By Dr. H. Koya, JD., Fell. AIM

We note with deepening concern that there is a significant shortage of qualified teachers in the US.

What is more concerning is that there is no proper teacher and training institute or agency that can train teachers. Mere graduate or undergraduate degree in itself is no qualification in this highly demanding and specialized profession.

However, there are also available thousands if not millions of well qualified and highly experienced teachers, instructors and professors among the immigrant communities who cannot get a teaching position.

CBEST most ridiculous stumbling block

CBEST does not give you any teaching skills but it is mandatory to obtain a pass in single or multiple subjects which you may already may have achieved in your degree programs. It is a repetition, waste of time and money and fails to equip you with teaching skills.

Teaching skills require identifying educational needs of the students, writing up a teaching program to translate those needs and into teaching objectives, develop a method of teaching (presentation and class participation).

It must address also all related issues including:

1. Students present level of education to determine where they are and where you want to take them – planning.
2. Limitations both of students’ own ability to grasp and medical, social and psychological factors.
3. How to address these issues as part of teaching skills.
4. How to tap into team work to inspire students help one another to be  on the same page.
5. How to turn and negative, disruptive behavior into a positive and winning attitude to achieve success.
6. How to prepare each subject covered during the 6 to 7 hour classes on indifferent subject.
7. How to add clarity to your presentation with specificity to enable students to see what they will be learning, what exactly you will teach in that period and at the end what they will exactly learn with a feed back.
8. These are just a few skills which every teach MUST possess before being given “license” to step into a class and teach.
9. CBEST does not do this. It is a shame, scam and roadblock for immigrant communities to into the teaching field.
10. AIM is, therefore, launching AMERICAN TEACHING ACADEMY to address all these issues and produce truly qualified teachers and make the significant difference to the noble teaching profession.