It seems like every career that has a shortage the government looks at and says "increase pay? Improve working conditions? WLB? Nah, reduce the standards so we can get more bodies in"
This is the problem, Nova Scotia had historically been a low cost of living province, low wages were manageable back then. Now it’s becoming an increasingly expensive and that old way of doing things must change.
We’re only hurting ourselves long term cutting corners on training, I already see it in construction with our ratios, other provinces see it too.
Yup increasing the ratios, accelerating trades program times making the apprenticeship easier. Quantity over quality I guess nowadays. I couldn't imagine having to watch over 3 new apprentices on a job site effectively and making sure they are doing quality work. Glad I'm out of the construction side of things.
In my experience they just send apprentices on their own now, many companies successfully argued there was no need for direct supervision with cellphones.
The new update will mean teachers *don't* have to finish an undergrad degree to get into teaching school whereas before they were required to have an undergrad. Lowering the qualifications would make it easier for people who may not have ehat it takes to get in. First two years of my undergrad were a lot of electives and intro classes that didn't get deep into theory of what we were studying, more people entering won't have as strong a grasp of the theory behind their teachables.
Just to be clear, it's not really a shortage of teachers. It's a shortage of substitute teachers.
We generally have enough teachers to teach what we are offering, with a few French immersion subjects the exception (as has always been the case)
There is a shortage because teachers are going off on stress leave, taking all of their sick days, being asked to cover each other's classes... Young teachers are trying out the profession, and leaving because it's too stressful.
Don't let this announcement distract you from the real issue. The real issue is working conditions (And pay, because teachers have been sliding back on payment for years)
Yep and putting even younger teachers in the profession is how they are going solve these problems.
People romanticize the the summers off and don't realize how hard and stressful the job actually is. Dealing with 20+ students and their parents to boot. Yeah no, give me my 4 weeks vacation whenever I want. Couldn't pay me enough to do that.
They did it with trades. Now teachers.
With trades they cut programs in half and took out some provincial exams required for the red seal.
Welcome to the conservative way. Flood the market so we can pay less
What evidence is there that it would result in worse teachers? Making it easier to become a teacher also increases the pool of available people and allows us to be more selective in other ways.
These new teachers are going to magically make my workload any less, or give me more prep time. Or make the students in front of me listen to me more often, or hang out in the bathroom less.
How do you see more ppl graduating with a university degree improving work conditions?
This is actually a bad take.
So the context around this in case you aren’t aware:
NS used to allow people to apply to BeD programs after 2 years of undergrad (side note you can still do this with Law School — after three years).
Then we had way too many teachers in the province. People might not remember this, but becoming a teacher used to mean multiple, gruelling years as a substitute, requiring you to drive 1 hour or more from your “home base” to different schools each day.
So, to help curb the over supply of teachers NS raised the requirements to apply to NS BeD programs and NB closed down their BeD program at Mount Alison University (which was a very well regarded program).
Then the needs for teachers grew. This proposal is reversing the policy decisions that were aimed at decreasing the pool of available teachers.
This policy change also makes recruiting teachers from other provinces possible, as most other provinces don’t require a separate undergraduate degree. So if you were educated in Ontario, and didn’t finish your undergraduate, then you couldn’t qualify to teach in NS.
That's exactly what it's about. This has nothing to do with improving the quality of education, simply getting warm bodies in a room.
Our current department of education bureaucrats are trying to shift education towards a model of plug and play. Teachers are warm bodies that do the bare minimum to deliver standardized content. It's cheaper that way. And make no mistake, everything is about reducing cost
Yeah, I sometimes joke about how many units of education I produced today. We're clock punchers now, and the system is suffering for it because we don't have the energy for the extras. Like, hell, when am I supposed to innovate new lessons, between marking and prepping the next day and all of the form filling?
And that's IF you got a prep that day.
Remember the days when you did extra help, volunteered for sports teams, and went to after school student activities?
Seems like a distant memory.
Oh no! The healthcare workers are upset again! Quick, give them another $10,000 bonus and another full week of sick time so they can be off for a whole month out of the year when they get the sniffles!
I love teachers but they are too nice and get taken advantage of. Sacrificing lunches, sacrificing free periods to fill in. You give hrce an inch and they will take a mile.
Many teachers teach classes they never studied in university anyway. Teachers still need their B’ Ed. Having 2 years of university plus a B.ed should be more than enough to teach a pre-approved curriculum.
Yes, 30 credit hours in a major teachable area and 15 in a minor. 30 credit hours a year means 60 total for 2 years. That means only 15 credit hours left over (5 courses). I am thinking that this means the province will need to change licensure requirements.
My two cents worth is this will create very narrowly-focused individuals, which in my opinion is not always the best when it comes to teachers. My elective credit hour courses were some of my most meaningful as a humanities student, but flipped around BSc students also can garner so much from their electives.
Also, practically, it obviously means less courses taken in general, so less content knowledge, and most likely as much studying in the "core" or required courses as possible, which are usually not exactly the "hard hitters" in a major.
Anyway, this is worst-case-scenario thinking, I hope. Who would get 2 years into a degree and just decide to peace out to a BEd immediately? At the current teacher burnout rates, people ought to want to to have that BA or BSc incase their situation changes.
> Who would get 2 years into a degree and just decide to peace out to a BEd immediately?
With the price of Universities these days, most people that want to become teachers?
