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Programming Education

Lack of Teacher Training Hampers UK Programming Education 112

Posted by Soulskill from the queue-up-codecademy-and-call-it-a-day dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The UK government recently introduced a new computer curriculum to the school system in order to get more kids into programming. Unfortunately, they're running into a serious problem: one-third of the secondary schools tasked with teaching these programs have not spent any money training their teachers on the requisite knowledge and technology. The government has provided £4.5 million for this training, and a number of schools have spent their share and more. But it's clearly not filtering down to every school, and that harms the children enrolled in these schools.
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Lack of Teacher Training Hampers UK Programming Education More

Lack of Teacher Training Hampers UK Programming Education

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  • Teaching programming has no place in schools (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday September 05, 2015 @01:50AM (#50461307)

    Most people cannot learn the required skills to any reasonable degree. At best this initiative will increase the number of really bad programmers. There are far too many of those already.

    • Re:Teaching programming has no place in schools (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05, 2015 @02:05AM (#50461315)

      Most people cannot learn the required skills to be a professional Mathematician/Scientific Researcher. Most people who learn a foreign language at school never become fluent in that language. The purpose of teaching programming in school is not to create programmers but to understand what programming is.

      • Most people who learn a foreign language at school never become fluent in that language.

        Justification for my failing Latin.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          > Most people who learn a foreign language never become fluent in that language.

          Fixed That For You.

          Most people who study a language only casually, without lengthy immersion and/or without their personal income riding on doing well in that language, don't learn the language well. It's _amazing_ how fast migrant workers, especially younger ones, can pick up a local language when travelling, however.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Actual mathematics is not taught at school and neither is actual actual science. And I disagree on the languages.

        • Actual mathematics is not taught at school and neither is actual actual science. And I disagree on the languages.

          Ah... I must be doing something else with my day then whilst I thought I was teaching mathematics. Come and sit in some of my Further Maths lessons and tell me that is not mathematics

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            If you do not even know what you are and are not teaching, then I cannot help you. We had a lot of people fail Linear Algebra at university (in the CS course), because they thought they were "good at math". You know what? Turns out they never learned how to proof things, only how to calculate stuff cooking-recipe like. Completely worthless for any actual study of mathematics. The exam was 16 proofs for things we had never seen before, and these people universally failed. And that was the introductory course

            • If you do not even know what you are and are not teaching, then I cannot help you. We had a lot of people fail Linear Algebra at university (in the CS course), because they thought they were "good at math". You know what? Turns out they never learned how to proof things, only how to calculate stuff cooking-recipe like. Completely worthless for any actual study of mathematics. The exam was 16 proofs for things we had never seen before, and these people universally failed. And that was the introductory course, nothing advanced in it at all. And here is an example from the "Introduction to Calculus" exam: "Let N be a norm in the following Hilbert space . Why does the Banach-fixed-point theorem not hold?". (And yes, you had to proof it and you had about 10 minutes and it was an easy question. The others were harder.)

              Now that is still _beginner_ mathematics.

              The context of this original post is in UK education. You do not learn about norms in any spaces and certainly not Banach fixed point theorem. That would be covered at university.

              There is a wide range of material to be covered up to age 16 and up to age 18. Students have a very wide range of abilities and it is absurd to think that everyone at that age could possibly learn some high level maths. My Further Maths students would be among the brightest and they get a taste of some of the material that would b

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                And there is you problem: You are scratching a lot of surfaces of applications of mathematics and that is it. As such you are never doing anything real and no, you are not giving people "a foundation", you are misrepresenting a whole subject area. School "mathematics" is basically worthless for any STEM studies as it never covers how actual mathematics works. Ever had them create a theory? (Can be a simple one...) Ever had them develop a proof technique and them have them proof that it works? (Again, can be

                • You don't expect 16 year olds to be creating theories, that comes at the PhD level.

                  And yes, you do have to start with the basics and work up, whether it's in maths, physics, Art History or French.

                  You start by teaching kids how to say "bonjour" not throwing Proust at them and expecting them to work out all the grammar and vocabulary themselves.

