Building A Better Teacher

[jazzbo]

Published: March 2, 2010 There are more than three million teachers in the United States, and Doug Lemov is trying to prove that he can teach them to be better.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine...ml?ref=magazine -- after going here, use the 'Single Page' formt... FYI for Scott

[phetaroi]

As a principal in the States for 7 years before retirement (and as an AP for many years before that), one of the things that I learned was that, in general, teachers hate learning about learning.

A few preliminary comments. First, I was a teacher for 13 years, and while I hated poor inservices or poor college courses, show me a good inservice or college course and I was very open to learning. Second, the school at which I was a principal/AP was one of the top middle schools in the state of Virginia. What our school suffered from (as well as in many ways benefited from) was being a gifted center in a mostly affluent neighborhood. For students who were gifted (fairly broad definition) or affluent, we were number 1 or 2 out of 22 middle schools in our system, and usually in the top 10 in the state...in terms of test scores, etc. Our smaller groups of students -- Blacks, Latinos, special education -- oops...we often scored below the county average and state average.

And before I go on, let me be clear, I knew principals and assistant principals who were pretty dense about things, and if it were a different topic, I'd be happy to outline just how poor administrators can be. So this is NOT a condemn the teachers thread.

"I taught it, they just didn't learn it."

Math teacher: "I don't care if they don't have the basics when they get to our school. I still start teaching Algebra where I've always started. It's their problem."

Math teacher: "The high failure rate is because they're not good students. We just don't have students like we used to." (My response..."But you've been saying the same thing for the past 7 years").

Math teacher: "We don't need to look at whether or not there's a problem here. There's nothing wrong with the success rate at this school. Look at Jack's students. 100% pass rate." (My response..."Why are you telling me about Jack's students, when we're talking about your student failure rate, which is a whopping 34%?").

Spanish teacher to parents in April when she is trying to register students to have a full teaching load: "Every student should take a foreign language. Every student can be successful at a foreign language."

Same Spanish teacher to about 15% of those same parents in late October: "He just needs to drop the subject."

Same Spanish teacher to the principal: "Look, I've got to keep up my reputation with the high school foreign language department. They know I only sent them top notch students."

History teacher: "I know the Civil War's not in my curriculum. I know we start this course after Reconstruction. But Gettysburg is such a fun day trip."

English teacher: "Who cares about relevancy? I've been teaching that same novel for over 30 years now."

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that these are real comments by just a small sampling of teachers who don't quite get what it's all about. The I wanna teach the way I wanna teach, whether it's effective or not brigade. And again, if you want to chat about ineffective and bumbling administrators, I'll be happy to tell you horror stories about them, too.

So, there's little question that inservice in schools is necessary. And I think there are two basic thrusts of inservices -- change in attitude inservices and improving teaching skills inservices.

When I transitioned from AP to principal, because of our poor test scores with minority students, the first priority was changing staff attitudes toward minority students. Our business partner was a major, upscale multinational company that did consulting work for nations and other companies all over the world. I went to them about our opening inservice for teachers on the first day teachers were back from summer vacation. "Here's my goal...how can you help me." They gave us their state of the art auditorium for the day at their international headquarters (which happened to be just about 3 miles from our school). They catered breakfast and lunch. They gave us a handful of powerful in-company management speakers -- all of whom were executive and minority -- all with the theme of how international companies want a diverse work force...and a work force that includes only people who are comfortable working in workgroups ("very few modern companies want individual working at their own desk...it takes a team to complete major projects"). Then my closing speakers were a Black assistant superintendent with a very compelling personal story and a nationally known Black linguistics professor, also with a very compelling personal story. For once there were no complaints about a boring inservice day. The staff was overwhelmed by the ambiance of the company's facilities, and couldn't help but be impressed by the speakers. Yet there were some odd reactions by teachers:

"Vince, did you notice that all the speakers were Black or Latino?"

