Great Teaching Part 2

The article "What Makes a Great Teacher?" in the Atlantic Monthly was an interesting read. In particular, the actual "secrets" of TFA teachers made me giggle a little bit. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry really, which is a feeling I have when I see almost any media outlet discussing "great teachers." When ABC did a short 2 minute bit spotlighting people that make a difference (2 teachers in this case) I was mildly mortified. Why? Because the reasons they were being spotlighted, much like those in this article, are simply characteristics teachers should embody. Perseverance, willingness to change, commitment, reflection, intelligence, etc are all traits that teachers should have.


None of the secrets revealed in the article were earth shattering to me. In fact, my own "research" (done via discussions with people coming from various teaching programs) shows that most programs stress those secrets to their students. I could get cheeky, but I'll refrain. Of course you want to be frequently checking for understanding. How else will you know if your teaching is being effective? Of course you want to revise your practice. If something is not working, or isn't working well, then you need to spend the time finding a way to make it work for your kids (not for you, but for your kids). Yes, you need to involve kids and parents in the learning. Yes you need to be committed to student success on a very deep level. Certainly you need high expectations. If you went up to 100 educators and asked them if they believe in these ideas, my guess is that at least 90 would agree with all of them. Now do they all actually do these things? I'm not sure what the percentage would be... 60-70%? Actually do them well? Lower than that.

What I found to be amusing was the mental math example in the article. Why? At our New Teacher training on Thursday we were discussing high access/involvement strategies for students. Hand raising is akin to giving kids a ticket to La La Land. As a teacher, you are allowing students to opt into your lesson, while others are allowed to opt out. Earlier in the year I did a mixture of this, along with selecting kids... usually after a prompt of "let's hear from someone we haven't heard from yet." That was part of my whole group instruction, and I did monitor who was involved. I'd then check with those who didn't raise hands as I floated during guided practice or independent work.

In this instance I'd have kids write it on scratch paper and correct with a partner (a mental math partner- done either as ability groups or heterogeneously). We do mental math as our morning warm up 2-3 times a week, and it is a set of 10 problems on the board that they do in a journal we created (construction paper over lined paper) and check with their shoulder partner. I then pull Popsicle sticks to solicit responses. If someone were to get it wrong after checking, then we do a thumbs up/down with another Popsicle stick with someone showing/telling the process and the answer. This allows them to see where they went wrong. In the example the teacher had them shout it out, which does a few things. 1) It could easily be a signal that shouting out (blurting out) is acceptable (low access to learning), 2) It provides little to no information that you can use since you have 20-30 voices going at once. So how are you really checking for understanding?

The last point I wanted to make was about the process. The process "I do, we do, you do" is far from new. What I would have enjoyed is seeing more of the we do, you do in this article. What does the teacher do during guided and independent practice? Are they pulling small groups (using the checks for understanding to reteach)? Is the teacher floating around to table groups? How did they establish the guided/independent routines, assuming they exist in these classrooms?

I feel a bit like I am slamming other teachers, which isn't my intent. But I do find myself a little offended when TFA-ers or KIPP teachers are spotlighted for their "magic" when non-Ivy League, hard working teachers are doing the same things (if not better) and receive no credit. Do I want TV cameras? Truthfully, no since that is another distraction and takes time away from getting kids to standard (and beyond). I simply want a more representative article of the teaching profession.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

We are at Spring Break. Hooray. Breaks are welcomed, not because it is a chance to go on vacation but rather because it is an opportunity to recharge. My current plan is taking Saturday-Wednesday off from all things school, then spending at least one day in the classroom and another doing some planning/grading. How am I doing so far? Pretty good, blog reading aside.

In cleaning out my google reader, I stumbled upon a response to this article in the Atlantic Monthly. As a whole, I'm not really sure where to start. In the big picture, I think articles like these are written for educated people who wonder "what has gone wrong with our schools?" I'm not sure the motives of the Atlantic piece. Is it to make teaching seem accessible to anyone might consider a career change? Is it trying to advocate for a larger economy of scale for programs like Teach for America or KIPP? To be honest, I'm not sure what the motives are.

