About That Doctorate. . .

 

Well, we can summarily reject this candidate.

I think you should reconsider.

What? Her thesis is one sentence: “Me a docter.”

But it is very well researched.

What!?!  She misspelled ‘doctor.’

You obviously didn’t look at the footnotes.

Footnotes?  It’s one sentence!

Yes. There are 132 notes. Note one is a copy of her marriage certificate.  The rest are descriptions of every grant and payment to the university from the US government.  You should pay special attention to note 22.

Hmmmm…On further consideration, I think you’re correct. Doctorate granted.  I do have one question, though.  What are we going to do if someone wants to look at her thesis?

No one’s going to do that.

Still, if someone looks at it, we could be in trouble.

Okay, okay.  Get a paper from one of your other students and slap her name on it.  No one will be the wiser.

But I just teach undergraduates.

So what?  It’s a doctorate of education, who cares?

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  1. Rick Banyan Member
    Rick Banyan
    @RickBanyan

    Hello there @Seawriter. Ok, so I read over your response to my post several times—did you read my post as carefully as I read yours? I wonder if you skipped over, “On the other hand, the credentialing classes I took were, ah, not that helpful and I think that a doctorate in Education is no guarantee that the holder knows anything useful.” That was me questioning the value of classes in Education and the significance of a doctorate in Education. We don’t disagree on that point although I wouldn’t go so far as to say, “The whole education school thing is a farce and a scam.” Some people may benefit from the classes.

    As for homeschooling, it wasn’t a topic that I raised and, since I never claimed that someone had to have teacher training to be a good teacher (“In my experience, people either have a skill for teaching or they don’t …”), your homeschooling example doesn’t refute anything I said.

    About the only thing we disagree about is whether teaching is a calling.  Ok, ok, it isn’t for every teacher, but if you ask teachers when they’re two drinks in, you might be surprised at what you hear. What do you think those two professors of yours at the University of Michigan would have said about teaching? Would they have said, I’m just here for the paycheck until something better comes along, or would they have sheepishly admitted that they find teaching rewarding over and above the money?

    Oh, and I liked the shot about a lot of educators being “pretentious snobs.” I taught in an adult school in a minority working class suburb of Los Angeles. I thought of us as the red headed stepchildren of the K-12 system. There was a definite lack of pretense and snobbery among the teachers there.

    • #31
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Rick Banyan (View Comment):

    Hello there @ Seawriter. Ok, so I read over your response to my post several times—did you read my post as carefully as I read yours? I wonder if you skipped over, “On the other hand, the credentialing classes I took were, ah, not that helpful and I think that a doctorate in Education is no guarantee that the holder knows anything useful.” That was me questioning the value of classes in Education and the significance of a doctorate in Education. We don’t disagree on that point although I wouldn’t go so far as to say, “The whole education school thing is a farce and a scam.” Some people may benefit from the classes.

    As for homeschooling, it wasn’t a topic that I raised and, since I never claimed that someone had to have teacher training to be a good teacher (“In my experience, people either have a skill for teaching or they don’t …”), your homeschooling example doesn’t refute anything I said.

    About the only thing we disagree about is whether teaching is a calling. Ok, ok, it isn’t for every teacher, but if you ask teachers when they’re two drinks in, you might be surprised at what you hear. What do you think those two professors of yours at the University of Michigan would have said about teaching? Would they have said, I’m just here for the paycheck until something better comes along, or would they have sheepishly admitted that they find teaching rewarding over and above the money?

    Oh, and I liked the shot about a lot of educators being “pretentious snobs.” I taught in an adult school in a minority working class suburb of Los Angeles. I thought of us as the red headed stepchildren of the K-12 system. There was a definite lack of pretense and snobbery among the teachers there.

    Some of them are not only pretentious,  they are humorless.

    There are different forms of pretentiousness. That includes “Look at me! I am bringing knowledge to the savages and unwashed..”

    I did adult education too.  Doesn’t mean I am special. My mom was a teacher. So were two uncles, a brother and sister-in-law, and about six of my parents first cousins. A grandfather was a professor. None of them felt the need to place education on a pedestal of holy calling. It was a job. Some of them enjoyed it. Some of them didn’t. (My grandfather left academia to become a farmer.)