    • I think this may be true, but largely because the *teachers* aren't good enough to teach it, *not* because the students are incapable. The problem is, most of the people who are capable enough to teach it pursue a career where their skills are much more valued.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KGIII ( 973947 )

        How does that adage go? I'm not sure if this is verbatim but I'll try. "Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach." I've parsed it a few different ways over the years and mulled it over. I have come up with it meaning that teachers are teachers because they can't provide quality output or that those who can not provide quality output should be working to teach those who may be able to do so. Observations favor the former. I've noticed more bad teachers than I've noticed at the other end of the spectrum.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you're bad at programming at school then you're highly unlikely to pursue that as a career, and if you do then you're highly unlikely to succeed. I learned a lot of things in school that I have absolutely no use for in my adult life but I understand fundamentally why I learned them:

      They gave everyone an equal opportunity to learn in all fields of academia so that everyone had a taste of something that they might end up liking.

      Programming needs to be on the menu. If you don't like it then you won't order

      • A lot of variables influence whether someone is a good programmer - the quality of instruction being a very important one. It can change everything. Making someone who may otherwise not pursue programming, a great programmer.

        We need more quality and less quantity in terms of teachers. Good teachers should make a lot, $100k+, as much or more than an engineer. We just don't need as many of them anymore, thanks to easily distributed video (and text and audio).
        The mediocre people in many professions seek to pr

        • Making someone who may otherwise not pursue programming, a great programmer.

          It's much more likely to be the other way round - someone with potential is put off by a bad teacher. Though I suspect they'll come back at some point.

          P.S. What you wrote isn't a proper sentence. Is it somebody's law that discussions about education attract people who haven't had one?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I disagree on the importance of quality of the teaching for coding. The critical, core competence any good coder has is aptitude and talent. That cannot be created or taught. Sure, those few that have it should get good teachers, but for most people trying to learn to code is completely futile and will never have good results, regardless of teacher quality. I have seen this time and again in students.

          That said, good teachers are still critical, as the serve as multiplicators. Even if they only improve some

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I think that is wrong. The problem is that if you are good at "coding" in school, you are still very likely to be a bad coder. And I personally know several people that went into a CS program without coding skills and did well. School does not give you any realistic picture of what a career in a field would be like. Teach the basic things well, instead of stuffing even more specialty stuff in there and doing it badly.

    • You could say that about most of the things taught in school. I don't get the attitude on here by a lot of people that programming is so super-special it's different from every other subject and should only be found by those who go looking.

      • Re:Teaching programming has no place in schools (Score:4, Informative)

        by hughbar ( 579555 ) on Saturday September 05, 2015 @04:29AM (#50461529) Homepage
        Agree. I volunteer 'teach' https://www.codeclub.org.uk/ [codeclub.org.uk] in the UK. The main article is true, not the teacher's fault, the government moved the focus from ICT [learning Word, learning Excel] to computing very quickly. This is a great idea because we're back to 'creation' as in the days of BASIC games rather than consumption.

        But it's a human enterprise and YMMV, the teachers and the pupils will vary in ability and motivation. I live in one of the poorer parts of London and any kids that 'want' this may have a good future. They can't all be football or hip-hop stars. Secondly there's an initiative called Computing at School http://www.computingatschool.o... [computingatschool.org.uk] that promotes computational thinking. Even if you don't program, some of the problem solving techniques are universally applicable.

        So one can find a lot to moan about, but there's a lot of promise/fun in this. I wrote my first program in about 1966 [FORTRAN on a mainframe] and I still enjoy it, in the UK that makes me [what they call] a 'sad' person.

      • You could say that about most of the things taught in school. I don't get the attitude on here by a lot of people that programming is so super-special it's different from every other subject and should only be found by those who go looking.

        A lot of people on slashdot are programmers. So they think programming is super-special. If you went to a lawyers' forum, most people there would think that lawyers were super-special.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gb ( 8474 )

      The problem is that if you don't give lots of people the opportunity to find out if they can program, then you tend to miss lots of the fraction that could program to a reasonable degree. People like me in their 40's grew up with 8bit micros and a large fraction of us were exposed to programming - both at school and for many at home (even if that mean typing long listings of BASIC out of magazines and cursing because there was a misprint that resulted in lots of syntax errors). That sort of elementary intro

    • "Most people cannot learn the required skills to any reasonable degree. At best this initiative will increase the number of really bad mathematicians/writers/engineers/chefs. There are far too many of those already."