I'm on record as thinking that those programs (toss in most, if not all, charter schools and the Harlem Children's Zone as well) are not replicable on the broader scale. Using economic terms, which business people can relate to, you would seem to make a good thing great by increasing the economy of scale. You have less of a cost if you expand it to a broader audience. Have those programs had success? In some cases they have, their statistics bear that out. I say "their" because there has been one independent study of teacher efficacy in TFA (showing better math scores than public scores, but negligible gains in reading). Are they as successful as they are purported to be? No.

Keep in mind that charter schools (not TFA) have total control of their population, and have the ability to skim off those students that are low achieving for academic or behavior reasons. Do they say that they do this? Yes and no. In many cases they say that you can be asked to leave the program if you don't abide by their rules, which is essentially a blanket excuse for skimming without actually saying it. Ahhh but where do those "troubled" kids go? They dropout or they end up in public school, exacerbating the disparity. Each kid taken away from the charter school means fewer students in the equation for statistical purposes, while adding one to public schools makes the percentage look a few percentage points worse. In addition, the shelf-life of a TFA or KIPP teacher is typically 3-5 years. A revolving door of teachers is NOT what our public schools need. In my next post I'll look at the micro issues in the article.

Charting a new path?

Cleaning out the blog posts in my google reader, I came across this post. The original op-ed piece can be found here. Now one thing to know up front: the original blog, Schools Matter, is very anti-charter and anti-KIPP. They forward along more stuff about how bad both entities are than I've seen in any blog. That being said, it is interesting to read, and provides interesting prospective. Read the post (as it has the op-ed in it).

Real Problems

I came across this blog post from over at NYC Educator today. Additionally, I went to the link in the post, which can be found here. The crux is that a high school student was shipped from a "public charter school" to a regular public school, largely because of inconvenience to the charter school (with there being many meanings to inconvenience in this case).

As a whole, I am conflicted about charter schools. They must be doing some things right, otherwise they wouldn't be getting all of the publicity saying they are the magic fix (right?!). I also have a friend that is a principal of a new KIPP school on the east coast (and when I say new, I mean just opening this fall... or next week). But, thinking they are the magic fix to our education woes is laughable at best. Additionally, there is a significant issue with regards to the statistical achievements they are often lauded for.

That really isn't the issue here for me. What kills me (no irony intended) is that charter schools can be allowed to ship students off because they are inconvenient. One of the teachers quoted in the secondary link is that many of the students she receives come with incomplete evaluations. What the??? How is that fair by any stretch of the imagination? They cry foul because they don't have the resources?! And the larger public school system does? Really?

Where We Differ

A friend of mine posted a link to Nicholas Kristoff's Sunday Op-Ed in the NY Times. It was titled "Our National Shame" (registration required for the NYTimes... you can try bug me not), with the crux being that education has supplanted health care as the great American crisis. I don't dispute Mr. Kristoff's claim that we need to shift our focus from health care to education, nor that we should be fighting the war on poverty through education. Where I disagree is with his, as well as Arne Duncan and many others', assertion that charter schools (like KIPP) are the solution. The case can, and has been, made that charter schools have results that are no better than public school results. Additionally, the results of programs like KIPP (which certainly are laudable) fail to mention the number of drop-outs from their program, or the struggles of their graduates when they leave the regimented confines of the program (there are two links I am missing, but will find!).

Additionally I always struggle with talk about education and "good teaching." Kristoff mentions "good teaching" and how studies show that "good teachers" make the difference in education. Duh? Would you expect anything different?! Where I am confused is what writers, such as Mr. Kristoff, define as good teaching? What is good pedagogy to you? Everyone says that they want good teachers, and everyone thinks we have agreement, but I am not sure that we have the same believes about what "good" actually is. Good to you might be 100% direct instruction with worksheets related to the great tomes of knowledge our students should know. For me it would be cooperative learning groups where students are constructing knowledge around problems that are kids can relate to. What is good teaching to you?