It takes a lot of training to be a teacher.
A lot of the stuff they teach in ed schools has little to do with the training. The number of 'specialists' I've sat and listened and thought, "Full of s**t" is amazing.
fMRI scans that say nothing like what the researcher says they mean. Linguistic theories that haven't been widely accepted for the last 45 years touted as "cutting edge." Statistical treatments of phonemic awareness that talk about phonics but nothing about phonology or even phonemes.
Experiments touted as valid and statistically sound, done on two students in two settings. In other words, experiments that were utterly meaningless and statistically useless. Researchers to who into anaphylactic shock when you say, "Was there a control?"
This has nothing to do with being a teacher. This has to do with publishing as advocacy, publishing to make a point of power instead of helping to teach, struggling to find something that can make a difference while getting tenure instead of saying that most current trends are either well-known facts based on a century of teaching experience or soured tripe from decades past warmed over and served with a fresh garnish and a new name. "21st century learning," "brain-based learning," "data-driven approaches." As one teacher said to an administrator citing data, "Even meangingless or corrupt data are still data."
New things--innovative use of technology in flipping classrooms, that sort of thing--tend to come from teachers. Teachers tend to get a bit of classroom management training, some pedagogical techniques from veterans, and then are mostly trained in the classroom. As opposed to getting M.Ed. or PhDs.
And even then, "flipping the classroom" was what I observed as a student in the '60s and '70s. At the time instead of watching a video at home we were told to "read the textbook." Same idea. Warmed over and served with a fresh garnish.
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