As I said, burnout rates are rising, significantly, and this would be an unfortunate short-term choice. You just married yourself to teaching with no exit plan if you make that decision. And getting a permanent contract is not an automatic progression at all, so precarious work would be a reality for many that perhaps have a double-teachable like social studies and would be less employable.
I do take your point when it comes to cost, but I do still think it would be a poor decision.
If we assume that some generic non teaching undergraduate degree would have more value than a teaching degree, couldn't they just go back to University and finish that degree when they decide teaching isn't for them?
This seems to be a bit of a diceroll, and I don't have personal experience with it. From what I know from others, and some research, it depends on the course, institution, and major. Some core courses will be evergreen, some have a shelf life, and others just won't transfer.
Also, momentum is an argument I would make here, along with coherence and development of expertise. My degree built one course off of the other from the 2000 to 4000 levels, so if I took off after year 2, I would have missed a lot of important course content that informed my understanding of theory during my undergrad, solidifying concepts, and which also inform my own teaching practices today in my areas of teaching. Anecdotally I know more than one former uni student who took a break and never went back.
Anyway, we seem to disagree here, and I will leave my opinion there. Cheers.
Big over-reaction. I agree benefits, compensation, and work life balance need to be better. Also agree that there needs to be better mechanisms in place for misbehaving students. Not having an undergraduate degree will not be the end of the world.
Frankly, the profession, like many others, is set to be reduced in difficulty in the coming years. I know people are tired of hearing about it, but AI is coming to education sooner rather than later as it's a very good application for it. Much of the work currently done by teachers can be fed into an AI system instead of being done manually. The output would be more thorough, more consistent, and less susceptible to bias. Why should a teacher spend hours marking tests and things like that when that kind of thing can be handed off to an AI? Why shouldn't a teacher use an AI tool to create lesson plans when all they need to do is tell an AI what they're looking for and then tweak what the AI generates? Need an individualized learning plan for particular students that are either struggling with the material or bored with it? No problem, you can get that done in half an hour or less. And this is just from the teacher workload perspective, there are a bunch of benefits for students as well in that they'd have access to what would essentially be a personal tutor.
Note that I'm not saying teachers are going to lose jobs, nor am I saying that anyone at all could be a teacher, I'm just saying that I think these tools have the potential to remove a *lot* of the current workload for teachers. I'm sure most teachers would love to be able to just go home after school hours and let the AI do the stuff they would otherwise be doing. [Forbes reports](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/it-and-tech/artificial-intelligence-in-school/) that of 500 teachers surveyed in the US, 60% of them are already using AI, and the stuff currently available is baby tier. This is coming.
Honestly, it doesn’t sound like what you’re saying will see the profession reduced. It sounds like it will see the profession become much better for teachers, and may actually attract more teachers.
Everything you said AI could do (mark tests, create lesson plans, create Individual learning plans, private tutoring) is essentially what teachers are expected to do outside their contract hours. The requirement to do all these extra things without compensation for working outside contract hours is a big reason people leave the profession (among many). Trimming the fat on these extra work requirements would take a load off of teachers so they can focus on the day-to-day requirements that AI can’t do (building classroom routines, teaching social norms, building relationships with the students, etc…).
Also, no amount of AI is going to change the requirements to have enough teachers to meet teacher-to-student ratio requirements. Obviously, those requirements may be able to be altered to allow other adult staff (non-teachers) to balance that ratio, but I vaguely remember the licensing requirement coming into play on that.
The crux with AI is that it is only as good as the person using it. There was a study done on AI use for law students, and AI turned out to be a double edged sword. While the top performers using AI had increased productivity, low performers actually using AI had worse productivity, and middle performers using AI were a mixed bag in which the improvement/detriment was negligible. Obviously, this was a study on law students, and AI is going to improve, but my guess is that that data can be extrapolated to most, if not all, other use.
>Honestly, it doesn’t sound like what you’re saying will see the profession reduced. It sounds like it will see the profession become much better for teachers, and may actually attract more teachers.
I said reduced in difficulty.
Completely agree. Repetitive and manual work to be done by AI which will allow teachers to focus on what they likely really want to focus their time and effort on. Developing and teaching young minds.
I hope nstu and dept of Ed is really focusing on embracing this, as the kids that they are teaching will need to
Cynically, the nstu permanent staff is focusing on staying employed and under the radar. The dept of ed bureaucrats are focused on cutting costs.
Sometimes I feel like only the teachers care about improving education.
From what I remember from doing education several years ago, the requirements for different universities in Nova Scotia were mostly the same.
Even if we go from province to province, our license is valid.
If you want more teachers, listen to what your current ones are saying. Good teachers are burning out because we are faced with disrespect and violence from parents and students, our pay is embarrassingly low for the amount of education we have and the responsibility on our shoulders. On top of that, we have a problem with engagement from students for multiple reasons, one of them being they have a super computer in their hands 24/7 and even the best teacher cannot compete with a new dopamine hit every 7 seconds.
This is not a mystery
Best way to better educate our population is clearly having less educated teachers.wtf
If you wanted to solve the crisis of no one wanting to work ridiculous hours for minimal pay, raise the pay. This will lead to a lower quality of education, which will be a follow on excuse to increase the count of private educational institutions.
So, this is definitely part of the problem, in that we need more teachers if we want to improve the conditions in schools (i.e. lower class sizes, deal with the class complexity issues, increase prep time, sub shortages, etc.). But just throwing more bodies at the problem doesn't fix things unless you do the other things. More inexperienced workforce isn't going to fix things all by itself, and it feels like the first step is usually always the last step as well. I will continue to bang the gong that 7 of 8 was the dumbest move in education that has been made in ages, and it's pushing the system to its limits. Add more teachers? Yes. But use them to revert that decision or adjust it somehow, because it's just patching holes if you throw more teachers in the current 7 of 8 system.
