Professional Knowledge vs. Subject Knowledge

Which is more important for a teacher to have, professional knowledge (how to teach, strategies etc.) or subject knowledge (content)?

We discussed this topic in great lengths today and everyone felt that professional knowledge was more important. This is for several reasons.

First of all, in my opinion, it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have if you are not able to teach it. It was brought up in class today that a lot of our worst experiences in classrooms were simply because the teacher was too smart!! That may sound silly, but if teachers cannot dumb it down for students, or explain to them their strategies for finding solutions etc. in the first place, then the knowledege is virtually useless to anyone but them.

One may also try and argue the reverse I suppose, that knowing how to teach doesn't make much sense if you don't know what you're teaching, but I think that this is much less of a problem than the former. Im pretty sure that most of us are quite capable of teaching ourselves the knowledge we need know in order to teach our students. You research, and use your resources, such as other teachers, curriulum guides, textbooks, the internet etc. Also, were we not taught that "To Teach Is To Learn" in the first place? So what if you don't know a whole lot about a certain subject! Perhaps it is an inquiry project that you can do with your students, and therefore you'll all learn something new! Im sure we all know how to research, so this really shouldn't be that difficult.

On the flip side, I believe that trying to gain professional knowledge would be much more difficult. Not impossible, but I dont think that there are as many resources to turn to in this case. I also think that for some people, you really need to be able to experience these things hands on, as students, like we are now. This is why most of our professors model our classes like elementary classes. In this respect I believe that the 2 years we are spending in our Education After Degree right now are priceless. That is what methods classes are for, as well as our student teaching. You use THIS time to experiement and learn what works best for you. For example, you learn 10 different strategies, and then during student teaching, see which ones work the best. That is what these two years SHOULD be used for, and I think it is very important to have an idea of these things before you have you own classroom. This is not to say that you won't continue to experiment, as every child and class is different, but it is maybe not practical to assume that it will be as easy at a later date.

Of course there are other things to be considered as well. For example, senior years teachers need to know much more content knowledge because they usually only teach a couple of things. Elementary teachers on the other hand, need to know at least a little about everything because they teach almost everything! Does this change the argument? Maybe a little, but I still believe the same reasons for my position apply here as well. The best answer to this question is probably that they are equally important. Having a balance between the two will make you the best teacher that you can be, and we should be life long learners, constantly striving for this.