About six weeks ago, Amanda Ripley published an article suggesting that it be made more difficult to become a teacher. I’ll add one story.
My colleague at the University of Virginia, Shige Oishi, is, without exaggeration, a brilliant and highly accomplished man. I recently learned that he briefly thought about a career in teaching in Japan. I asked why he didn’t pursue it.
He told me “I wasn’t sure I could do it. The entrance examination is very very difficult. I knew I would have to study at least a year, and then I wasn’t sure I could pass.”