Those who can, teach?

IBM to train staff as math, science teachers (for some strange reason filed under ‘money’ in rediff. er, why?)

Concerned over the critical shortage of math and science faculty in the United States, global IT major IBM has announced a programme that encourages employees to take up the teaching profession. The world’s largest Information Technology company said on Friday that it would reimburse participants in its new transition to teaching programme up to $15,000 for tuition and stipends.

IBM sees this this as a natural move for employees who might be interested in this program, given that many of them have math and science backgrounds. I think it is an interesting idea because :

1. the people involved in this program are well qualified and skilled – which is not necessarily true of many teachers in the US (and anywhere else for that matter) who choose teaching as the last resort to earn a living. With sincere aplogies to all good teachers I have known, it is more and more becoming those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.. Will such a program make a difference to the quality of teaching – and learning therefore?

2. these are people who have been on the job for many years and have kept themselves aware (ideally) of what is happening in their field. As opposed to most teachers who seem to live in a time warp of sorts – where the world froze at the time of their last degree.

3. from the perspective of the employees, it is safe to assume that some level of boredom must be creeping in to their jobs – exploring teaching as an option looks to me a great way of getting over ths ennui and using their skills and experience in a very positive manner…

And the short rediff report ends with this – The move comes as technology executives voice concern about the US losing ground to China, India and other countries in math and science education. Uh?

11 comments

  1. I just read Tom Friedmen’s NYT coloumn in which I found him advocating the need for the same [math and science]

    “Why am I writing about this? Because math and science are the keys to innovation and power in today’s world, and American parents had better understand that the people who are eating their kids’ lunch in math are not resting on their laurels.”, he ends with

  2. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Thomas “one track mind, repetitive” Friedman…….but..Charu….you said:

    The move comes as technology executives voice concern about the US losing ground to China, India and other countries in math and science education. Uh?

    That just goes to show how badly the standards of science and math education here in the States have dropped……too many kids I know say they didn’t learn both these areas well in school….(unless it was a good, more expensive school).

  3. That’s a wonderful idea. We need more good, interested math and science teachers who are experienced in the field. A few months ago i saw a program on PBS that was all about science teaching in the US. They interviewed recent Harvard grads to find out how much they knew about photosynthesis. Surprisingly, even some grads from science disciplines could not explain the whole process. At the same time, the program showed elementary and jr high school teachers with little or no science background being trained to teach science in interesting and accurate ways. Turns out that the young students could explain the photosynthesis process better than the Harvard grads. The point was to highlight that US public school students were/are missing essential knowledge about science/biology/ and how life processes function. Obviously, teachers in regular teacher education programs are not getting that kind of training and public education in general has not prepared them to teach science (or math).

  4. I read the same story in some other western news site. it says that IBM is concerned that US students are losing out to students from Bangalore, Europe and China when it comes to maths and science.

    I guess IBM is planning some layoffs and using options like these to motivate employees to sign up for the teacher training courses.

  5. The idea that US faces competitive problems because not enough people get good education in math and sciences goes against everything that is known about competitive advantages of companies/countries.

    Mathematics is the same the world over, and if there was a lack of mathematicians in the US, then US can import them (or contract out the work) from the rest of the world in a blink. Quickly importing people with professions more embedded in the society would be far more difficult…

  7. Hi Charu
    This is an interesting story.
    Definitely, there could be a lot more very qualified people who would be willing to teach in the U.S. schools if the pay were better. I know that I would consider it. I think it would be very satisfy work. But I could not take a 50% cut in salary.

  8. Akshay, what did TF mean by “who are eating their kids’ lunch in math”?

    Sunil, think this is a cause for concern everywhere – kids not learning math and scicne the way they ought to be learnt – I know for one that I got put off by math (and all math related subjects) very early on in lfe thanks to bad teachers… but when I actually tried higher level stats at my graduate level, I found myself enjoying it – I was quite shocked to discover it snce I went in kickng and screaming 🙂
    (and of course, purists would stone me for putting stats in math)

    Nicole, I agree – learning science can be such fun… but sadly it rarely happens that way…

  9. Kaps, that was the first thught I had when i read it – what a superb idea to lay off people gently and also score a few corporate-social-responsibility brownie points for your company…. interesting idea nevertheless!

    and Michael, I was wondering about that too – how would ppl in well-payng corporate jobs take to a pay cut? unless as I’ve said, they are terribly vored at work and want a break… or I wonder if IBM sees this as a temp thing so ppl can join them again ater a few years? sabbatical of sorts…?

    jammy, do you have a point?
    Petar, ditto.

  10. Good question, If he’s pointing a finger at India, he’s got it wrong. The only reason we pose some small threat is because ‘a small percentage of a very very large number is still a large number’
    Whatever you say the american public education is still betters than Indias [by a mile]. Except for a line of urban elite private schools and a small percentage of urban municpal schools – the Indian school system doesn’t look all that attractive. You must remember we have the worlds largest school drop-out rate.

    Eventhough, the program TF is harping about ‘HeyMath’ was developed in Chennai, I see atleast 40-50 years before an internet based computer program that teaches math better even starts to reach rural India.
    Here a blog review of Heymath

    May be Indian Companies should be training those Maths and Science teachers !!

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