      School isn't about mastering skills to a high level. That's what university is for. It's about giving children a foundation, and exposure to as many subjects and ideas as possible. Aside from anything else programming helps with logical thinking, which is a fairly useful skill I'd say.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is true. It is true in exactly the same way that most people cannot be required to learn how to write to any reasonably degree. We do have a really high number of bad writers. Far too many already. However: The cure for this problem isn't to stop learning kids to write, it's to build on what is there, and to make them better. Also, it is worth noticing that even though most people are not really good writers, some writing and reading skills make it much easier to recognise good writing when you see

    • Re:Teaching programming has no place in school (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Saturday September 05, 2015 @05:08AM (#50461601) Homepage

      "Teaching algebra has no place in schools

      Most people cannot learn the required skills to any reasonable degree. At best this initiative will increase the number of really bad mathematicians. There are far too many of those already."

      See how stupid it sounds? How about nutrition/cooks? How about rugby/sportsman? It's fucking idiotic to suggest.

      You teach above the level of the kids, you expose to the wonderful things in your subject, you inspire some to take it up, other to plan their career around it, they go to uni and learn how to do it properly (and churn through the boring shit that they aren't interested in because they've been inspired by you and can see the end result).

      And programming is at the CORE of computer science. It's the theory of computer science, laid bare. It doesn't have to be advanced, but it has to BE, in the same that you can't just skip algebra - sure, most kids will never use it but kids minds are plastic for a reason. Stretch them with something they don't quite understand when they are young, and it becomes SO MUCH more pliant that they are able to learn so much more, and quicker, and learn things they have no particular interest in to get to their goal.

      In the 70's and beyond you WERE taught BASIC. It was designed for just that purpose. And with that same skill you can still write phone apps and all sorts nowadays. Without it, you can't. You're fucked. Unless you want to change the graphics in a template and nothing else.

      If you don't teach everything, the kids won't know what they can do, they won't realise what they are good at, they won't learn to do things to get where they want and they won't have the skills even if they are top-end when they get there (e.g. you can't be a mathematician without learning algebra and I assure you it's easier to learn it when you're a kid).

      Nobody is saying that every kid will churn our a million lines of C. That's fucking insanity. We're saying programming is a core skill of computer science that MY generation were taught from the ages of 8/9 and is still relevant. As such, it NEEDS to be taught. Or you're not teaching computer science.

      The essence of the problem is exactly that, however. We're not teaching computer science. We're teaching "computing". How to use a computer. Not design it, build it, diagnose it, etc. We're teaching how to drive, not how to engineer a car or how it works. That's a backwards step. And as computers get more powerful, it's more and more akin to teaching how to drive an automatic with lane-veering warnings and reverse-parking sensors. It's getting dumber and dumber and dumber and all the teachers only ever drove automatics themselves, by now.

      Being "good with" using computers is mistaken for being a computer expert. This is a dangerous, stupid, mistake to make. It's like saying that any HGV driver is a good expert witness for explaining to a court why the brakes failed on a jumbo jet in a major accident.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Modern Algebra and abstract Algebra is not taught in schools. At all. Neither is set theory. All you get is the dumbed-down counting an accountant may need. Ever wonder why? Oh, wait, you do not know what Modern Algebra and Abstract Algebra is?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ledow ( 319597 )

          Degree in mathematics.

          The algebras you mentioned (of which one is subset of the other - do YOU know what they are?) require a grounding in algebra. In the UK, "school" means up to age 16 (now up to 18, but whatever). You can't teach that kind of stuff without basic algebra, which pushes it into A-Level (which used to be the "optional" 16-18 education). Thus we're not talking about kids who are missing out on advanced algebras - that's for them to do when they've all done the basics and some choose to do

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Your degree cannot be worth much. And no, that "grounding" in Algebra is only necessary for applications, otherwise it is completely optional. In fact, most students seem to be struggling when they run into the first group where things work differently than in N. As to abstract algebra, if you build that cleanly, nothing besides set theory and logic is required. Algebra and Modern Algebra may come in as suppliers of examples, but that is it.

