaching, I realized how little time for myself or anyone else that I had since I spent so much of my own time beyond contract hours working. Now, I can actually shut off at the end of the day and there's just no way to put a price on that. I'm so much happier and more relaxed now - and the story is being repeated over a million times now as you've seen all over social media.
@ In this generation, teaching is very dangerous and toxic. And these kids are very violent. I was watching this document based on a student that killed a Spanish teacher because the student didn’t study and failed his test. And the student told his Spanish teacher to change my grade, etc.
Hi Brian. I agree here. Thank you for your videos! I left teaching because kids were behaving dangerously bad and the pay was less than 16000. I'm unemployed and never been happier.
With how much parenting has changed over the years, the level of disrespect and violence in our youth has risen dramatically. It was definitely one of the main reasons I quit education because I felt even those with the best classroom management in the world began struggling to deal with it. I'm glad you got out!
BTW, my name is Kevin. Easy mistype!
I never student taught. I moved to South America and taught there. When I returned to the. US, I taught in a private school. When I went to get certified, the actual teaching was counted as my student teaching. That was 25 years ago.
You are really fortunate that they permitted you to do so. I know many who weren't allowed to count their previous experience.
In my original credentialing classes, I vividly remember we had two people who couldn't do that, including one from Spain and another from Norway.
I have exposed colleges with the whole “student teacher” crap. I graduated in 2020 with a minor in Physical Education. Since I have graduated I was building substitute teacher for three years as well as a full time physical education teacher for a full school year through a staffing agency with a mentor in the district. I have positive references from both schools and yet universities tell me I can’t translate none of my real life experiences to a teacher certification program. Absolute bullshit.
Welcome to the scheme. They discount any previous experience you may have and expect you to go through the entire program so they can make more money from your tuition and the school districts they partner with get free labor.
@ yeah it’s sad honestly. I’m currently a PE teacher with the same staffing agency this year. I applied for the golden apple accelerator residency program starting summer of 2025. where all the classes are online and they pay tuition and give you a stipend. I passed the content area test so hopefully I can land a job next school year on a provisional license while I complete classes online.
@@DJMCNUMBER2012 Best of luck!
Yeah student teachers absolutely deserve to be paid. That's insane that they aren't. I see that the districts are thinking well I'm not going to pay for additional labor that I can instead just heap on the teacher. But they should pay for student teachers because that is the only way they can accrue desperately needed trained applicants while also maintaining their current veteran teachers. The only other alternative is hiring people with BAs and no classroom experience and offering on-site training, but then you will have a lot of turnover while the kids suffer without a teacher because a lot of incompetent people have BAs and teaching is an incredibly skilled job
Yes, absolutely. When teaching has already reached a point where most aren't really interested in entering the profession, all the thought of working a year for free does is ensure that new people will look elsewhere instead of choosing education as a career choice.
Principal internships are also unpaid. Teachers pursuing admin use their personal and sick days to intern. They sub for principals and don't get paid, while using their sub days to cover their own classes.
Yeah, and we only get 10 days a year in the first place. Can't imagine using them for admin internships is great for work life balance, huh?
How else are teachers supposed to prepare for how poor they will be and how hard they will work if they don’t prepare to live frugally and feel overworked during student teaching?! 😂
What is sad is, it truly is preparing you for all the un-fun you’re about to face with your 4 year degree. (I know I shouldn’t be making jokes, but your points about eating ramen and working for free at night are spot on. It sort of made student teaching feel like it probably did better prepare me for what my life would be like. 😂)
Oh yeah, it's nothing to joke about at all - but at the end of the day you have to make jokes to get the absurdity of student teaching across to laypeople.
It really does prepare you for the level of hard work that goes uncompensated and unappreciated your entire career.
Agreed. I did an internship in my career as well. Totally useless. The things they had me do were busywork a child could do. No preparation for my career as well.
That seems to be the norm these days and why student teaching and most internships don't actually prepare you for what they're designed to anymore. It's been a constant criticism from educators through the years how little student teaching gets them ready to be on their own and that it is more theory and busy work rather than genuine practice for what's to come. It's amazing after so many teachers burn out within the first 2-3 years now that they still don't realize that.
Yes, which is why people with other degrees don’t do transition to teaching too. Single people can’t afford to go that long without getting paid or insurance. If they got rid of student teaching, there would be other people who later in life would try teaching.
Yep! That's why there's not only a significant teacher retention crisis, but also teacher recruitment crisis. Credentialing programs around the country are virtually empty.
Student teaching in Alabama is less than one semester, not an entire year. It would probably be better to let new teachers act as paid substitutes rather than unpaid student teachers. But there is a need to have a veteran teacher oversee what the new teacher is doing for a while but not a year.