    There is nothing unique about finding a job rewarding above and beyond the money. I’ve known machinists and auto mechanics who love the work they do for its own sake. I have enjoyed virtually every job I have had – which includes teaching, but also includes space navigation, technical writing, and e-commerce consulting – rewarding over and above the money. I took a pay cut to take my current job because it was rewarding over and above the money.  If someone doesn’t find their job rewarding over and above the money they need to find a new job. Life’s too short to spend forty hours a week doing something you loath, or even barely tolerate. 

    • #32
  3. PeterParisi Inactive
    PeterParisi
    @PeterParisi

    Thanks, @MiMac, for citing Kyle Smith’s hilarious NR articles about Jill Biden’s doctorate! Leaving aside the First Lady’s educational attainments, I think it worth noting that the purpose of a doctoral degree, whether an Ed.D. or Ph.D., has changed over the past half century, as has the kind of accomplishment it represents.

    Until the 70’s, a Ph.D. was a vocational degree, like the J.D. or M.D., which people pursued with the intention of working in their chosen field. That work was two-fold: the advancement of knowledge through scholarship and the imparting of that knowledge through teaching and writing at the post-secondary level. The cost and difficulty of the process were serious bars to entry. As a result, few people made the attempt and the market for university-level educators and researchers was never glutted.

    Credentialism has hit the education industry as hard as any other. Public and private K-12 schools boast of the number of faculty MA’s and Ph.D.’s. Mere possession of an advanced degree is often enough to distinguish a resume from those of equally-qualified BA/BS recipients. Moreover, most public and private schools offer a salary bump for advanced degrees. Some schools will not consider a candidate for principal or headmaster who cannot claim a doctorate of some kind. The result is that pursuit of the Ed.D. and Ph.D. has become a means of career advancement. As this has occurred, more colleges and universities–both not-for-profit and profit–are offering graduate programs to meet the demand for these credentials. The result is inevitable: the quality of work required for the credential has decreased, as has the quality of candidates.

    In her lack of both accomplishment and scholarly ambition, Jill Biden represents the norm for recipients of doctoral degrees of any abbreviation. For many, perhaps most, it is a career move. The more notable fact is that Biden evidently pursued the degree so she could have an honorific before her name to equal her husband’s. This shows how little effort her degree required of her.

    I do not at all mean to say that all doctoral degrees are worthless vanity projects. Consider the following example. In the library of my alma mater sits a dissertation of nearly 600 pages on the late Byzantine soldier. To produce it, its author needed to complete two years of coursework for the master’s degree, and then another year after that. Perhaps he wrote a master’s thesis, which would have run about 50 pages. Then he had to sit for rigorous exams in general and specific historical knowledge, and demonstrate reading knowledge of French, German, Latin, and Byzantine Greek. Finally, there is that dissertation, which alone took half a decade in collaboration with scholar-mentors to produce. The whole process would have required from 8 to 10 years of full-time labor. Vanity and a questionnaire would not have sufficed.

    • #33
  4. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    We have and have had some excellent teachers in my family. My grandmother taught my oldest brother Latin, from which he developed a love of language and became fluent in French. She may have had a bachelor’s in education, but almost certainly no graduate-level training. My brother taught English to advanced engineering students in Lyon even though he had yet to graduate from university (in international business). 

    What has happened in Education schools is a reflection and source of what has happened in education generally. Namely, with few exceptions, not much real educating is going on. And with the bastard child of political correctness — woke ideology — in ascendance, it’s not just Education schools suffering from a lack of meaningful education. . . 

    • #34
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    My grandmother taught my oldest brother Latin, from which he developed a love of language and became fluent in French.

    One of the first songs I was ever taught was in Latin.

    I may be old.

    • #35
  6. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Arahant (View Comment):

    One of the first songs I was ever taught was in Latin.

    I may be old.

    This go-around or a previous one?

    • #36
  7. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    One of the first songs I was ever taught was in Latin.

    I may be old.

    This go-around or a previous one?

    This go-around. Probably previous ones, too.

