What makes a great teacher? Part II
February 22, 2010 - 4:47pm
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If student learning cannot be evaluated, then I agree that teacher performance, likewise, cannot be evaluated.
But, if student learning can be evaluated -- then teacher performance can also be evaluated.
Great teachers typically view their work in one of the following 5 ways:
1. Teaching as a way of being.
2. Teaching as a creative endeavour.
3. Teaching as a live performance.
4. Teaching as a form of empowerment.
5. Teaching as an opportunity to serve.
On the subject of evaluation, these things vary from province to province. But in all cases teachers are considered as professionals and belong to self-regulating bodies (as do doctors, lawyers, ...). So, in order to understand teacher evaluation, one must consult what the professional bodies do. In BC that is the BCTF. (BC Teachers Federation)
Be cautioned that all right wingers, almost without exception, have a visceral and undying hatred for this organization. See also Solidarity Coalition, Operation Solidarity, and the lengthy history of antagonistic relations between various neo-liberal regimes in BC and the legendary teachers' organization.
In addition to the professional body, the BCTF, there is also in BC the BC College of Teachers. The College also deals with teacher evaluation and certification. The BCCT was created, back in the late 80's or early 90's, by one of those neo-liberal regimes in BC history.
Any idiot who really wants to know about teacher evaluation should start with these 2 organizations. At least in BC. Other provinces vary.
Well I think if we can rate the supreme idiots running our countries into the ground over the last 30 years, then whoever was responsible for educating them should be good candidates for assessment. Break out the red markers.
The purpose of identifying the common characteristics of a "great teacher" is to use that understanding when recruiting and hiring new teachers. If those characteristics are shared by great teachers, then new recruits who possess those same characteristics (relative to new recruits who do not) will have a higher probability of being great teachers themselves.
This does not mean that a teacher is automatically a "great teacher" simply by possessing those characteristics (see N.Beltov's list above). Rather, to be a "great teacher," a teacher has to actually deliver significant and positive educational results.
So, the "great teacher characteristics" can be very useful in the recruiting and hiring process. But, once hired, a teacher's merit should be measured by results.
So, in order to understand teacher evaluation, one must consult what the professional bodies do. In BC that is the BCTF. (BC Teachers Federation)
But, as Timebandit correctly pointed out in the original thread, there is an inherent conflict of interest between a union's role in protecting its members (which, to be honest, is its primary, if not sole, purpose for existing) and in setting the standard for proper conduct.
When looking at potential police misconduct, we don't just turn the matter over to the police union to decide whether or not there was police misconduct!! Properly, there is (or should be) civilian oversight.
Well I think if we can rate the supreme idiots running our countries into the ground over the last 30 years, then whoever was responsible for educating them should be good candidates for assessment. Break out the red markers.
Keep in mind that assessing the assessments is also on the agenda. The feverish proponents of endless testing have, by their misplaced enthusiasm, seen to that.
I would ask teachers to develop their own forms of evaluation and feedback with their students.
See police union example above (the fox guarding the hen house, as it were).
Getting back to "great teacher characteristics" as discussed in the Atlantic article, is there any agreement here that determining those characteristics for use in the recruiting and hiring process has potential value?
But, as Timebandit correctly pointed out in the original thread, there is an inherent conflict of interest between a union's role in protecting its members (which, to be honest, is its primary, if not sole, purpose for existing) and in setting the standard for proper conduct.
Not necessarily. I replaced an incompetent instructor whose position was to some degree protected by something like 15-20 years of seniority. My boss, a union brother incidentally, had to go to great lengths to have this guy removed, but he was removed. The guy was eventually given a permanent medical leave.
Getting back to "great teacher characteristics" as discussed in the Atlantic article, is there any agreement here that determining those characteristics for use in the recruiting and hiring process has potential value?
What do you think job interviews are for? Teaching is like any other job; those who hire look beyond paper credentials and try to assess how good a teacher will become by using all sorts of different means of assessment.
Getting back to "great teacher characteristics" as discussed in the Atlantic article, is there any agreement here that determining those characteristics for use in the recruiting and hiring process has potential value?
