What concerns me from what I've heard about teachers needing Masters now to teach is that this continued need to gain more and more qualifications to do the same job.
We are getting professionals more focused on gaining the right pieces of paper, or spending their time on their portfolios rather than actually doing the job - you know teaching kids.
Teaching is not the only profession which is heading this way and I think you will lose those gifted people who value the actual work they do rather than study/career advancement.
Not sure how I feel about the Masters thing. But I would imagine that teaching like any other profession is getting more complex as our global society becomes increasingly complex and our information and understanding on "how to learn stuff effectively" increases.
I'd rather have a teacher that has the right bit of paper than one without. I'm also making a huge and probably erroneous assumption that the teacher is motivated to teach kids (maybe even educate them) rather than pick up a pay cheque and attend a union meeting.
As for the gifted people who value the work they do - they need to be supported and encouraged to undertake further study if that is what is needed. I would have thought that those that enjoy their career are always keen to learn more.
Yes and no
My point is that if you remove people from actually doing their job because of time 'off the floor' then how are they good teachers?
Certain professions such as Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Police, etc need to learn their skills on the job. Actually doing the job dealing with people.
I am seeing so many folk come through my profession that are more than happy doing the training, study, professional development, rather than actually doing the job they came into.
It's horrible seeing my profession peopled by folk who in sit in an office more worried about their portfolio, but never going and talking to the people they are supposed to support.
The most tragic thing is they just don't care because it's only a paper exercise for these people. Thank god I'm getting close to the end of my career because I don't recognize these people coming in as they are idiots.
Professionalism sometimes is a fucking stupid thing. It destroys practical experience and you have a bunch of idiots dealing with some very challenging things.
It scares me how it's going to end up.