            What you learn in school is _accounting_, i.e. the kind of very bas

            • What you learn in school is _accounting_, i.e. the kind of very basic mathematics a merchant may need.

              And similarly, you only learn basic French, German, History, Geography, English Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

              Amazingly enough, you can't fit in eight full PhDs worth of learning by the time you're 16.

        • Modern Algebra and abstract Algebra is not taught in schools. At all. Neither is set theory. All you get is the dumbed-down counting an accountant may need. Ever wonder why? Oh, wait, you do not know what Modern Algebra and Abstract Algebra is?

          At what age would you like to teach rings and fields? Before or after they have mastered the art of simultaneous equations?

        • I think you're generalising based on *your* school.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nzac ( 1822298 )

      No, it would be more likely to show potential programmers that they are bad or have no real talent at programming before they invest time and money on tertiary studies in programming and get locked in. If your not doing as well as students who don't really care you will get the message. It also will show people that they have some ability.
      Finding out how good you are at various classes is pretty much the whole purpose of the last years at secondary school.

    • I guess it depends on how you define it; Any person of average or better intelligence is capable of becoming a programmer or mathematician intellectually. However, I doubt that many have access to living conditions, environment, willpower, and desire to become a highly skilled programmer or mathematician etc. I just want to point out that the special snowflake attitude predominant in the programming industry is bull shit, lucky snowflake would be more apt.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I guess it depends on how you define it; Any person of average or better intelligence is capable of becoming a programmer or mathematician intellectually.

        And there you are fundamentally wrong. Unless you include very bad programmers and very bad mathematicians. It requires specific talent, raw intelligence alone does not cut it at all. Of course, a way above average "raw intelligence" is a required but not sufficient condition for ever becoming any good in those fields. And that is why most people cannot do it.

        Specifically for mathematicians, economic factors are secondary. If you have a high level of talent and aptitude, you will get a stipend or other supp

        • The problem with citing talent is that it is very ambiguous. If talent is not coupled with raw intelligence then what is it coupled with; is it an amalgam of intelligence memory, and even soul? It is hard to say that others lack talent when it is not specifically defined. I agree that coder quality is on a "race to the bottom", but I doubt it is because people are not genetically predisposed to programming. I would guess that has to do more with little no barrier to entry and the promise of riches. Mos

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            There is no known connection between talents in the mental space and genetics. That is a red herring. We have at this time absolutely no clue where talent comes from. We can describe its properties though: It cannot be created by education, it is separate from intelligence (but may need it as tool) and it cannot be replaced by anything else and it is critical for good-to-excellent performance in some areas.

            Incidentally, we have no clue what intelligence is and how it is created. We can only observe its effe

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Oh, and incidentally that you think talent is not special just means that you lack the experience of having it and that you either never have seen it at work or are deeply in denial. A very common thing in people with huge egos but only mediocre skills.

    • Most people cannot learn the required skills to any reasonable degree. At best this initiative will increase the number of really bad programmers. There are far too many of those already.

      Give an eight year old a computer and the text book, and in a week, he will be teaching the class. (COME ON!! ITS LIKELY TO HAPPEN).

  • School started the first of the week and out came the signs and red shirts.

  • UK Schools (Score:4)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Saturday September 05, 2015 @04:53AM (#50461575) Homepage

    I work IT in UK schools, state and private - always have, never had any other job. I don't teach (officially, at least) but I deal with their needs and the teachers and the pupils every single day.

    I can tell you that in 15 years, I have seen precisely two "ICT" teachers who actually know the first thing about computers. One was a former industrial-control specialist for a HUGE chain of supermarkets, the other was a COBOL programmer from IBM. Both were in the industry for 20+ years and then moved into teaching as a career slowdown at the end. In their teaching, precisely NOTHING of their skill is employed as the curriculum doesn't come close. In their extra-curricular activities, it comes out and provides added value but those are attended only by the geeks and nerds anyway (we proudly count ourselves among the geeks and nerds, and that's the point at which I do do some "teaching" myself).

