Sigh. Okay, yes, I was venting, and I really apologize for doing so in a way that was personally insulting to people who read this forum.
I do want to defend the *content* of what I said, though, even though I blew it in how I said it.
There are excellent teachers, but to a large extent they are excellent because of personal characteristics (enthusiasm, patience, a natural talent for explaining things clearly, etc.), or because they've figured out what works through hands-on experience, rather than because of what they learned in their professional training.
The unfortunate fact is that most teacher training programs are not evidence-based. To the extent that research is cited, it is often misunderstood and misapplied.
I'm a professor of cognitive science, and one of the big frustrations for people in my field is the huge gap between the existing evidence, and what is being implemented.
In this respect, primary education is rather like the field of psychotherapy, where (with the exception of cognitive behavioral therapy) pretty much none of the methods in use have any evidence to back them up. Excellent psychotherapists are excellent because of their natural abilities, or because of what they've learned through experience, and not because of their training.