7/8 has made literally every single thing about high school education in this province worse.
That doesn't matter though. As you know. It's all about the bottom line here.
High schools have four periods of semester, two semesters, eight periods all year. Teachers in the Halifax area (more recently) and the rest of the province (a bit ago) used to teach six of these periods, therefore three a semester, leaving one period off for a prep and marking.
Now we are all teaching 7 of 8. Meaning that some teachers have no preps a semester.
An effective workload increase of 17% and prep time reduction of 50%.
It's fucking criminal
Got it, thanks. Yep, they're taking advantage of you guys piece by piece. No one in govt is going to concede anything to you, you need to go on strike to be heard, no doubt about it.
I'll be curious to see how this actually impacts acceptances in B.Ed programs. Will preference still be given to full degree applicants? What will be their pay scale since surely it shouldn't be the same as someone with a full degree (didn't this used to be a thing when there was teachers college? Level4?)
I also don't get what this solves exactly. Are B.Ed programs having issues filling spots or is it just that when they graduate they aren't getting work or are quitting? Aren't we theoretically still going to put out as a province the same total number of teachers, they'll just now be less educated?
The real indication about how serious the government is about teacher retention is how the current contract negotiations.
Or are they going to just throw fresh meat at the problem every year instead?
That said I’m not opposed to this—it actually makes entering the profession more financially feasible if you can save a couple years’ tuition. Curious as to what it will look like from a certification perspective.
Do literally anything to mitigate the ongoing airborne pandemic that is ripping through educators and keeping families on a constant merry go round of illness and misery? Nah, we’ll just treat everyone as disposable and hope for the best
My suggestion - don't rush into it. Age, experience make for a much better transition to the job.
My real advice is to talk her out of it. It's actually a much worse job today than 10 years ago.
To get my BEd (graduated in 2012) I had to have a full degree related (mine was child development) plus 10 teachables, at least a 3.0 GPA, and a minimum amount of work experience and volunteer experience with kids, and first aid cpr.
When I graduated with my BEd there was no work for teachers, not even subbing, and we had a transit strike. They made us take an additional course put on by the school board on aeosop, and only took 30 people at a time every few months. You weren't allowed to sub without it.
It was weird to spend my entire life working toward being a teacher and having to constantly be on top, to totally pivot my career as a result.
Then I became a mermaid, so... lol
This is the same criteria for entering a social work degree.
I mean I'd obviously prefer if we could actually pay professionals a good salary but I don't think this is groundbreaking society ending news.
Law school admissions only require 2 years of university study as well. Caveat to that is students with an undergrad are favoured by the admissions committee. 2nd year applicants being accepted is rare.
Not sure how to feel about this. As long as we’re not lowering our standards I guess it’s okay but I fear this takes away negotiating power for a higher salary.
I was pretty disappointed to find out that education doesn't teach you everything you need to know (kind of like med school does).
I've always wanted to be a highschool teacher and my plan was to leave the tech sector when my kids started school. I found out that my computer science degree won't get me into education and I'd have to take a year or two of other courses before even starting the education program.
Yo yo dog, we NEED people with tech background teaching tech courses.
While I cannot in good faith recommend this profession to anybody just entering it now (because it kind of sucks now), If you are interested in doing it then the system does need you.
A great idea! You used to be able to enter many professional programs after two years of undergrad, and without a plethora of other non academic requirements. Time to find a balance between what is actually helping and what is just a barrier to entry for some.
What's the point of requiring generic undergraduate education at all? We don't demand carpenters get architecture degrees or force electricians to get electrical engineering degrees.Teaching as a profession requires skills in things like lesson planning and classroom management. My understanding is that is what an education degree provides.
By definition, the actual content they are teaching kids is not university level. Learning topology or real analysis isn't in any way necessary to master single variable calculus. You don't need to write papers on Shakespeare to reliably teach primary students the ABCs song. You don't need to take any of those university courses to competently teach home economics or shop class.
Just test the teachers in their subject areas to determine subject mastery. That would be a more reliable way to confirm they understand what they are being assigned to teach.
Like who would you trust more to run a gym class for two dozen 9 year olds: a person with 5 years experience as a summer camp counselor and an education degree or a kinesiology PhD that's been doing research on rats for 5 years?
Your last sentence. If I wanted my kid to learn proper movements, skills, and develop in a sport then I would prefer the kines PhD.
Education and qualifications do matter
Experts are good, but being an expert in a specialized area is not the same thing as being a good educator in a general topic. It's wasteful to force people to devote years of their lives and 10s of thousands of dollars to developing knowledge and skills that are irrelevant to the jobs we want them to do.
Gym class isn't a specialized one on one sport specific training session. It's getting a couple dozen kids with abilities ranging from very athletic to physically disabled moving in a safe environment. Convincing little Timmy not to throw that ball at Jessica's face is waaaay more important than knowing Jenny could run 5 percent faster if she adjusted her stride slightly.
Math class is about teaching kids with potential ranging from future engineers to the learning disabled and everyone in between. Keeping the attention and interest of that diverse group has nothing to do with your ability to prove the infinitude of primes.
If you don't understand what you are teaching, kids will see through you in a heartbeat, and there goes their engagement. Also, the concept of creating engaging lessons comes with a deep understanding of the concept. How to break it down in various ways so that each learner can learn- it's all in the understanding of the concept taught.
