Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Closing the achievement gap and gifted students

This discussion reminds me of an idea that I contemplate sometimes:

A mandate requiring that all teachers at the high school level or above have 5 years of work experience relating to the field they will teach.

No more teaching straight out of school, and not being able to answer questions about the usefulness of what you teach. Also, if you didn't learn your area of study well enough to be employed in the field for 5 years, then you probably didn't learn it well enough to teach it very well either.

Edit: Also, I'm pretty sure you can't drive without at least an intuitive understanding of calculus. You have an accelerator pedal, and a decelerator pedal after all, that you use to modify your speed and position.