"So I guess we gotta pay attention to our Black and Latino students now?" (Interesting what that implies).

"Vince, this was all forced on you, wasn't it? We're not really going to have to work harder with our Black and Latino students, are we?"

Then there was the time the science department called me down to one of their meetings...their topic complaining about the mainstreaming of special education students. Now here I have a lot of sympathy for the teacher perspective. I agree that far too many students were mainstreamed (e.g., the autistic student who kept biting chunks out of other students arms, the mildly mentally retarded student who was placed in algebra because her mother appealed to the superintendent...and won). "If the county is going to put all these special ed kids in our classes, why aren't they helping us learn how to deal with them?" Of course, a very fair question. I reviewed with them all the opportunities they had. The system would pay for a course a year at any university...and there are some pretty expensive universities in the Washington metro area. The system offered free half-day and full-day inservices for which the teacher could get a substitute and go on a regular work day. "But Vince, when we take a recertification class, we wanna take one that's fun and not any work." Okay, so much for wanting to learn how to teacher the mainstreamed students.

The county spent the money to call teachers back to work, with full extra pay, a couple of days early for inservices. "Look, I need to put up my bulletin boards." "I don't care what the school system expects of me. I just wanna teach the way I've always taught."

The county spent money to have teachers spend a couple of extra days at the end of the school year for inservices. "You know, this really should be at the beginning of the school year." "I wanna get to the beach."

The county allowed us to close school early or start school late two days a year for inservices. I'd pony up money for a free breakfast or lunch. "I just wanna teach. Why we gotta learn something new?"

If the administration (at the school or district level) planned the inservices, the complaint was, "Why don't they let us decide what we need to learn about?"

If I offered to let the teachers plan the inservice, the complaint was, "Why, that's extra work."

I could go on, but before we can train teachers to improve their skills...that helps students to improve their skills...we have to figure out how to get teachers to understand that part of the professionalism of an educator is appreciating learning as a worthwhile endeavor, no matter what your age. An understanding that a teacher's primary responsibility is to lead students to achieve, which is not always the same thing as teaching the way they want. An understanding that when you have someone not achieving that there is usually a way to turn that around, but that is the real challenge in being a teacher.

[jazzbo]

Condense to 150 words and you can send your 'first person' letter / reply here:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/he...ertoeditor.html

Letters for publication should be no longer than 150 words, must refer to an article that has appeared within the last seven days, and must include the writer's address and phone numbers. No attachments, please.

[markg]

Thanks for this link guys.

I've recenly completed a 3 year study into classroom management, student behaviour and positive behaviour management.

I am a big fan of positive management - highlighting the good things that are happening instead of focusing on the bad. The article makes some mention of this. Give it a try, you've nothing to lose and everything to gain.

[Daren]

That's a good tip, markg. Do you have any specific things to try or ideas to focus on? For instance, I have a student which is pretty rotten most of the time. However when he does something to help out, I make sure to give him sincere praise. Is there anything more I could do to help him improve?

[markg]

That's a good tip, markg. Do you have any specific things to try or ideas to focus on? For instance, I have a student which is pretty rotten most of the time. However when he does something to help out, I make sure to give him sincere praise. Is there anything more I could do to help him improve?

Yep, read pages 4 and 5 of the article above, particularly the bit about the kid leafing through his folder and how the teacher manages to get all the students to get out their books and pencils. The teacher praises the first kid to do this, and with a herd mentality, the rest follow.

Prasing the kids for doing 'anything' good and using what's known as 'planned ignoring' of bad behaviour really can work. No guarantees of course - if there were, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

As a spin off, continued praising of students makes YOU feel good. Personally, constanly jumping on kids for being bad eats away at me like a stomach ulcer. I have to do it sometimes of course, but i dislike it.............and what is more, constant punishment doesnt work in the long run.

Try to get something from Lee Canter on Positive Behaviour Management strategies. Canter has been at the forefront of this field for decades.