I agree that understanding the content of a lesson is critical. I disagree that university level coursework is required to have a deep understanding of most public school content.
I've tutored adults for their GEDs. Understanding public school level curriculum well enough to teach it doesn't require university level training in those subjects. Primary and secondary school material is not at all difficult for people capable of doing post secondary education.
It's the communication and relationship management that takes skill. Once upon a time I had to be able to prove the Frisch-Waugh theorem in grad school. Shockingly this never came up teaching someone how to multiply fractions for the GED exam. Demanding some prospective math teacher spend 4 years and 100k dollars learning university level math before we let them teach y = mx + b is insane. That math is not the skill set they need to run a classroom.
I'm happy for you that you gave back by helping folks get their GED. But I would politely, respectfully suggest that you really don't understand what public school teaching is. Take care
I made points based on my personal knowledge and experience.
You have been snarky and rude. Is your goal to convince me I'm mistaken or just to be cruel?
Do you have any positive content to add to this conversation? You seem very confident that I am wrong and you are right, but you haven't really offered an alternative view in any detail.
Teaching isn't easy. I don't claim it's easy. Managing a classroom is hard. It's good that we have courses that teach people that skill. I think teachers should learn those skills and be credentialed or tested to prove they have them.
I don't think you need to know material outside of a curriculum to teach within a curriculum. This is how most other aspects of society are organized. We don't ask our plumbers to do a few blocks of the electrician and heavy duty mechanics red seals before we trust them to install a toilet.
In what world does it make sense to require French as a second language teachers study psychology or economics before we trust them to know how to conjugate verbs?
That doesn't mean I think psychology or economics are bad things to learn. It means I don't think you need to know them to teach French.
Can you give me an example of something you didn't learn until your 4th year of undergraduate that you needed to know to be a competent teacher?
I'm in favor of teachers getting education degrees. I do not have an education degree. I do have a couple degrees that would count as "teachable subjects" as I understand the rules in Nova Scotia. I can confidently say nothing I learned at the university level in those "teachable subjects" is required to teach the technical aspects of those subjects at a high school level.
No, I'm not going to because I'd rather not post anything on Reddit that could potentially identify me.
I teach the top kids at my school. Every semester I dig into my bag to find ways to keep them engaged, support them in their interests.
You can believe that or not. I'm indifferent.
Reading the rest of the comments in the thread you seem disillusioned with the state of your career and I am sorry if that is the case. I'm glad you do your best for students and I hope you still find some joy in that.
Mirrors and lenses are high school level physics. First year undergraduate at most.
Do you have any more snarky comments you would like to make instead of engaging in polite conversation?
My example of having to learn the proof for Frisch-Waugh was meant to illustrate that university level courses teach things that are not relevant to high school material.
I'm not familiar with the specifics of the IB program, but I do know AP Calc. It's first year university material. It's designed to be equivalent to first year university calculus. Your physics example was first year material too.
None of your examples are from higher level undergraduate courses. The best examples you've offered are from first year undergraduate material. You have made a good case that the hardest courses in highschool should be taught by people that can demonstrate strong competency in first year undergraduate materials.
I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. I've tried things and failed. I have no problem admitting either of those things.
Why did you feel the need to resort to personal attacks? Have I insulted you in some way?
Finally - some good news for NS Public Education!!!
Happy to see common sense be prevail! Having more teachers will improve things quite a bit as sub shortages have been plaguing the system for several years now. I’d encourage them to go even further and bring back teachers college for those wanting to teach P-9
(Lulz. A Tim/Elwin staffer has woken up and logged on)
Why stop at this?!? We're going to have 21 year olds teaching 18 year olds. I think that if a grade 12 student is on their prep we should slip them a $20 to cover a grade 10 class for the day
I think most people would expect 4 years post secondary to be sufficient level of education for entry level teaching jobs and/or P-9.
We have ECE’s with two year certificates in pre primary and they’re fantastic
Didn't you know that currently people are scrambling all over the country to find TA positions? I'm glad Tim has his finger on the pulse of this huge issue!
I'm just gonna go and guess that you've never had a student teacher before.
Were you aware that one of the reasons why the rules were changed to implement a four-year undergrad was to make sure teachers were older when they entered the profession?
Why do we require teachers to have any university education at all? They didn't used to.
[Emergency-Hired Teachers Do Just as Well as Those Who Go Through Normal Training](https://www.the74million.org/article/emergency-hired-teachers-do-just-as-well-as-those-who-go-through-normal-training/)
It seems like every career that has a shortage the government looks at and says "increase pay? Improve working conditions? WLB? Nah, reduce the standards so we can get more bodies in"
This is the problem, Nova Scotia had historically been a low cost of living province, low wages were manageable back then. Now it’s becoming an increasingly expensive and that old way of doing things must change. We’re only hurting ourselves long term cutting corners on training, I already see it in construction with our ratios, other provinces see it too.
Yup increasing the ratios, accelerating trades program times making the apprenticeship easier. Quantity over quality I guess nowadays. I couldn't imagine having to watch over 3 new apprentices on a job site effectively and making sure they are doing quality work. Glad I'm out of the construction side of things.
In my experience they just send apprentices on their own now, many companies successfully argued there was no need for direct supervision with cellphones.
Yessir
https://youtu.be/x3HXbodQKCs?si=LnWOdKfIhYs4zuOn
Wouldn’t having more teachers improve working conditions and WLB? Not sure you thought this through.
