Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

"
March 7, 2010
Building a Better Teacher

By ELIZABETH GREEN
ON A WINTER DAY five years ago, Doug Lemov realized he had a problem. After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder, he was working as a consultant, hired by troubled schools eager � desperate, in some cases � for Lemov to tell them what to do to get better. There was no shortage of prescriptions at the time for how to cure the poor performance that plagued so many American schools. Proponents of No Child Left Behind saw standardized testing as a solution. President Bush also championed a billion-dollar program to encourage schools to adopt reading curriculums with an emphasis on phonics. Others argued for smaller classes or more parental involvement or more state financing.

Lemov himself pushed for data-driven programs that would diagnose individual students� strengths and weaknesses. But as he went from school to school that winter, he was getting the sinking feeling that there was something deeper he wasn�t reaching. On that particular day, he made a depressing visit to a school in Syracuse, N.Y., that was like so many he�d seen before: �a dispiriting exercise in good people failing,� as he described it to me recently. Sometimes Lemov could diagnose problems as soon as he walked in the door. But not here. Student test scores had dipped so low that administrators worried the state might close down the school. But the teachers seemed to care about their students. They sat down with them on the floor to read and picked activities that should have engaged them. The classes were small. The school had rigorous academic standards and state-of-the-art curriculums and used a software program to analyze test results for each student, pinpointing which skills she still needed to work on.

But when it came to actual teaching, the daily task of getting students to learn, the school floundered. Students disobeyed teachers� instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn�t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting. A single quiet student soldiered on with the problems. As Lemov drove from Syracuse back to his home in Albany, he tried to figure out what he could do to help. He knew how to advise schools to adopt a better curriculum or raise standards or develop better communication channels between teachers and principals. But he realized that he had no clue how to advise schools about their main event: how to teach."

This is a long article - nine pages. But I think you may find it worth your time.
If you do read it, I'd appreciate any responses you might have.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?pagewanted=5&em

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

The article seems to place the lion's share of blame on the teachers and poor technique. But what about poor parenting? Poor discipline, and poor learning, starts at home. If mummy and daddy can't do the job, then a hair-cut and a spell in the Army would sort out half these kids better than touchy-feely classroom management.

[gaijinalways]

Sasha raises a good point, which I have observed as a similar problem in Japan. Many university students here don't behave well and of course, they have the advantage (or disadvantage) of being older when they should know better. Of course, for these classes you would think you wouldn't need to spend a lot of time on class management/control, but sometimes it works out being far too much. The ideal of student centered classes doesn't always translate well into practice here. Stories of students who lie to Mommy and Daddy about attending classes, missing deadlines, etc.. happen too often.

I will raise one additional point, I'm not sure going into military service would solve behavioral problems. I feel that military service can sometimes have the opposite effect, more akin to fundamentalist religious training where different but equally disturbing behavioral problems such as subservience and a robotic devotion may arise. We don't want to trade one set of problems for another. That being said, military 'training' and public education are not for everyone.

[gaijinalways]

[b]Johnslat/b],

Sorry, I also wanted to add that article is interesting and makes a very valid point, especially the part about teaching knowledge and how it differs from general subject knowledge (the math examples were good ones). I also want to take a look at the videos when I have a chance, though a lot of what they mentioned as techniques are common knowledge but sometimes it's easy to forget to implement them in your day to day work.

[Sadebugo]

Unfortunately, nothing can really be done about this problem until education is more valued by the relevant culture and/or families instill this in their children. Teachers weren't better 50 years ago, but seem to have accomplished more with their students. IMHO, the problem is not with education but with our society and the failure in educational results is just a symptom.

Sadebugo
http://travldawrld.blogspot.com/

[johnslat]

Dear Sadebugo,

I agree - but holding society as a whole (hole?) responsible shouldn't mean that we, as teachers, shouldn't try to find and practice the best teaching methods that we can find - ones that actually work (at least most of the time.)

Regards,
John

[Sadebugo]

[Molson]

I found that article to be very intersting. I am not American and as a Canadian our approach to teacher education is somewhat different. However, I have concluded that most teacher education programs are just cash cows for universities and thus their primary focus is on money, rather than on properly training teachers.

I taught for 10 years before going into a teacher training program, and 90% of what they did in that program was complete BS. The article is correct: it is like 80% of the people teaching who have had no classroom experience or none in the past twenty years. Education is constantly changing and today's student is VASTLY different than the one of twenty years ago! One of the supervisors for my practicum had not taught in over 15 years as she had been an administrator before coming to work for the university. She had no clue what a classroom today looks like. Universities employing people like her are a huge problem.

I am currently teaching middle and high school English literature. I find that many of my grade 7s have really weak English skills, and I think one reason for that is their elementary teachers had really weak English skills or a lack of how to teach language arts. A good teacher could have strengthed their language skills; however, these students are struggling. It has made me think that elementary teachers should either be working harder to improve areas they are weak in, such as the teacher weak in math, or they need speciality teachers to teach the various sections within the elementary curriculum.

I did wonder though, that journalism major quoted the name of a book, instead of using italics or underlining it...was that intentional?

[Sashadroogie]

[powerrose]

I really, really, really enjoyed this article. I did see a little teacher bashing, as "clearing our schools of dead weight" hysteria seems to have gripped the nation. But, this article has answered a question I've had for a long time: where do you learn to teach!?

Ever since I started teaching, I've kept an eye out for these so-called excellent teachers. The closest I've ever come was doing my CELTA, because they were constantly bombarding you with minutea to use in the classroom, which is really what we need. All the subject knowledge and educational philosophy in the world mean squat when it comes to running the classroom.

I definitely intend the buy Doug Lemov's book and enjoyed watching the videos. I took them all into the class with me this week with some good results.

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

I think you're being a bit too defensive about this:

"I think one reason for that is their elementary teachers had really weak English skills or a lack of how to teach language arts." (emphasis added)


"Blaming teachers won't change a thing."

Molson wrote "one reason," and perhaps you've been more fortunate than I, but I've certainly encountered some teachers VERY "weak" in English skills and/or in how to teach language arts.

There have been certain teachers I've hated to "follow" at the next level because I've known that their students would lack a lot of the necessary information that they didn't get from those teachers.

Regards,
John

[gaijinalways]

I hear John. I had a previous job where I got a class from a fellow who didn't use the book the whole semester and spent 50-60% of the classes practicing his Japanese. It was a real struggle dealing with some bad study habits and keeping us on track learning 'English' of all things.

[Molson]

[johnslat]

Dear Molson,

"It is harder to get a student out of a bad habit then to teach them a new habit. "

Indeed, it is - those ingrained bad habits are almost impossible to eradicate.

"However, how do I tell my principal that the elementary teachers aren't doing their job properly without making enemies? No one likes to be told they aren't doing their job properly, even if it is the truth."

Ah, there's the rub. Making it a specific complaint (i.e. naming names) is likely NOT a good idea. But could you make it a general complaint, with the student production (chock full of structure and grammar errors that should have been addressed at those lower levels) on hand as illustration?

But I'm afraid that probably wouldn't accomplish much, if any, good, either. And, once the word got out, guess who would be the object of those elementary teachers' scorn and dislike.

Sorry,
John

[natsume]

Great read, and very thought provoking for me as I consider both my own teaching pedagogy and my attitudes going into a teacher training program, either secondary English or TESOL, about the kind of training I should be expecting or looking for from a program. I took a course on Educational Psychology, and many of the pedegogical practices highlighted as taxonomies here were covered under "classroom management" strategies, but it was not quite as thoroughly systematized as these educators are doing it.