The New York Times has taken on the topic of teacher-preparation programs in a post for its ongoing Room for Debate blog.
In the post, “Frustrated Early Childhood Teacher” characterizes some teacher coursework offered by education schools as “laughable.” For instance, this teacher writes, she (or he?) once attended a training session hoping to learn about how to increase literacy among English-language learners and went away disappointed that the session had ended with an activity of making caterpillars out of egg cartons. She considered the session a waste of time.