Rod and Ray, although you’re probably already aware of it, I just want to weigh in with my agreement about “belief.” Unfortunately, I suspect we’re in the minority in this world of ours.
As for the experience of high school science teaching, I have nothing to say firsthand, but I did get my English credential in Wisconsin and taught American Indians there in a Federal program, and later in an inner-city classroom.
But back to science teaching. Rod, if I were King of the U.S., I’d search out people with experience and energy exactly like what you have, to teach high school chemistry. Of course all these Rod-clones would be more than qualified without taking those tedious and silly education courses, because they already know their subject well enough to be able to figure out how to explain it.
I’m no longer a teacher, but that says little about the potential psychic rewards of doing that work, as they are great. Rod, if you can figure out how to get out of taking time-and-energy wasting ed courses, kids in your geographic area will be fortunate. Learning chemistry can be extremely challenging even when taught by the best teachers. But I can’t imagine a better high school chem teacher than an M.D., able to provide real-world context to much of their instruction. I’ve always wondered why our society seems not to care about the fact that we have so few Ph.D.-holding high school teachers. An M.D. is even better, in the sense that a person holding a terminal degree not only has far more expertise than someone who’s got a 4-year degree in education. He also has passion for his subject, which tends to rub off on his students. King Homunculus would encourage people to earn Ph.D.s in every field, then go teach our high school kids.
Ray, you’d also get paid well under King Homunculus for staying in the classroom, shining light on hypocrisy and ignorance.
