Set minimum standards for teaching!

Some time ago I happened to attend a meeting of a committee which was discussing an addition to a hospital at a medical school. The school was planning to admit more students. Each student, as an interne, sees seven hospitalized patients daily. It was clearly obvious to the committee that the proposed addition to the hospital must have seven beds for each new student. But bedrooms and wards alone do not make a hospital. There must be operating rooms, x-ray rooms, offices, food service, lockers and lounges for staff, admissions offices, dispensaries and all of the other facilities which are required to care for the sick. These facilities, like the bedrooms and wards, had to meet the standards of the American Medical Association, or the hospital would not be approved and students who were internes in it would have a great difficulty in becoming members of the medical profession. The cost per bed, including a pro-rata allowance for all the other necessary facilities, was estimated to be $35,000.00. Since seven beds per student interne were needed, this meant a capital outlay of 7 x $35,000 or nearly a quarter of a million dollars per added student.

For somewhat over twenty-five years I have been employed in some phase of public education. In one or another capacity I have visited schools in many parts of the United States. In classroom after classroom equipment was old and outmoded. Books were few and many of the few were worn. The dull color of school brown was dominant in most rooms. Floors were uneven and frequently smeared with oil which kept them permanently dirty. There were often more than forty pupils in a room. Toilet facilities were meager and unattractive. Teachers had no office or work space and often no lounge for privacy. The contrast between what I had seen in schools and teacher-training during the past, and the projected new hospital, is an extremely vivid one. In recent years I have often speculated about the reasons for the differences.

I wonder what would happen if the teachers said, and meant it, we are a profession.