Should teaching require a college degree?

I know I keep saying this, but here I go again. There is nothing that can be learned in school that can't be learned elsewhere. Doors should not be slammed shut on people just because they learned outside of a tightly controlled environment.

In recent years, there have been discussions as to whether or not teachers should require academic credentials in order to join the profession. Obviously, I'm against the requirement.

Acquisition of a degree is insufficient to prove competence. I had credentialed teachers when I was in school. I never had a competent teacher. My teachers knew their job duties, but they knew absolutely nothing about education. Thanks to my experiences, I had a basic understanding of incompetence while I was still in elementary school. By the time I reached high school, I insisted that I knew more about education than anyone at my school. That was not aimed at my classmates. Heck, we have a Secretary of Education right now who doesn't know the difference between learning and memorizing and lacks comprehension of the role the learner plays in the educational process.

On the flip side, not buying a piece of paper does not prove incompetence. Admittedly, I can't exactly prove this. An overwhelming majority of Americans takes education for granted. It's difficult to find anyone these days who knows anything. What I will say is that I didn't graduate college, but I definitely know more than the absolutely nothing typical of credentialed teachers.

Teaching could very well be the worst profession to be credentialed. This is because credentials require an investment of time, money, and effort into the status quo to get a piece of paper from the status quo that says the status quo approves of your views on the status quo. This is perhaps why schools have not changed in any meaningful way over the last century. Credentials do far more to prove loyalty to the status quo than prove educational competence. This is seriously progress inhibitive.

People who understand the problems with the schools and can make a difference are not pursuing credentials. They are not going to invest time, money, and effort into a model they know doesn't work. By requiring academic credentials, we are effectively prohibiting those who have the most to contribute from entering the profession.

Current teachers insist that allowing uncredentialled professionals to teach somehow deprofessionalizes the field. Academic credentials do not measure professionalism. You can buy a piece of paper and still act unprofessionally. Similarly, you can behave professionally without buying a piece of paper.

The reality is that we should pursue the best teachers, not the most credentialed teachers. This is even more true now that they are complaining about a teacher shortage. If they really want more teachers, why is it so important to keep people who can do the job from entering?