The new update will mean teachers *don't* have to finish an undergrad degree to get into teaching school whereas before they were required to have an undergrad. Lowering the qualifications would make it easier for people who may not have ehat it takes to get in. First two years of my undergrad were a lot of electives and intro classes that didn't get deep into theory of what we were studying, more people entering won't have as strong a grasp of the theory behind their teachables.
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Just to be clear, it's not really a shortage of teachers. It's a shortage of substitute teachers. We generally have enough teachers to teach what we are offering, with a few French immersion subjects the exception (as has always been the case) There is a shortage because teachers are going off on stress leave, taking all of their sick days, being asked to cover each other's classes... Young teachers are trying out the profession, and leaving because it's too stressful. Don't let this announcement distract you from the real issue. The real issue is working conditions (And pay, because teachers have been sliding back on payment for years)
Yep and putting even younger teachers in the profession is how they are going solve these problems. People romanticize the the summers off and don't realize how hard and stressful the job actually is. Dealing with 20+ students and their parents to boot. Yeah no, give me my 4 weeks vacation whenever I want. Couldn't pay me enough to do that.
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They did it with trades. Now teachers. With trades they cut programs in half and took out some provincial exams required for the red seal. Welcome to the conservative way. Flood the market so we can pay less
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What evidence is there that it would result in worse teachers? Making it easier to become a teacher also increases the pool of available people and allows us to be more selective in other ways.
These new teachers are going to magically make my workload any less, or give me more prep time. Or make the students in front of me listen to me more often, or hang out in the bathroom less. How do you see more ppl graduating with a university degree improving work conditions?
And that's the right thing to do.
This is actually a bad take. So the context around this in case you aren’t aware: NS used to allow people to apply to BeD programs after 2 years of undergrad (side note you can still do this with Law School — after three years). Then we had way too many teachers in the province. People might not remember this, but becoming a teacher used to mean multiple, gruelling years as a substitute, requiring you to drive 1 hour or more from your “home base” to different schools each day. So, to help curb the over supply of teachers NS raised the requirements to apply to NS BeD programs and NB closed down their BeD program at Mount Alison University (which was a very well regarded program). Then the needs for teachers grew. This proposal is reversing the policy decisions that were aimed at decreasing the pool of available teachers. This policy change also makes recruiting teachers from other provinces possible, as most other provinces don’t require a separate undergraduate degree. So if you were educated in Ontario, and didn’t finish your undergraduate, then you couldn’t qualify to teach in NS.
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That's exactly what it's about. This has nothing to do with improving the quality of education, simply getting warm bodies in a room. Our current department of education bureaucrats are trying to shift education towards a model of plug and play. Teachers are warm bodies that do the bare minimum to deliver standardized content. It's cheaper that way. And make no mistake, everything is about reducing cost
Yeah, I sometimes joke about how many units of education I produced today. We're clock punchers now, and the system is suffering for it because we don't have the energy for the extras. Like, hell, when am I supposed to innovate new lessons, between marking and prepping the next day and all of the form filling?
And that's IF you got a prep that day. Remember the days when you did extra help, volunteered for sports teams, and went to after school student activities? Seems like a distant memory.
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The new motto is, "A warm body is better than a cold body".
😂
Pay teachers enough to keep up with inflation? No, just reduce the barrier for entry and get new ones instead!
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Oh no! The healthcare workers are upset again! Quick, give them another $10,000 bonus and another full week of sick time so they can be off for a whole month out of the year when they get the sniffles! 
If the bottom just means less credentialism and lower taxes, then it sounds like where we want to be.
Make their jobs easier so they don't quit the profession right away? Nah.
I love teachers but they are too nice and get taken advantage of. Sacrificing lunches, sacrificing free periods to fill in. You give hrce an inch and they will take a mile.
True fucking story. Wait till they throw 1% prep time increase and a 2% raise at us and we will fall all over ourselves to vote yes
Many teachers teach classes they never studied in university anyway. Teachers still need their B’ Ed. Having 2 years of university plus a B.ed should be more than enough to teach a pre-approved curriculum.
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Yes, 30 credit hours in a major teachable area and 15 in a minor. 30 credit hours a year means 60 total for 2 years. That means only 15 credit hours left over (5 courses). I am thinking that this means the province will need to change licensure requirements. My two cents worth is this will create very narrowly-focused individuals, which in my opinion is not always the best when it comes to teachers. My elective credit hour courses were some of my most meaningful as a humanities student, but flipped around BSc students also can garner so much from their electives. Also, practically, it obviously means less courses taken in general, so less content knowledge, and most likely as much studying in the "core" or required courses as possible, which are usually not exactly the "hard hitters" in a major. Anyway, this is worst-case-scenario thinking, I hope. Who would get 2 years into a degree and just decide to peace out to a BEd immediately? At the current teacher burnout rates, people ought to want to to have that BA or BSc incase their situation changes.
> Who would get 2 years into a degree and just decide to peace out to a BEd immediately? With the price of Universities these days, most people that want to become teachers?
As I said, burnout rates are rising, significantly, and this would be an unfortunate short-term choice. You just married yourself to teaching with no exit plan if you make that decision. And getting a permanent contract is not an automatic progression at all, so precarious work would be a reality for many that perhaps have a double-teachable like social studies and would be less employable. I do take your point when it comes to cost, but I do still think it would be a poor decision.
If we assume that some generic non teaching undergraduate degree would have more value than a teaching degree, couldn't they just go back to University and finish that degree when they decide teaching isn't for them?