    Every other ICT teacher I've ever met isn't someone I'd trust in charge of a dozen computers. I've seen ones that have been forced into the position by the lure of cash for teaching a specialism or being "ICT Coordinator". It means zip. I've been asked by those people why I can't just give them full domain admin access as a solution to the bit of software they bought (without consultation) that only reads MP3 automatically working without a single button press with the dictation machines they bought (without consultation) which only write copy-protected WMA. And I've literally had to show these people how to copy/paste THOUSANDS of times.

    Most UK ICT teacher are the same. In fact, both the above "skilled" teachers wouldn't refer to themselves as ICT teachers. They see that as "computing" while they see themselves as "computer scientists". They only ever go by the name of "Head of IT" or whatever, never "ICT".

    This filters down to the kids, then back up to the careers they go into. I've dealt with IT managers and consultants that haven't heard of virtualisation, that have no concept of networking or routing, that have NEVER CODED A LINE IN THEIR LIFE. Not a batch file, bash script, not a cscript, not a PowerShell (that wasn't copy/pasted from an online tutorial), PHP, nothing.

    IT teaching in the UK is absolute shit. I have removed posters from IT Suites that still clearly advertise the PC chassis as a "hard drive" (a misconception that is rife in the teaching world), produced by a major UK educational supplier OVER 20 YEARS AGO.

    There are stars out there, of course. But they are the exception. And IT is the one subject that you can't just get your degree 20 years ago and then hope to keep current with even the basics for the rest of your life ahead of a bunch of teenagers.

    Currently, out of those two people, one has left teaching again and gone back to office work to retire, sick of being used as a babysitter. The other is considering moving on because they were pseudo-IT-Manager too for many years and tired of being treated like a second-class teacher, so they are dropping all their non-job-description tasks (they've already apologised to me, who will inherit them all).

    We don't have IT teachers in schools in the UK. We have people who are "good at computers". We have people who can teach office skills and computing and play with bits of Lego. We have people that Google iPad apps and then make themselves look cool by forcing everyone to use the latest buzzword app. That think that presentations, video, "blogging", etc. are the ultimate things you can ever do on a computer.

    We certainly do not have coders in schools. I have written more lines of code in an average year, just for hobby projects, than all of the other teachers (apart from those two above) that I have ever met put together throughout their entire careers.

    I'm sure there are rare exceptions. But that's because they are ALREADY coders and then become teachers. Training existing teachers to be able to code? Good luck! Maybe if you hired on the basis of the skills they possess rather than

    • The new computing course at GCSE is definitely a step in the right direction. Done correctly it can really open up a good skills base and at least teach the kids to differentiate between learning what menu item to select in a particular program as opposed to some basic idea of coding. There are many schools starting that this year that could lead to an improvement in the situation over the next few years. The trouble will always be getting specialist teachers... in any subject. We still have a shortage of

      • Its much worse though surely. It is as hard to recruit teachers as for maths or science, AND the number of teachers required has suddenly increased. The govt think they can fix it by retraining ICT teachers, but as the GP points out they do not have any real coputer science or coding background. Retraining them to teach computing is like retraining PE teachers to teach maths.

        • Its much worse though surely. It is as hard to recruit teachers as for maths or science, AND the number of teachers required has suddenly increased. The govt think they can fix it by retraining ICT teachers, but as the GP points out they do not have any real coputer science or coding background. Retraining them to teach computing is like retraining PE teachers to teach maths.

          In principle not as hard. The trouble is the very people you might recruit from ARE the same people you need for the other shortage subjects. There are plenty of maths and physics graduates that could teach computing... but they all tend to be siphoned off at university by industry, academia or just the lure of big money. Teaching is not an attractive option for them.

    • Blaming the symptom (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This phenomenon is occurring outside of the U.K. as well. You may be blaming the symptom. The problem is that anyone worth their salt can get a much more lucrative job in IT. How do I know this? I train IT instructors for schools.