I'm not sure if less than a single semester is enough time to really gain enough practical experience to learn what you need to though. That being said, the sticking point is really the free labor problem where student teachers are exploited and used by districts instead of being paid a wage that makes it possible to sustain themselves during their program. If anything, we're actually paying them for the right to work for free with our tuition.
I did substitute occasionally during my student teaching but it wasn't very often and it didn't pay very much at the time.
@@KevinTheID The thing is a student teacher does not really provide any value to the school at the time.
The supervising teacher, which I have been several times, gets nothing from the deal and it just a hassle for him or her to take on this rookie. Believe me having a student teacher does not make the work of the supervising teacher any easier.
The students are subjected to a sub par teacher for several months. Most student teachers just don't know what they are doing. I remember when I was a student teacher. I was just awful.
@@glennwatson3313 I agree and disagree with you there. On the one hand, yes, student teachers are inexperienced and don't always provide a boon to the school they're at in that sense or the mentor teacher. Hence, why they're called "student" teachers.
On the hand though, classifying all student teachers as awful or who don't know what they're doing is a generalization. Many substituted before or were given good education prior to student teaching, myself included. I formed relationships with the students immediately and it actually angered one of my mentor teachers to the point that she tried to get rid of me due to her jealousy that the kids preferred when I taught them over her. Not tooting my own horn, rather just providing an example.
Importantly though, how else are they going to learn how to teach? People need practical experience before being given a classroom of their own. The short term benefits for schools are may just be free labor, but the long term benefits are a more qualified workforce to draw from. Seems like a win overall to me for the schools.
@@KevinTheID I'm sure that are some very good student teachers but they are few and far between.
There are long term benefits to helping student teachers, but for who? The individual school that takes on the student teacher and puts in the work to make him better is not going to get that teacher. I had a student teacher last year. She did well and then moved to Chicago.
Young teachers do need experience but the school and the students she works with rarely benefit from work they put into the student teacher.
The problem is an economic one. The interests of the school and the student teacher are not aligned.
Depends on the location. In my area it's pretty normal for student teachers to be hired by the schools or districts that train them.
Also, I’ve never heard of mentor/certified teachers getting to leave while their student teacher was there for the day. They can’t in IL.
Technically they aren't supposed to but they do it anyway in many places around the country. I often was left to instruct classes for an entire day on my own with no supervision while my mentor teacher was off doing other things. Now, could I easily teach without them there? Sure - and I did successfully countless times.
But that doesn't really make it right either.
And the school were i graduated from wanted to make students do 2 semesters of student teaching!! How much free labor can u demand...its a joke.
It's that way here in California! It's a total joke.
We're required to complete a semester of observations and then follow that up with a semester of actual student teaching - a totally exploitative system.
@KevinTheID that's how it is here...one semester of going one day a week which is reasonable followed by a semester of going everyday...but now the geniuses want to add another whole semester!! Meanwhile the pay is not good enough and the debt keeps piling up...a racket to say the least...glad to see you are calling them out on it!
@@samstan4462 It's a scam for sure, pure and simple. One of my followers on LinkedIn said after watching the video that she had never heard this called out before but that I was totally right about it.
I feel like it's one of those things that we only really notice in hindsight these days.
You actually pay out more to student teach in my state because the class costs more money. 🤦🏽♀️
Yeah, you're literally paying them to work for free. Great logic, huh?
Indentured servitude
Pretty darn close if we're being honest.
Your student teaching experience was a year long? I’ve always been associated with student teaching being only one semester.
Yep, mine was a year long, which is becoming more and more common these days.
@ Wow. I’ve been teaching for 40 years and all of my student teachers have been semester assignments. Maybe it’s a regional thing, but an entire school year is too long for student teaching.
@@Offsides09 I agree wholeheartedly. What's becoming common now is a semester of observations and a semester of direct classroom instruction where we take over from the mentor teacher.
Nothing wrong with student teacher requirements. But fully certified teachers with masters degrees should start off at six figures. What's exploitative is putting in all the hard work and still ending in a career that keeps you poor.
@truthisland56 Indeed, and educators are often kept in a cycle of debt they can't get out of because they aren't paid enough to cover what it took to obtain their degrees and certifications.
@@KevinTheID You have to be careful, because if you lower the barriers of entry for the profession, you will end up with even more exploitation. Take Charter schools for example. They will hire people straight out of college with only a bachelors degree (no education degree, no student teaching) and these teachers are put through a meat grinder and are lucky to survive six months. High standards keeps the profession a bit more walled off, which should give us better leverage for salary, but sadly teachers and teacher union's never bother mentioning any of these things when they are sitting at the negotiation table.
Agreed, and I actually made a video on the dangers of lowering teacher qualification quite a while ago now. Only seems to be more relevant than ever: th-cam.com/video/40IQzroZTrg/w-d-xo.html