In public school we assume that teachers have had a reasonable amount of training in teaching methodology, differentiation, educational psychology, etc.
I don't think a degree in education really prepares someone for teaching, except in meeting legal requirements. I've read that Teach for America recruits with only a few weeks of training do at least as well as new teachers with education degrees. See for example
https://www.teachforamerica.org/sites/default/files/what_the_research_says_oct2013.pdf , although the source is TFA .
Most of the REALLY good educators I know would also agree-- and I've seen it too often to discount it as anecdote; good teachers can be
shaped, but they cannot be MADE. It's an inborn trait. Some people have it, and others don't. What's a real shame is that teaching
programs don't put teachers into teaching settings SOONER in their college careers. In STEM, at least, and frequently in other disciplines as well? You're IN the classroom teaching sections of students from your first terms as a graduate student. It's called being a T.A. and it's how most graduate programs function. I was in a graduate program where Gen Chem was a MACHINE-- and there were 25 T.A.'s for that class alone. All graduate students. By the end of that first year, it was already clear who had it and who didn't.
So yes, I
did get training in educational and classroom practices during my years in graduate school. Not everyone does, I suppose. But then again, at least we know more about the subject than someone with a secondary teaching endorsement does.
Yes, classroom autonomy is a thing. Then again, that's what college teaching is about-- the freedom for the professor to do what s/he feels works best for his/her instructional style, the material at hand, and the course coverage. There is oversight, btw, into what particular courses must cover. I couldn't just opt to teach Faradaic electrochemistry in an upper division Instrumental Analysis course-- because ACS said that wasn't what that course needed to cover.
I
could, however, decide that an "A" in my class meant anything that I liked with respect to demonstration of mastery.