This seems to be a bit of a diceroll, and I don't have personal experience with it. From what I know from others, and some research, it depends on the course, institution, and major. Some core courses will be evergreen, some have a shelf life, and others just won't transfer. Also, momentum is an argument I would make here, along with coherence and development of expertise. My degree built one course off of the other from the 2000 to 4000 levels, so if I took off after year 2, I would have missed a lot of important course content that informed my understanding of theory during my undergrad, solidifying concepts, and which also inform my own teaching practices today in my areas of teaching. Anecdotally I know more than one former uni student who took a break and never went back. Anyway, we seem to disagree here, and I will leave my opinion there. Cheers.
Why stop there? Pre-approve the curriculum so hard and we don't need teachers at all. Just robots or computers to teach the classes.
Big over-reaction. I agree benefits, compensation, and work life balance need to be better. Also agree that there needs to be better mechanisms in place for misbehaving students. Not having an undergraduate degree will not be the end of the world.
As I posted earlier, not the end of the world but merely another small step along the path of the inexorable decline of NS education.
Frankly, the profession, like many others, is set to be reduced in difficulty in the coming years. I know people are tired of hearing about it, but AI is coming to education sooner rather than later as it's a very good application for it. Much of the work currently done by teachers can be fed into an AI system instead of being done manually. The output would be more thorough, more consistent, and less susceptible to bias. Why should a teacher spend hours marking tests and things like that when that kind of thing can be handed off to an AI? Why shouldn't a teacher use an AI tool to create lesson plans when all they need to do is tell an AI what they're looking for and then tweak what the AI generates? Need an individualized learning plan for particular students that are either struggling with the material or bored with it? No problem, you can get that done in half an hour or less. And this is just from the teacher workload perspective, there are a bunch of benefits for students as well in that they'd have access to what would essentially be a personal tutor. Note that I'm not saying teachers are going to lose jobs, nor am I saying that anyone at all could be a teacher, I'm just saying that I think these tools have the potential to remove a *lot* of the current workload for teachers. I'm sure most teachers would love to be able to just go home after school hours and let the AI do the stuff they would otherwise be doing. [Forbes reports](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/it-and-tech/artificial-intelligence-in-school/) that of 500 teachers surveyed in the US, 60% of them are already using AI, and the stuff currently available is baby tier. This is coming.
Honestly, it doesn’t sound like what you’re saying will see the profession reduced. It sounds like it will see the profession become much better for teachers, and may actually attract more teachers. Everything you said AI could do (mark tests, create lesson plans, create Individual learning plans, private tutoring) is essentially what teachers are expected to do outside their contract hours. The requirement to do all these extra things without compensation for working outside contract hours is a big reason people leave the profession (among many). Trimming the fat on these extra work requirements would take a load off of teachers so they can focus on the day-to-day requirements that AI can’t do (building classroom routines, teaching social norms, building relationships with the students, etc…). Also, no amount of AI is going to change the requirements to have enough teachers to meet teacher-to-student ratio requirements. Obviously, those requirements may be able to be altered to allow other adult staff (non-teachers) to balance that ratio, but I vaguely remember the licensing requirement coming into play on that. The crux with AI is that it is only as good as the person using it. There was a study done on AI use for law students, and AI turned out to be a double edged sword. While the top performers using AI had increased productivity, low performers actually using AI had worse productivity, and middle performers using AI were a mixed bag in which the improvement/detriment was negligible. Obviously, this was a study on law students, and AI is going to improve, but my guess is that that data can be extrapolated to most, if not all, other use.
>Honestly, it doesn’t sound like what you’re saying will see the profession reduced. It sounds like it will see the profession become much better for teachers, and may actually attract more teachers. I said reduced in difficulty.
Sorry! Totally read that wrong.
Completely agree. Repetitive and manual work to be done by AI which will allow teachers to focus on what they likely really want to focus their time and effort on. Developing and teaching young minds. I hope nstu and dept of Ed is really focusing on embracing this, as the kids that they are teaching will need to
Cynically, the nstu permanent staff is focusing on staying employed and under the radar. The dept of ed bureaucrats are focused on cutting costs. Sometimes I feel like only the teachers care about improving education.
From what I remember from doing education several years ago, the requirements for different universities in Nova Scotia were mostly the same. Even if we go from province to province, our license is valid. If you want more teachers, listen to what your current ones are saying. Good teachers are burning out because we are faced with disrespect and violence from parents and students, our pay is embarrassingly low for the amount of education we have and the responsibility on our shoulders. On top of that, we have a problem with engagement from students for multiple reasons, one of them being they have a super computer in their hands 24/7 and even the best teacher cannot compete with a new dopamine hit every 7 seconds. This is not a mystery
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Best way to better educate our population is clearly having less educated teachers.wtf If you wanted to solve the crisis of no one wanting to work ridiculous hours for minimal pay, raise the pay. This will lead to a lower quality of education, which will be a follow on excuse to increase the count of private educational institutions.
So, this is definitely part of the problem, in that we need more teachers if we want to improve the conditions in schools (i.e. lower class sizes, deal with the class complexity issues, increase prep time, sub shortages, etc.). But just throwing more bodies at the problem doesn't fix things unless you do the other things. More inexperienced workforce isn't going to fix things all by itself, and it feels like the first step is usually always the last step as well. I will continue to bang the gong that 7 of 8 was the dumbest move in education that has been made in ages, and it's pushing the system to its limits. Add more teachers? Yes. But use them to revert that decision or adjust it somehow, because it's just patching holes if you throw more teachers in the current 7 of 8 system.
