[CSPS] History teachers vs coaches

[Jonathan Coopersmith]

Am I wrong in thinking that this is a real problem?  Any ideas on how to 
fix it?

         Jonathan

History teacher cut from starting lineup

08:47 PM CDT on Sunday, April 3, 2005
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/education/columnists/jbenton/stories/040405dnmetedcol.53150.html
By JOSHUA BENTON / The Dallas Morning News

I can't promise you Linda Hosey would be a great history teacher.

I've never seen her try to wrangle a classroom of distracted 16-year-olds. 
I've never seen her try to explain the fall of the Bastille or the rise of 
the New Deal.

But I think it's fair to say that her inability to coach offensive linemen 
shouldn't stop her from getting into a classroom.

You see, a few years ago, Linda decided to go back to college in her 40s. 
Living in Lubbock at the time, she enrolled at Texas Tech and became an 
academic star.

She graduated in 2002 with a perfect 4.0 GPA, summa cum laude. She knew she 
wanted to be a social studies teacher, so she majored in economics and 
minored in history. She did stints as an apprentice teacher, she took a 
rigorous course schedule, and she got all her necessary certifications. And 
having school-aged kids, she'd spent years as a PTA mom.

"I wanted to make a difference in young people's lives," she says.

Which is why it came as a surprise to her that, when she started applying 
for teaching jobs at North Texas high schools, she got the cold shoulder.

"Everyone I talked to said their social studies jobs were set aside for 
coaches," she says. "If I wasn't a coach, I didn't have a chance. I 
couldn't even get an interview."

Linda isn't alone. "I think it's extremely common," said Shannon Pugh, a 
history teacher at W.T. White High and past president of the Dallas Council 
for the Social Studies. "There's been this perception that anybody can 
teach history."

Just hand them a textbook and tell them at what year to start reciting 
facts, I suppose.

I pulled together some data for North Texas high schools to see how many 
teachers in each major subject received side pay for also coaching UIL 
athletics. It turns out that more than one out of every three area social 
studies teachers also coaches.

Proportionally, that's almost four times as many coaches as you find among 
English teachers, and about twice as many as you find among math and 
science teachers.

"We look for teaching ability first," said Linda Massey, a Dallas teacher 
and president of the Texas Council for the Social Studies. "But if there 
happens to be a coaching position that needs to be filled, that's what 
they're going to do."

Now, I'm not saying coaches can't be good teachers. They can be great ones. 
Ms. Pugh says the history-teaching coaches at W.T. White are all wonderful, 
and I don't doubt it.

But is it a good thing if the features we look for in teachers – 
pedagogical ability, strong subject knowledge – somehow rank below ability 
to decode a 1-3-1 zone defense?

"It's appalling," says Peggy Althoff, a school administrator in Colorado 
Springs and vice president of the National Council for the Social Studies. 
"I would hope the top priority is whether they're good teachers. Otherwise 
you're encouraging promising teachers to go do something else."

Linda went to a teacher job fair last spring and tried to talk to as many 
local districts as she could. She said about a dozen of them gave her 
variations on the same theme: Be a coach and we'll think about hiring you.

Last month, she e-mailed one local principal about a possible vacancy for 
the fall. "There will probably not be any additional openings in SS [social 
studies] this year," the principal wrote back. "The need to have coaches 
has already filled SS."

Her daughters started telling Linda that maybe she should give in and learn 
a sport. Golf can't be that hard, right?

"But I'm 47 years old and I don't know anything about sports," she said. "I 
shouldn't have to be a coach to teach history. I shouldn't have to be a 
coach to teach economics."

Some say the situation will improve over time, since Texas schools are now 
being evaluated for their students' performance on the social studies TAKS. 
That creates an incentive for schools to worry about history more than 
before. But the test has proved so easy to pass that I doubt it's increased 
the attention to social studies more than a smidge.

When I started calling administrators for this column, it was remarkable 
how quickly they said they didn't want their name in the paper. "I can't 
believe they'd say it out loud," one top local social studies administrator 
said before insisting on her name being kept quiet. "I know it happens, but 
I can't believe they'd say it out loud."

Will Linda Hosey be a great teacher? History will tell. But we'll never 
find out if no one gives her a shot.


Jonathan Coopersmith
Associate Professor
Dept. of History
MS 4236
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas  77843
979.845.8584
979.862.4314 fax

Secretary
History & Philosophy of Science Section (L)
American Association for the Advancement of Science
aaas.org 
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