Hi there. In this education post, I cover how some teachers don't know the topics they are teaching. Either they don't know the topic they are assigned to teach or they don't know the topic well enough to pass on the information to students. I cover how this case can happen.
Unqualified Teachers?
The hiring process for teachers can vary between regions and countries. As far as I know, Toronto based teachers need at least a Bachelor of Education degree at the minimum for teaching jobs in public schools. For private teaching places, A Bachelor of Education degree is preferred but not required.
There may be active teachers that can teach but may not know certain subjects at a good level to teach it effectively. I think students who work their way to becoming teachers need two teachable subjects that they are specialized in.
In the Toronto area, teachers from grades one to eight are mostly generalists. They teach their students English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Writing and Religion in Catholic schools. The only specialist teacher is the French teacher. In theory and in practice, there are teachers whose skills and knowledge in a few subjects may not be good. One example is where I heard that the student teacher is not able to teach the concept of simple interest from math and basic finance for grade six. The student teacher just does not know the subject well which leads to the students not knowing what to do in solving simple interest math problems.
Possible Unrealistic Expectations of Teachers
There is a possibility that there are unrealistic expectations of teachers. Large class sizes can be an issue for a single teacher. Naughty students that cause trouble for others are another problem too. Poor ventilation in a classroom is not great either.
One problem that is a real issue that I know of in the Toronto area is there is a demanding list of topics to teach. Around 2021, the provincial government wanted kids to learn mathematics with financial literacy and computer coding. It sounded great in theory but some of the topics are not really grade appropriate. Expecting a grade 1 child to know how to code when they cannot read, write or type fluently is kind of crazy to me. I have had heard of a recent case where a grade six student was mentioning that they had to learn simple interest from basic finance. The student teacher did not know anything about it so the teaching would be non-existent. The students would have to do the worksheet on their own. An updated teaching curriculum could contain topics that the teachers did not learn during training.
