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This is behind the classroom door a series of discussions produced by WFIU FM and the College of Education at Northern Illinois University and distributed by the national educational radio network. Our topic for this program is the facts about the teacher shortage. Here is the moderator Robert F. top. This is number 12 in a series of conversations about education in the United States and some of the issues and problems that prevail at the present time present one is intitled the facts about the teacher shortage in this entire series has been in title behind the classroom door. The facts about the teacher shortage. I wonder if there is really a shortage. I recall a superintendent of schools recently saying to me. I wish they had never mentioned that there was a teacher shortage because everybody who has two years of college or more is coming to me and asking for a job. And when I don't give them more because they aren't qualified really they say well what
about this teacher shortage. I think anybody who wanted a job could get one teaching. Fine if you've been doing a little research on this I know you have some of the facts about the teacher shortage as you've discovered them. But I agree there is not a teacher shortage. If all of the people in the United States who are prepared to teach when suddenly accept teaching positions we would have an oversupply of well qualified teachers. Well I think so many have left for variety of reasons. Low salaries and terms of other professions has tended to draw some people into professions other than teaching housewives who have dropped out of teaching some who have been dissatisfied with the know some of those housewives come back in don't think. Yes and I think once the family is raised or at least the school age that often times those people will come back into the teaching profession. The. Balance
in teaching is really a crucial issue rather than a shortage. In other words in some fields there is a critical shortage of well qualified teachers such as in physics in other fields there is an oversupply of well qualified teachers such as in history in fact the whole social science area and much of the shortage is caused by people going into fields. In teaching that already have an oversupply. With few people going into areas in which there is a definite undersupply of teachers you think if everybody had prepared himself appropriately for supply and demand that we would have enough teachers or would there still be a general shortage. I think there'd be a general shortage in some fields because elementary education for example has such a critical shortage that it would be difficult to prepare enough teachers in that field. However if we talk about the secondary
level the most recent study that I saw by Mall of the NEA research division indicates that the. Demand for teachers has remained relatively constant for the past few years while the supply of secondary teachers has increased greatly in some fields. Social science for example. While the supply and other fields in which there is a much greater demand the sciences elementary education mathematics chemistry and English. The in general the teaching profession is not competitive and therefore we have not drawn a large number of people into those areas. You know Dr Nelson you were principal of a large high school during that era when there seemed to be more teachers. Then we needed
101. How do you account for the fact that. Say 20 years ago or so. There were more teachers for every job than was needed. Well that was true in some fields being taught not all of them it seems to have to do with the popularity of the of the field. All right social science majors because this man is in the men's B. The boys all want to be coaches speech for some reason or other there's a small demand for speech teachers don't write about women's physical education is this an oversupply or undersupply area. Now there's an area where we need more teachers all the time and the reason for that seems to be that there's a short term women's B teachers don't stay in the business very long or they get married. Yes it's very difficult to I think in talking about supply and demand of teachers because we have so many teachers who are teaching in minor fields so that although there may seem to
be an adequate number what do you mean by a minor field Dr. Fox. Well at the college level instead of taking most of your work for example at Northern Illinois University. Most of our majors run thirty two hours. If it's a comprehensive major In other words of majors such as mathematics or English or a broader field those majors can run up to about 50 semester hours in other words. Almost one half of a person's Well about one third one fourth or one third of the work would be in that major field while a minor in the state of Illinois. Same for teaching purposes going to be 16 semester hours and whatever you do. Many people teach in the minors though well they graduate in these fields as Bob mentioned in which there is an oversupply. For example social studies tends to be a popular field that most college students enjoy
social studies. Besides that by the time they finish their general education courses they have already had several required so it was in science courses then to continue on and get a major is a fairly natural procedure. But when the individual graduates he finds that according to the latest statistics that I have from our placement office. There are 51 positions in social studies in the United States. For every 100 people graduating. Or who has already been prepared with a major in social sciences. So almost half of the people then who majored in social studies write end up teaching in some other field. If they teach well then to clear this up Dana facts are you saying this are you saying that if a student wanted to major in so in history for instance they shouldn't do it now. I think preference in terms of subject matter at the secondary
