[graemep]

I am a home educating parent. There is no way I could teach a classroom without learning how. Teaching one to one, encouraging and mentoring does not need as much skill. Most of us do it somewhere (e.g. at work). On the other hand I am sure the skill can be learned on the job, but teaching a classroom is still definitely difficult.

I also did not spend much time teaching as such: when they were young, lots of learning through play (even things like learning to read can be turned into games) and as they got older they taught them selves more. We have used tutors a bit for exams (GCSEs - British exams taken at 16 in schools though my kids sat most younger) but even then very little (two to three hours a week at most, and even that for just one year).

Home educating is a lot more flexible so kids can follow their interests. You can do a vast range of subjects (my younger daughter did Astronomy GCSE and is doing Latin, did Physics but not Biology). That combined with the study skills and self-discipline from teaching themselves more leaves them more motivated and better prepared for further study (and work too).

[_a_a_a_]

It may depend. I was mainly educated in the UK. I went to council schools in poor areas, and to an expensive public school, and the difference between pupil behaviour was enormous. In the former they were hard to control (I even remember a kid angrily telling a teacher to fuck off) but in the former when the teacher started speaking everybody piped down and started listening immediately. I remember being so struck by that the first time I saw it. I guess a class of willing students is going to be a whole lot easier to teach than a roomful of ragamuffins who would rather be outside playing footie.

[eszed]

Yeah, classroom behavior sets the floor (and often the ceiling) for what can be accomplished. It's a hell of a lot easier when students are already aligned towards decorum and achievement. However, teachers and schools can create classroom culture.

One of my mentors told me about his first year of teaching in a rough area where, as he put it, "I knew what I was in for when the principal was more interested by my law-enforcement background than anything I might know about math". He spent the first two months gaining compliance with one rule: come to class with two pencils and your notebook, and nothing else. Literally nothing else was accomplished. Once he got them there, however, he had a chance to teach, and his classes ended with some of the best scores in the district (admittedly not a high bar).

When I worked as a supply / substitute teacher in primary and secondary schools my theatre training was infinitely more valuable than any education class I ever took.