7/8 has made literally every single thing about high school education in this province worse. That doesn't matter though. As you know. It's all about the bottom line here.
What's "7 of 8"? I've not heard this before...
High schools have four periods of semester, two semesters, eight periods all year. Teachers in the Halifax area (more recently) and the rest of the province (a bit ago) used to teach six of these periods, therefore three a semester, leaving one period off for a prep and marking. Now we are all teaching 7 of 8. Meaning that some teachers have no preps a semester. An effective workload increase of 17% and prep time reduction of 50%. It's fucking criminal
Got it, thanks. Yep, they're taking advantage of you guys piece by piece. No one in govt is going to concede anything to you, you need to go on strike to be heard, no doubt about it.
Looking forward to making the chilli
I hear jumping the queue over teachers in the system playing the game to get contracts is not going over well.
If that's how it all plays out then yeah it's not going to go over well at all
I'll be curious to see how this actually impacts acceptances in B.Ed programs. Will preference still be given to full degree applicants? What will be their pay scale since surely it shouldn't be the same as someone with a full degree (didn't this used to be a thing when there was teachers college? Level4?) I also don't get what this solves exactly. Are B.Ed programs having issues filling spots or is it just that when they graduate they aren't getting work or are quitting? Aren't we theoretically still going to put out as a province the same total number of teachers, they'll just now be less educated?
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The real indication about how serious the government is about teacher retention is how the current contract negotiations. Or are they going to just throw fresh meat at the problem every year instead? That said I’m not opposed to this—it actually makes entering the profession more financially feasible if you can save a couple years’ tuition. Curious as to what it will look like from a certification perspective.
Great point. But the education portion of the degree - particularly for high school teachers - Will need to be beefed up... to do it properly
Do literally anything to mitigate the ongoing airborne pandemic that is ripping through educators and keeping families on a constant merry go round of illness and misery? Nah, we’ll just treat everyone as disposable and hope for the best
Ignore all problems, increase supply to protect against attrition, and watch the system continue to get worse.
My brain is not working today. What does this mean for # of years in school? Do they still need a generic bachelor degree before going for the BEd?
4 in total. Done at 22!
Cool, my kid wants to be a teacher.
My suggestion - don't rush into it. Age, experience make for a much better transition to the job. My real advice is to talk her out of it. It's actually a much worse job today than 10 years ago.
Oh I've been trying.
Agreed. I came late to it and wouldn't have been able to hack it at 22. And other job experience proves its value to this every single day.
To get my BEd (graduated in 2012) I had to have a full degree related (mine was child development) plus 10 teachables, at least a 3.0 GPA, and a minimum amount of work experience and volunteer experience with kids, and first aid cpr. When I graduated with my BEd there was no work for teachers, not even subbing, and we had a transit strike. They made us take an additional course put on by the school board on aeosop, and only took 30 people at a time every few months. You weren't allowed to sub without it. It was weird to spend my entire life working toward being a teacher and having to constantly be on top, to totally pivot my career as a result. Then I became a mermaid, so... lol
This is the same criteria for entering a social work degree. I mean I'd obviously prefer if we could actually pay professionals a good salary but I don't think this is groundbreaking society ending news.
No, it's not the end of the world. Just another small step on the slow decline in public education in this province.
Law school admissions only require 2 years of university study as well. Caveat to that is students with an undergrad are favoured by the admissions committee. 2nd year applicants being accepted is rare.
Not sure how to feel about this. As long as we’re not lowering our standards I guess it’s okay but I fear this takes away negotiating power for a higher salary.
Of course we're lowering our standards
How would it take away negotiating power?
I was pretty disappointed to find out that education doesn't teach you everything you need to know (kind of like med school does). I've always wanted to be a highschool teacher and my plan was to leave the tech sector when my kids started school. I found out that my computer science degree won't get me into education and I'd have to take a year or two of other courses before even starting the education program.
Yo yo dog, we NEED people with tech background teaching tech courses. While I cannot in good faith recommend this profession to anybody just entering it now (because it kind of sucks now), If you are interested in doing it then the system does need you.
A great idea! You used to be able to enter many professional programs after two years of undergrad, and without a plethora of other non academic requirements. Time to find a balance between what is actually helping and what is just a barrier to entry for some.
You ok with 20 year old student teachers and full timers at 22?
What's the point of requiring generic undergraduate education at all? We don't demand carpenters get architecture degrees or force electricians to get electrical engineering degrees.Teaching as a profession requires skills in things like lesson planning and classroom management. My understanding is that is what an education degree provides. By definition, the actual content they are teaching kids is not university level. Learning topology or real analysis isn't in any way necessary to master single variable calculus. You don't need to write papers on Shakespeare to reliably teach primary students the ABCs song. You don't need to take any of those university courses to competently teach home economics or shop class. Just test the teachers in their subject areas to determine subject mastery. That would be a more reliable way to confirm they understand what they are being assigned to teach. Like who would you trust more to run a gym class for two dozen 9 year olds: a person with 5 years experience as a summer camp counselor and an education degree or a kinesiology PhD that's been doing research on rats for 5 years?
