Qualified versus unqualified teachers

I don't usually use this blog for current events, politics or anything like that, but I watched a video yesterday that prompted me to write this piece. I don't claim to be an expert, but as someone who went through the state system of education, received a hand financially through university (because of my parents' low income, I was entitled to a grant that paid my tuition fees - I would not have been able to go to university without this help), and as a mother-to-be due in a few short days, I am concerned by the recent news about unqualified teachers, given that in a few short years I'll be back in the system with my own child.

Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, was ridiculed on Newsnight when Jeremy Paxman almost parodied of what he's best known for and repeatedly hounded Hunt with the question "would you send your children to a school with unqualified teachers?", which Hunt inelegantly dodged a total of five times. I think my problem with this entire debate is the concept of unqualified: it appears to have a double meaning, depending on who uses it. For the critics of Hunt, an unqualified teacher is someone who has spent years in the education system with an enormous subject knowledge, is well renowned and has been teaching since times of yore. These are the good guys who are being undermined by being made to sit a pointless teaching qualification in which they will learn nothing and waste money doing.

However, when I think of an "unqualified teacher", what springs to mind are the ones that have seemingly been appointed with only their subject knowledge intact and zero experience of teaching a real class of 20+ fourteen year olds. Subject knowledge is great, but a teaching qualification can teach a person to teach and handle an entire classroom of rowdy, confused teenagers and/or young children. To use myself as an example, before I went on maternity leave I worked part time as a substitute at a training provider, acting as both teaching assistant and as a Functional Skills teacher to kids of 16+. Despite having a basic teaching qualification and a degree-level subject knowledge of my chosen subject (not to mention being incredibly passionate about the English language), I really, really struggled with enthusing a group of fewer than ten kids of how I saw the joy of what you can do with a mere twenty six letters, the odd grammatical rule and several blobs of punctuation. A few months in this job made me realise how bloody hard it was to make young people as excited about something as much as I was; it gave me a real respect for teachers who do it every day of their careers with seemingly no trouble whatsoever.

So back to the main point: we have two sides of what classifies as a qualified teacher, I am very much in favour of the ones who have been in the education system for years and years and know their way around teaching their subject, but not in favour of those that can get a job teaching children with no experience in the classroom whatsoever. However, the rub is, they are both technically unqualified and therefore belong in the same tick box as "unqualified". Unfortunately, I don't really have a solution to this problem; all I can do here is rant about an seemingly unfair system and cannot provide a solution to it. All I can really contribute is that if your washing machine broke down, would you employ a plumber who has read all the books on washing machine repair but doesn't hold an appropriate qualification, or a plumber who has been fixing washing machines all their working life without that same qualification? The debate is the same for teaching, and it's the experience in the classroom that's more important than the subject knowledge.

I had many bad teachers and many good teachers through my education, and one that sticks out in particular (an English teacher of all subjects), was a teacher that knew her subject inside out, but unfortunately couldn't teach it for toffee; this led to the class resenting her, ridiculing her and eventually failing to turn up for lessons. It probably wasn't the right thing to do: especially not at 6th form level, but if a teacher fails to grab you with their enthusiasm and passion for their subject, it's very easy to stop listening to them because you don't really respect them.

It's overwhelmingly undermining for teachers that have worked to get that qualification that they're considered in the same league as those that can fall into the same profession with only subject matter and no real clue what it's like to stand in front of a room of twenty five people ready - and usually eager - to rip you to shreds if you make the slightest social faux-pas before them. Unfortunately, "unqualified" brings all those other good teachers under that umbrella who really can teach and have more experience of teaching a class than you can shake a stick at, but like I said earlier, if I knew how to rectify the situation, I probably would have already.