level is by far the best way to select your major field. But if a person is thinking of teaching he should consider at least two other aspects and one is that if he majors in an area that has an oversupply of teachers he should make certain to acquire a minor in an area in which there is a great need for teachers our own placement office for example as you know Bob talks with prospective teachers in our education classes and both Dr. Barlow's and. The doctor gradually from the placement office drones that if your major is from one of the fields in the bottom third meaning where the demand for teachers is very low then your minor should be from one of the top fields. For example if a man majored mens physical education or social studies which are in
the bottom third in terms of demand he should minor in English chemistry mathematics physics general science or one of the other fields in which there is a great shortage of teachers. I think this is good advice. The other is that when a person answers college he often doesn't know all weather. Run field would be more attractive to him than another the typical high school curriculum gives him very little exposure to some fields other than the basic required subjects. So he may never have had a course in English very current way. Part of me not English but in art and he may not know if he would like art. He may have had very little in the way of science other than basic science courses so it's hard for him to tell. And sometimes I wonder whose decision is made in the earlier basis. It's just easier to finish up he's already completed
so many hours in history therefore you become an history teacher and he hasn't really given serious thought to what he wants to do as a teacher. Yes it seems rather odd but. The areas of oversupply tend to be those fields that have a rather large number of general education courses in other words courses that are required fresh all freshman and sophomore students so that because those people are already involved in taking biology social science the required courses and the basic fields it's somewhat natural for them to continue in those fields rather than to investigate where the openings are. But certainly Bob back your own original question. I think that no run for example should decide to be a physics teacher simply because physics is an area in which there is a great demand. What you're talking about something that really concerns me. The few physics
teachers being prepared nowadays in this country is frightening to me. I must be true that in most high school's physics teachers are teaching on the basis of a minor. In other words limited preparation and physics in the smaller high schools this is true. Well how do you account for this why don't we have more young people choosing physics as a major. I think part of the reason is I taught physics a while and I tried to encourage them that physics was not as difficult as they thought. The mathematics isn't complicated it can be done to many physics teachers who have difficult time themselves because they are teaching in their minor you see. They think it's a tough course so they keep telling the kids it's a tough course they have then unfortunately even worse when they get out into college they find they're encouraged to Gwenda research too often and some of our major departments and chemistry in Physics those two particular relish is a good career for them they get paid well and with few of them entering and then a good percentage of that.
If you're going into something that might lead on to a doctor's degree and I think there are fellowships available this causes even a greater shortage in high school teaching but in high school physics is usually an elective course. So few people are being exposed to physics at the high school level right. And therefore. You do not have the large number of people from whom you normally would recruit potential teachers. Also although certainly a physics department has the obligation of preparing people for fields other than teaching and it would be natural with good research jobs for them to go into such fields. I think that most physics departments would be rather typical of our own and the numbers are very very low all in terms of people who have declared their majors in the
field of physics either for the program or for The Bachelor of Science in education. If. You know you have so few people who are in the area as a major and I would major in the specific area. And naturally the recruitment from that area for teaching is bound to be small. Yet those people that will go out and become teachers with the major most physics teachers I agree are not physics majors in high schools. They may be general science majors they may have a minor in physics and therefore some of the teaching is certainly less than what we would like in their enthusiasm their enthusiasm for the field and it's hard for them to motivate youngsters at least to the degree that the youngster would wish to continue on to become a physics teacher and so off well in the national and national movement and
chemistry and physics and all sciences having an impact here where people who would have become teachers in other years are now going into higher degrees and going into various types occupations that perhaps the more I think the federal government certainly has played a large part in this because there are so many scholarships fellowships available in the field of science that if a student is a good undergraduate student in one of the sciences. He is virtually assured of some type of financial assistance going to continue graduate work and therefore again the public schools are not able to attract those teachers. But I also wonder if some things that are happening in our society aren't causing people especially in the last few years to somewhat shy away from the sciences. I notice that the statistics tend to be away from
the practical scientific and business fields for the undergraduate student. They want something that is humanitarian popularity the Peace Corps for example would be an example of social work so that many more men are coming into the field and are looking toward the humanities rather than the sciences. Well in a way this is good this meets some national needs. Our concern is about to supply teachers in these various areas. We recognise that there is probably a general teacher shortage attributable perhaps to salaries that aren't as competitive as they should be for people who hold a bachelor's degree in a mass or a master's degree also. And then of course this attrition rate my father's me. It seems to me that there have been a lot of teachers who have left the profession and how do you account for this.