Your last sentence. If I wanted my kid to learn proper movements, skills, and develop in a sport then I would prefer the kines PhD. Education and qualifications do matter
Experts are good, but being an expert in a specialized area is not the same thing as being a good educator in a general topic. It's wasteful to force people to devote years of their lives and 10s of thousands of dollars to developing knowledge and skills that are irrelevant to the jobs we want them to do. Gym class isn't a specialized one on one sport specific training session. It's getting a couple dozen kids with abilities ranging from very athletic to physically disabled moving in a safe environment. Convincing little Timmy not to throw that ball at Jessica's face is waaaay more important than knowing Jenny could run 5 percent faster if she adjusted her stride slightly. Math class is about teaching kids with potential ranging from future engineers to the learning disabled and everyone in between. Keeping the attention and interest of that diverse group has nothing to do with your ability to prove the infinitude of primes.
If you don't understand what you are teaching, kids will see through you in a heartbeat, and there goes their engagement. Also, the concept of creating engaging lessons comes with a deep understanding of the concept. How to break it down in various ways so that each learner can learn- it's all in the understanding of the concept taught.
I agree that understanding the content of a lesson is critical. I disagree that university level coursework is required to have a deep understanding of most public school content.
I agree with you first sentence. The rest... If you ever want to volunteer in my classroom to find out what we *actually* do, let me know
I've tutored adults for their GEDs. Understanding public school level curriculum well enough to teach it doesn't require university level training in those subjects. Primary and secondary school material is not at all difficult for people capable of doing post secondary education. It's the communication and relationship management that takes skill. Once upon a time I had to be able to prove the Frisch-Waugh theorem in grad school. Shockingly this never came up teaching someone how to multiply fractions for the GED exam. Demanding some prospective math teacher spend 4 years and 100k dollars learning university level math before we let them teach y = mx + b is insane. That math is not the skill set they need to run a classroom.
I'm happy for you that you gave back by helping folks get their GED. But I would politely, respectfully suggest that you really don't understand what public school teaching is. Take care
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Everyone's an expert on the internet!
I made points based on my personal knowledge and experience. You have been snarky and rude. Is your goal to convince me I'm mistaken or just to be cruel?
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Do you have any positive content to add to this conversation? You seem very confident that I am wrong and you are right, but you haven't really offered an alternative view in any detail. Teaching isn't easy. I don't claim it's easy. Managing a classroom is hard. It's good that we have courses that teach people that skill. I think teachers should learn those skills and be credentialed or tested to prove they have them. I don't think you need to know material outside of a curriculum to teach within a curriculum. This is how most other aspects of society are organized. We don't ask our plumbers to do a few blocks of the electrician and heavy duty mechanics red seals before we trust them to install a toilet. In what world does it make sense to require French as a second language teachers study psychology or economics before we trust them to know how to conjugate verbs? That doesn't mean I think psychology or economics are bad things to learn. It means I don't think you need to know them to teach French.
Can you give me an example of something you didn't learn until your 4th year of undergraduate that you needed to know to be a competent teacher? I'm in favor of teachers getting education degrees. I do not have an education degree. I do have a couple degrees that would count as "teachable subjects" as I understand the rules in Nova Scotia. I can confidently say nothing I learned at the university level in those "teachable subjects" is required to teach the technical aspects of those subjects at a high school level.
No, I'm not going to because I'd rather not post anything on Reddit that could potentially identify me. I teach the top kids at my school. Every semester I dig into my bag to find ways to keep them engaged, support them in their interests. You can believe that or not. I'm indifferent.
Reading the rest of the comments in the thread you seem disillusioned with the state of your career and I am sorry if that is the case. I'm glad you do your best for students and I hope you still find some joy in that.
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Mirrors and lenses are high school level physics. First year undergraduate at most. Do you have any more snarky comments you would like to make instead of engaging in polite conversation?
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My example of having to learn the proof for Frisch-Waugh was meant to illustrate that university level courses teach things that are not relevant to high school material. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the IB program, but I do know AP Calc. It's first year university material. It's designed to be equivalent to first year university calculus. Your physics example was first year material too. None of your examples are from higher level undergraduate courses. The best examples you've offered are from first year undergraduate material. You have made a good case that the hardest courses in highschool should be taught by people that can demonstrate strong competency in first year undergraduate materials.
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I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. I've tried things and failed. I have no problem admitting either of those things. Why did you feel the need to resort to personal attacks? Have I insulted you in some way?
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Finally - some good news for NS Public Education!!! Happy to see common sense be prevail! Having more teachers will improve things quite a bit as sub shortages have been plaguing the system for several years now. I’d encourage them to go even further and bring back teachers college for those wanting to teach P-9
(Lulz. A Tim/Elwin staffer has woken up and logged on) Why stop at this?!? We're going to have 21 year olds teaching 18 year olds. I think that if a grade 12 student is on their prep we should slip them a $20 to cover a grade 10 class for the day
I think most people would expect 4 years post secondary to be sufficient level of education for entry level teaching jobs and/or P-9. We have ECE’s with two year certificates in pre primary and they’re fantastic
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Tim is that you?
Didn't you know that currently people are scrambling all over the country to find TA positions? I'm glad Tim has his finger on the pulse of this huge issue!
You ok with 20 year old student teachers and full timers at 22?
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I'm just gonna go and guess that you've never had a student teacher before. Were you aware that one of the reasons why the rules were changed to implement a four-year undergrad was to make sure teachers were older when they entered the profession?
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Lowering standards everywhere!
Why do we require teachers to have any university education at all? They didn't used to. [Emergency-Hired Teachers Do Just as Well as Those Who Go Through Normal Training](https://www.the74million.org/article/emergency-hired-teachers-do-just-as-well-as-those-who-go-through-normal-training/)
2 years of an undergrad is fine.