Lauren Knott

Labaree (1996)
I found the connections between parts of this article and our article last week and ensuing
conversation about higher education to be interesting and meaningful (and undoubtedly
intentional). Specifically, the idea of college as being solely about receiving a degree that checks
a box for employers, rather than teaching us any sort of meaningful lasting skills seems to be a
commonality. I love the sentence about employers assuming credentials certify competence. I
know a large number of people currently attaining or who already hold degrees, but lack a level
of common sense that is vital to most job positions. However they have great GPAs from
fantastic universities, and are therefore seen as very hirable, even if they didnt gain much
knowledge at university besides how to pass tests and write essays that will be graded favorably.
This makes life harder for both the employer, who might be swayed by a college degree, but
received a subpar employee, and for the employee who might be hired at a job they are in fact
unsuitable for solely because of their college degree. It is possible to change the culture and
perception of higher education in America at this point, and if so, how?

Vollmer et al. (2016) and Salinger et al. (2010)

These articles relate strongly to each other and to the Labaree article. If the schools that
are educating our educators are subpar, we cant expect them to fully understand and implement
the best/most effective teaching techniques. Clearly our educators are not fully prepared with the
best knowledge and implementation of evidence-based programs. Is it possible (or perhaps
economically viable) to retrain teachers properly, or is our best solution to revamp the education
schools and train new teachers more vigorously and wait for the older/less effective teachers to
cycle out? How do we convince teachers, especially older ones who have been in the field for
decades, that they should retrain in new, more effective methods when they have so much
personal experience and time invested in their work?