What to look for in a Master’s degree for teachers…
This is a rather difficult and obscure topic. One that is certainly controversial as well, due to the long list of completely varied yet confident explanations people may give.
To get a good idea of what you should look for in a graduate level education today, you will need to do two things. First, you will need to recognize the biggest obstacles education is facing today. Secondly, you will need to have a firm grasp on the basic, underlying concepts for the existance of public education.
To begin with, some of the greatest problems facing education today have to do with the disconnect between our educational curriculum and the jobs that will be in existence once students reach the workforce.
“Knowing what education should be doing in an age in which people are likely to have more than 10 jobs by age 42, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, has greatly complicated matters. Further exacerbating the situation is the projection that the top 10 jobs that will be in demand for today’s students don’t yet exist, and will be using technologies that haven’t been invented to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”
-Education Week, March 30th, 2009
With this in mind, how are we possibly going to correlate curriculum with definitive career paths? Answer: We’re not!
Now, before addressing this conundrum, let’s address the second idea necessary for choosing an appropriate master’s degree in education.
Back to basics… what are we really doing by educating our youth? Quick and easy answer, we are preparing our youth to take over the reigns of the superpower we call the “United States of America”. Now, to truly answer this question we would need a crazy woman who travels with a carnival and stares into a crystal ball; however, since we don’t have one of those on hand, we’ll take a different approach.
At the pace of change in our world due to our free market economy and ability to share information across the globe instantaneously, we know that the skills and knowledge that will be valuable 20 years from now, hasn’t even been invented. Therefore, we know the most important skill students should be endowed with is the ability to adapt and to be creative(innovation is key!).
So, conveniently it appears the answer to both necessary questions driving your research for a master’s in education can be wrapped up in one answer. To both tackle the problems facing us today and to satisfy the underlying concepts for the existence of education is simply… to teach students how to think critically.
As a teacher or one thinking of becoming a teacher, your education should be based around this concept. You need to learn how to teach students how to think critically. In other words, you need to learn how to endow your students with the ability to assess the world around them, to make rational and logical decisions and to create practical solutions.
Sounds simple, but of course, it is anything but simple. Somehow, you need to help foster creativity in a public education system that continues to cut funding for liberal arts in lieu of outdated mathematics. You need to create interest in a system that encourages teachers to force disconnected information into the minds of students. Truly a difficult task.
So, make sure you contact many different schools offering master’s degree programs in education, and learn which programs seem to be a fit for you.