The Alternate Certification programs, which I recently read account for around a quarter of new teachers ( don’t ask me where), may provide examples of that.

I suspect that the lower one goes on the Ed School prestige chain, the more practical will be the pedagogy. The Ed School of Flagship State U will tend to have more theory nonsense than that of State College. And at the “top” of the chain, even more burdened with the theory nonsense: Columbia et al.

For example, suppose we have good mathematician or historian who has never taught. What could we teach him in one semester that would make him a good teacher? I bet there is a lot of useful, *practical* stuff, without the overhang of theory and indoctrination that now seems to pervade most teacher training.

Here are some authors in her book club:

Wally Lamb, Toni Morrison, Isabel Allende, Barbara Kingsolver, Gabriel García Márquez.

Certainly these are some of the authors of the Politically Correct. Wally Lamb, for example, cannot write a novel that is not also a didactic exercise in instructing the yahoos on some politically correct topic. He appears to spends as much time in researching a topic as he does in writing a story. Wait a minute, sounds like I read it.

While I disagree with many or most of the political positions of Isabel Allende and Gabriel García Márquez, I consider them good storytellers, and have read almost all of their works in Spanish. While Isabel was first cousin first removed to Salvador, thus endowing her with some inherent bias, in her works she also acknowledged her maternal grandparents’ opposition to him. I found some of Isabel Allende’s PC injections to be rather comical. In one of her novels she talks about the racism of whites in 19th century towards the Chinese. While on the one hand she is correct about 19th century white racism towards Chinese, on the other hand she ignores the ethnocentricism ingrained into Chinese culture. Gwei-lo, anyone?

Here are some more authors from Oprah’s book club:

John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bill Cosby.

Book, by virtue of having read these authors, I wager that you have unintentionally read some of the Oprah’s book club selections. Well, maybe not Bill Cosby

Certainly one should not confine one’s reading to Oprah’s book club. I am neither recommending nor disparaging her book club. As the years go on, her selections have become less politically correct. My book club reads “classics,” at least very few books that were published fewer than 40 years ago.

Most of your comments in this posting are spot-on. Compulsory “volunteering” takes the magic out of it. Your comments about teachers and expertise, likewise on two points. First, as a former teacher I can testify to the ineffectiveness of the ed schools in instructing the nuts and bolts of instruction while they devote too much effort to the politically correct concern of the month. For those who have experience in the real world and a modicum of information-seeking skills, the politically correct conjectures masquerading as fact that the ed schools peddle are easily seen for the nonsense that they are. Only in Ed School did I have the experience of considering some of my instructors to be utter fools, at least in some regards, an attitude I never had towards college-level instructors of other subjects.

Secondly, your statement about subject expertise trumping pedagogy also rings true. This also parallels the experience of setting up “expert systems.” It has been found more effective to teach the experts the rudimentary of computer systems and software, than to teach computer experts the information that the experts have. This is not to state that pedagogy is unnecessary: on the contrary. If you don’t know how to present your knowledge to your audience, you are lost as a teacher. The previous sentence came from the school of hard knocks.

Sarah Palin: Wrong accent, wrong education background, wrong politics, wrong state, wrong family.

Caroline Kennedy: Right accent, right education background, right politics, right state, and right family.

We all can see how this is the American dream.

Our duty is to force the power from the hands of the corrupt and the few and make it flow downwards and outwards.

Both of these trends provide considerable advantage to those from affluent families, and hence act to foreclose class mobility. Indeed, the whole higher-education complex as it now exists tends toward the formation of a permanent aristocracy.

Pain is always a great communicator, Book. Far better than words ever were.

It is all about stripping free will from the cogs and slaves, Book. How dare individuals think that their life and their time is their own, to dispense with according to their own individual vices and traits? How dare they elevate themselves to being the deciders here, Book. They are only slaves to the state and need to learn to serve at the state’s pleasure. You know that is how it is, Book.

Since the 1990s, many affluent children seeking admission to selective colleges have been discouraged from paid work, and steered instead toward volunteer service projects. Rebuilding homes in New Orleans or teaching English in developing countries, seemingly better résumé fodder, supplanted after-school or summer jobs scooping ice cream or answering phones.

“There’s been such a push to demonstrate to colleges that they’re involved with activities and charities that it’s almost too pedestrian to say that work is part of what I do,” said William S. Miron, the principal at Millburn High School.

I was reminded of this by the Employee Free Choice Act.