    • #37
  8. JosePluma, Local Man of Mystery Coolidge
    JosePluma, Local Man of Mystery
    @JosePluma

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Kyle Smith has looked into her thesis & it is a laugher:

    “My friends, I have read this document in its entirety…..

    Thanks.  I remember reading that when it first came out, but you reminded me to look at it again.  This resulted in a coda to the original post.

    • #38
  9. danys Thatcher
    danys
    @danys

    I have no opinion about Jill Biden’s doctoral work. I have a BA in English, a teaching credential, and decades teaching high school English.

    I taught remedial English for several years and am grateful for the experience. Teaching it well is hard work and it made me a better teacher. I learned more teaching those classes than I did from my credential classes.

    • #39
  10. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    danys (View Comment):

    I have no opinion about Jill Biden’s doctoral work. I have a BA in English, a teaching credential, and decades teaching high school English.

    I taught remedial English for several years and am grateful for the experience. Teaching it well is hard work and it made me a better teacher. I learned more teaching those classes than I did from my credential classes.

    My sis-in-law teaches remedial English. She’s the best teacher I know. 

    • #40
  11. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Doug Watt (View Comment):

    Rick Banyan (View Comment):

    Normally I wouldn’t bother to respond, but I take offense at what I consider a cheap shot at teachers in general and doctorates in Education in particular; yeah, @ Seawriter, “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach get Education Doctorates,” is a cheap shot. My mother has a PhD in Education from Claremont Grad, is very intelligent, widely read, was a deeply knowledgeable and inspiring teacher for decades, and spoke three languages (her French is gone and her Spanish is much decrease since her strokes). On the other hand, the credentialing classes I took were, ah, not that helpful and I think that a doctorate in Education is no guarantee that the holder knows anything useful.

    I see teaching as its own field—not something you do when you can’t do the “real” thing—and a calling. In my experience, people either have a skill for teaching or they don’t, but that skill can be improved by experience, mentoring, and maybe, at least marginally, by education classes. One final point, yes, those who can, do, but they may or may not be any good at teaching.

    Rick, you make a good point. Teaching is like any other profession there are good and competent teachers and then there are incompetent teachers. There are of course parents who are involved with their children’s schooling and parents that see school as nothing more than a babysitter.

    All the more reason to hire and promote teachers based on their actual knowledge and achievement, especially in the actual classrooms; not just on their credentials.

    • #41
  12. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    The only people with an education doctorate who get to be called “doctor” are high school principals.

    I have a whopping 12 graduate credits in education (I taught at a private school and some of us had to be offered up to the purveyors of deep stupid for the school to be accredited.) It was revealing. First, I learned that whatever lame intellectual fads swept college campuses ten years before became de rigueur in ed schools. Nowadays, the stupid appears in the ed curriculum almost right away. Second, there were a lot of people training to be teachers who could not pass most high school classes where I taught.

    My fellow victim was in a class for English teachers. Students were directed to each spontaneously make up some poetic verse. When it was his turn he responded “Tiger, tiger burning bright in the forests of the night.” The teacher thought that was wonderfully creative as did most of the class. He said that only two or three recognized it–the few rolling their eyes and chuckling.

    I was almost kicked out of another class for politely correcting the prof’s use of Leibniz’s theory of perception (which he had reduced to a flat wrong bumper sticker notion that that perception is somehow the author of being). I could have name-dropped my Metaphysics prof at Georgetown but instead responded as if tout le monde were conversant in Leibniz’s philosophy and his rejection of materialist explanations of perception.

    Superficial, barely Cliff Notes-level mastery of important works and general laziness seemed to be the departmental norm. It is almost as if there were an entire program to persuade limited, badly educated people that they were actually smart. And damn if wokeness does not fit that bill big time. An education degree is not much better than whatever inspirational trinket the Wizard of Oz might pull from his bag.

     

    But the real bottom line is that there simply aren’t enough brilliant geniuses available to teach everyone’s kids.  And even if there were, I would argue that they have more important things to do.  Most of education, most of the time, needs to be done by more or less automatons working from tried and true methods, not a bunch of… oh, i dunno, maybe dilettantes… each trying to prove their own pet theories of education.

    • #42
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