Teacher Certification...

[Angus Grieve-Smith]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Valerie Sutton wrote:

> The reason the web site you mention has to charge money for
> certification, is that it is a great deal of work from the
> administrative point of view. It takes a staff of people to administer a
> "teacher certification program", because a true certificate program
> coordinates with schools to make sure their program is equal to what a
> school requires, plus the participants have to come back to renew or
> update their certificates on a regular basis. So it is not a small job
> to correct all the exams, etc.

        True, but not as big a job as you say.  The exams are all
automatically administered and scored over the Internet.  The score and
certification are available immediately, and no one grades the exams by
hand.

        Also, the certifications are not geared towards what a school
teaches, but towards what employers need.  Schools generally don't teach
to Brainbench tests, but they do teach to MCSE and CompTIA certification
exams.

        I can accept the notion of paying money for the certifications,
but my experience in the computer world has been that past experience and
references count for far more than certifications.  I did break down and
pay $280 for an A+ certification this spring, but I'm not sure that helped
me find work.

        With relation to Mohamed's question, I think that the authorities
he is dealing with are looking for a more established method.
Unfortunately, the studies necessary to show the effectiveness of
SignWriting in Deaf education are only now being conducted; there won't be
hard data for a while, so from their point of view it is still an
experimental method.  On the other hand, so are all the other methods of
Deaf education...

--
                                        -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
                                        Linguistics Department
                                        University of New Mexico
                                        grvsmth at panix.com
..