'We want to be paid a living wage': Graduate student workers at UIC go on strike

[JT45242]

8. The university system needs overhauled

They are not qualified to teach (nor are most professors) ...knowledge does not equal pedagogical content knowledge (training in how to teach content knowledge).

The university system charges huge sums of money to students the first two years and puts students in huge lecture halls to be talked at (not really taught). This system leads to either lowered expectations, students (customers of the system) teaching themselves , or students doing poorly and pushed out of the system with debt but no degree to offset the cost.

They should be trained as teachers not researchers if you are going to give them that title and responsibility to teach paying customers. Because they could not be hired to teach those college freshmen if they were seated in a high school class. They could not even be hired to teach a dual enrollment course with credit in both HS and college transcripts because they do not have a teaching credential.

All for unions. But as a 20 year teacher and now an educational researcher, I would put the students first in terms of qualifications on those teaching assistants. Electrician unions don't pay apprentices more than fully qualified electricians. College TA should not be paid more than fully qualified k-12 teachers.