      The pattern is always the same:

      1) School needs IT instructor yet nobody applies.
      2) School fills position with non-qualified person.
      3) I train person.
      4) Person earns certifications / programming skills.
      5) Person leaves teaching for IT industry.

      Not a single student of mine has en

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomxor ( 2379126 )

      Having been a pupil in UK public schools (although some time ago) your description feels very familiar, so i guess it hasn't changed much.

      Probably the closest thing to something sort of useful i learned on computers at school was wetting my feet with writing scripts, (without any useful input from a "teacher" of course who's knowledge and interest didn't seem to extend beyond what microsoft told them). It was just a windows batch script... probably the only thing i ever wrote specifically windows, and all i

      • If you were such a fucking whizz kid why didn't you sort out the mess you made yourself?

        Oh right, in fact you were just another script kiddie with no idea of the consequences of their actions.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tomxor ( 2379126 )

          If you were such a fucking whizz kid why didn't you sort out the mess you made yourself?

          I'm guessing you're one of those people who doesn't get sarcasm... that was implied by my double quotes in the last paragraph but i guess that was lost on you. My point was that i didn't consider myself to be very apt at scripting or coding in any way at the time. Also i didn't do the privileged escalation... that was all down to the admins own foolery.

          Go back to your cubical you arrogant self righteous fuck tard.

    • Maybe we should start teaching teachers to code...?

  • Minimally invasive education (Score:3)

    by Phil Hands ( 2365 ) on Saturday September 05, 2015 @07:24AM (#50461879) Homepage

    When I got into computing (in the '80's), the teachers at my school knew as little about it as we did -- we learned together.

    Within a couple of years a friend and I implemented a Forth setup as a replacement OS on a machine that was shipped with C/PM (writing the floppy controller in machine code etc.). None of the teachers had a clue what we were doing, but they were quite interested, and very encouraging.

    I would suggest that we should not bother with teachers, beyond asking them to occasionally ask the kids what they're doing, and then say how clever that sounds.

    This is the Minimally invasive education [wikipedia.org] approach pioneered by Sugata Mitra.

    As Aurtur C. Clark said to him: "Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer ... should be!"

    There's no point poisoning the minds of the next generation with the befuddled understanding of teachers with little aptitude for the subject.

    • This only works in enclave schools. In my school with 45 students per class, over half of them English language learners and most of them not having a computer at home, and most of them being slow learners you would of had no space for that. And even when we tried the other kids parents shouted racism at us and forced us to try to include kids that couldn't do jack and torpedoed the whole project.

  • Programming in schools (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm 12 years old and am an avid programmer. Not ever have I had a teacher that taught me something I didn't know. And we're probably forgetting here that half the teachers at least will be highly inept. Also, you should note that the curriculum doesn't advance past Scratch ( a drag and drop sprite based language) which only teaches the basic concepts. In IT classes nobody even vaugly understands programming and walks out of that room with no further knowledge. My point is that the teacher won't be able to t

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KGIII ( 973947 )

      You write exceedingly well for someone who is allegedly twelve. In fact, you write better than I do. If what you say is true and if you're interested as much as you seem to be then I wish to congratulate you. I am not a programmer though I have done a lot of programming and I was older when the need struck. I finally reached the point where I was able and willing to hire professionals. Those days are long gone as I've since retired.

      Anyhow, the email address at the top of my reply, next to my username, is re

  • "it's clearly not filtering down to every school, and that harms the children"

    What kind of arrogant ass claims that not turning children into code-monkeys will harm them?

    For that matter, where is the evidence that this kind of curriculum leads to more people deciding to become programmers? Back in the day, lots of kids went to wood shop classes. I don't remember there being a glut of carpenters as a result.

  • It seems entirely arbitrary to require a degree - any degree - to teach. I wonder if that puts anyone else off? Personally, I think 20+ years work experience trumps a 3-year degree.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KGIII ( 973947 )

      I believe that, in the United States, a degree is technically only a requirement if the school system/State itself requires it. I don't believe it's required in a private school and it is not a requirement at the collegiate level.

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