Dr Nelson Why do people leave the teaching profession for a variety of reasons but mostly because they're unhappy and when they can be unhappy with their salaries they can be unhappy with their working conditions where the welfare voids of education have a powerful influence on teachers some of the ridiculous things that some of them expect in the way of teachers behavior but I'm just changing is I'm glad to say that are changing Yes I'm glad to say that's changing. And yet in the smaller communities I think the teacher feels more like he's in a fishbowl where he has to be behaving in a different manner than average the average person. And most of them want to do this to set an example for youngsters but I think all these things tend to be factors why people leave the teaching profession and location makes a big difference doesn't it. Just going to say that I think we've talked a lot about the supply and demand of teachers looking at the United States as a whole but the supply and
demand picture changes quite radically once you start looking at a particular state or at a geographical area within the state. For example you know the state of Illinois the suburban schools. Seem to have little difficulty in attracting teachers. Yep the downstate schools especially the smaller ones have great difficulty in tracking teachers who have majors in these scares feel it is partly salary Don't let small towns pay less. Yes and all those small towns I think recently have come up a great deal on beginning salaries their salaries schedule those tend to be quite compact and others are very little difference between a beginning salary of a teacher and a salary he would get if he stayed in the school system for 20 years and then
the inner city you didn't mention here is another place where it is very difficult to recruit and retain teachers for the reasons we're aware. And I think these conditions ought to be changed now so again we get into a matter of a differentiated salary basis and some authors have advocated that you know scarce field perhaps the best way for us to draw and to retain teachers and balance fields is to pay more. Another is we pay a beginning social studies teacher the same salary as we pay a beginning physics teacher even knows that there is an oversupply of social studies teachers and a great. Demand for physics teachers the inner city bothers me considerably because certainly the expectations for a teacher who enters the inner city are much greater than for the teacher who goes to the typical rural or suburban community.
Yet teacher unions and other professional groups by and large have opposed differentiated salaries for inner city teachers. It seems in my own opinion as so than enter city teachers should be paid more. I think races are the only solution to that particular problem in the small village or town where salaries are low I don't know what the answer is there are other tax base perhaps. Isn't strong enough to support the kind of salaries they should have and what you discover and many a small town is that all of the teachers in the community are wives husbands who have other occupations in the community or these teachers wouldn't even be there. They're the only ones that can afford to remain in the village or the small town at that salary. If they're career teachers they move to some other town or city that pays more well in dollars and cents isn't everything. I wonder what the 9 month contract bit what impact
this may have on teacher supply and demand and retention of kind of I fired me I think it has a real powerful influence. Men don't like the idea of the summer off they would like to work 12 months I don't think teachers by choice work 9 months I think this is sort of a carry over from the olden days when the students had to get out and work in the fields and work and as a on the firearms men would like to work the home to our minds with an increase of about one fourth more pay or one third mark but are usually the minority listen to the men who have families find it necessary to work. Absolutely. We find them painting classrooms and working at other occupations to supplement their 9 month salary has. And all man panel I think it's it may be wrong for us to draw this distinction simply between men and women rather than between career teachers
and non career teachers. There are many women who are career teachers who certainly would also like the teaching position. There are many men who are not career teachers who are simply using teaching as a stepping stone to some other profession. The idea of a nine month assignment would appeal to them but I think we cannot base any profession upon people who are using it as a stepping stone. And therefore the year round school seems to be a necessity. I was very pleased to see that Ray Paige State Superintendent of Public Instruction recently came out in favor of a year round school and indicated that he thought that was a direction that we were going. Because no other profession that I know of bases the profession upon nine months a year. Now the argument that is often given is that when a person begins teaching his
education must continue and therefore he needs time off to go in the summer. But this is true of the medical profession any profession requires continuous learning. After you get out of the accomplis very easily by rotation of assignments so that teachers could go back and finish higher degrees and acquire some of the skills and knowledge they need to keep up to date. But I really believe that the nine months contract should go out and it ought to be a 12 month contract and that rather more we should extend the school year for children because children do not benefit by a three month vacation period. That's one of the problems that has bothered me greatly and I'm sure Bob feels the same way is when any individual decides to become a teacher. I think this is true at the secondary level than at the elementary level. He often feels that he wants to be a teacher
