WGU Master in Education - Review

[nykorn]

Well it is a Master's so most students should have experience as an educator, running a classroom. And what better way to learn how to teach, than hands-on? And WGU has some way of quality-assurance for the people who wnat to become teachers. If you fail, you propably will think twice if this is the reak careerpath for you.

But I do understand that studentteaching and other kinds of internships are frustrating for people, woh only want the Diploma, with no intend to teach. I do ask the question, why anyone should do that master's if they don' t want to teach.

That is incorrect. National laws for emergency teacher shortages dictate that anyone with a Bachelor's degree (in any subject) and with a clean background check can teach at public schools without having had any Education credits or teaching experience whatsoever. That's probably why most of the Masters in Teaching in America -- including ones at WGU -- are open to anyone, with any subject of Bachelor's degree and with no teaching experience expected or required. This is not the case in Europe, where it seems you are living.

As I said in the first post, you can use a degree in Education to teach without teaching children. Teaching adults and teaching children are incredibly different experiences. You can also use a degree to go teach in another culture or a private school where the issues in the American classroom (such as kids being several grades behind) do not exist. Having difficulties in an American public school does not mean that you don't want to teach in general.

People who do student teaching at something like a rich boarding school are going to have a very different experience from someone doing it at a low income public school. People who student teach kindergarteners will have a different experience from someone teaching 10th grade. People who teach in a state where corporal punishment at schools is allowed will likely have a different experience too. You can't choose your placement or your mentor teacher. Some schools and mentor teachers are much better than others. Just because you yourself had a great class and great mentor teacher during your student teaching, doesn't mean all other people will. You can go read about plenty of people who had bad experiences doing student teaching, and why they had them, and the times when it was not the student teacher's fault.