but he doesn't know for certain which area he's going to major in. When he enters college and it is very difficult to give him advice about the why's election the majors and minors. And as a result we seem to be turning out people in inverse relationship to the shortages. I've just recently gone over northern statistics in terms of the number of graduates in my field and compared those with the information from our placement office on the index of demand and supply. The fields that have the greatest shortages of teachers are the fields in which we are turning out the fewest people. The people in the areas that have an oversupply of teachers are the areas in which we are turning out the largest number of perspective teachers. I'm talking about people
graduating with a Bachelor of Science an education degree who will be certified to teach upon graduation. I know Dr Nelson as a head of secondary education and is doing some things in the way of orientation to try to familiarize entering students and people in the early years of their college education with the facts about supply and demand and I was wondering Bob. Are these orientation period successful. Do they seem to be working. At least they're making the students aware of it yes I think they're working in fact I'd like to think they would or that probably the oversupply would be much greater. We try to tell them the facts and that's why I asked the question you little earlier about the student major and minors you explain very well. We are concerned about this because we know these students are preparing themselves and then they're going to be disillusioned about getting a job placement people tell
us time and again the students come in and say why didn't you tell me that I was preparing in an area where there's an oversupply of teachers. I would just as soon have prepared in another area. And I think that point that was made earlier that students have more than one choice as a teaching major area. And yet our advisement has to be by way of what you said an orientation program. We can't insist that a student not go into an oversupply area. Bob one area that I notice the rather significant change and and I think we could attribute it to the orientation periods on the use of the placement personnel is. When I first came to norther nine years ago we had a rather large number of people graduating with such combinations as a sociology major in a psychology minor. Neither of which is an acceptable teaching field. Demand is so low that a person would be almost
an employable. And I have noticed that that number has dropped very very greatly and I assume that part of the information students are receiving in your program at least that information is partially responsible for this change plus the cooperation of the department heads and sociology and psychology. They do a good job in telling their students along with us that these are not the fields they should plan on going and teach because of the limited offerings in the public schools. We still have a long ways to go on that way gentlemen and I hope we can even do Mar so we can help the students and the profession. Well I admit to feeling a sense of guilt in letting large numbers of students complete a four year program only to discover that there aren't many jobs in that area and then they find themselves teaching in an area where they're not qualified. For example we know that the social science majors you mention many of them are teaching at the elementary school level.
And actually these are different assignments and in choosing a career and determining where one might enter their profession I would say that a prospecting teacher ought to visit an elementary school again and and decide whether you want to become an elementary school teacher or a secondary school teacher. Well we have discussed a number of elements in the teacher shortage. I think I might summarized by noting that there is a national shortage of teachers in general but that the more significant shortage is to be found in specific areas such as the sciences womens physical education for example. Elementary education where there are a tremendous number is needed. We believe that we should recruit more teachers and that we should advise them better so they choose areas to major in where there is a good chance of a position and where the
major is still in harmony with their interests behind the classroom door produced by w an IUF element and cooperation with the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Each week focuses its attention on one of the many challenging aspects of public school education. The program is moderated by Dr. Robert F. top dean of the College of Education at Northern Illinois University. Today's guests were Dr. Raymond Fox associate dean of the College of Education and Dr. Robert H Nelson head of the department of secondary education. Next week's topic will be what is expected of today's teacher. I'm Fred Pyle and this program is distributed by the national educational radio network.
Series
Behind the Classroom Door
Episode Number
12
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-sq8qh94c
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Description
Series Description
Behind the Classroom Door is a radio series from WNIU-FM about education in the United States. In each episode, faculty from the Northern Illinois University College of Education address specific issues related to public school education and operation. The program is produced in cooperation with Northern Illinois University and distributed by the National Educational Radio Network.
Date
1969-03-03
Topics
Education
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:01
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AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 69-5-12 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:28:50
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Citations
Chicago: “Behind the Classroom Door; 12,” 1969-03-03, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-sq8qh94c.
MLA: “Behind the Classroom Door; 12.” 1969-03-03. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-sq8qh94c>.
APA: Behind the Classroom Door; 12. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-sq8qh94c