What do you think job interviews are for? Teaching is like any other job; those who hire look beyond paper credentials and try to assess how good a teacher will become by using all sorts of different means of assessment.
I agree. I'm just thinking that some posters may not even like using "great teacher characteristics" for even that limited (but useful) purpose.
Why do I think that? Because admitting there are "great teachers" necessarily means admitting there are teachers who are not "great teachers" (i.e., middlin' teachers and poor teachers). And, for some, that's a very dangerous thing to acknowledge.
Are we finally getting to the point of all this? Who are these "some" to whom you refer?
Are we finally getting to the point of all this? Who are these "some" to whom you refer?
Although I would be happy to hear directly from him, I would guess that N.Beltov, for example, thinks that classifying teachers into "great," "middlin'," and "poor" would be dangerous to union solidarity -- and, therefore, something to be avoided.
And unions are at the root cause of neoliberal economic meltdown, we can be sure. Maybe we should be grading banksters and corporate stooges in central planning for doing lousy jobs. And they should be cutoff the taxpayer's dole for anything below a B grade, which should cover most of our corrupt stooges and over-compensated "captains of industry."
We could have people wear special badges to show their levels of production and contributions to society, and uniforms to separate valued and valuable people from the worthless drones who produce little.
Sven, you're on to something here.
Excellent idea, al-Q. Special colour coded badges all around. And slave wages as disincentive for useless eaters. Efficiency and productivity should be engrained in the system. We're all on the same page in this thread, say no more. Because standardized education should produce standard people so they can get out there in the real world and produce standardized widgets at a standard rate of profit. Because whether we're talking about people or widgets, we're really talking about the same things.
Here are some schools in which superlative teacher quality appears to be a key focus. The schools (three charter schools in Harlem) gives the teachers enormous autonomy and support while still holding them accountable for delivering results.
These schools look like wonderful places to be a student.
From the previous thread:
Then theoretically, education may be PERFECT exactly as-is, and we just have to wait for the results to "come out". Or not. I guess we'll have to wait 5 or 10 years to know.
I'm not suggesting we abandon them, but at the same time, if we're willing to leave the teaching of creativity and critical thinking to chance (in other words, we're satisfied that maybe students did learn and maybe they didn't, but we're not going to bother trying to verify this, and so we're not going to know how to teach this any more effectively... assuming we're teaching it effectively at all) then I really have to wonder how important they really are. Evidently, important enough to say "this is important", but nothing more.
In my many years as a student I had more good teachers than I had bad ones. I can say the best ones were incredibly diverse. The bad ones, at least in my public school experience, all had one thing in common, poor classroom management skills.
I have had the privilege to teach sporting skills (tennis, racquetball and chess) as well as at the university level (history and university success skills). Looking back ther are some courses in which I was a good teacher and other courses in which I was not a very good teacher. When I did my B.Ed. the Chair of the Department emphasized that the purpose of the programme was to produce teachers well-started. Teaching like any other craft is one which needs to be honed. Teachers themselves evolve over time as they develop their pedagogical self.
All this is towards saying that I am skeptical that one can truly enumerate the characteristics of good teachers.
As a parent of two children in inner city schools, and a member of the Parent School Support Committees at each school, now running 8 years at an elementary school, I have seen clearly that the strongest correlation with student success is socio-economic class. This was just as true when I was a student at these schools 35+ years ago.
I like this quote from the article Sven just posted
Good observation, Caissa.
Bowles and Gintis demonstrated that truth - that student success is strongly correlated with social class or, what the sociologists coyishly call "socio-economic status" - long ago and I don't think anyone has refuted it. [The claim in an article by Bowles and Gintis is that years of schooling are strongly associated with parental "SES". ]
There are plenty of people - liberals and conservatives - who ignore their analysis. The reasons are rather obvious.
Bowles and Gintis on Schooling in Capitalist America
Basically, these two show that since the 19th century, "educational reform" has been about 2 things: equality of opportunity and social control. School is done TO and FOR the poor, for example. Here is a quote:
"... the system today allows the well-to-do to perpetuate in the name of equality of opportunity, an arrangement that consistently yields them disproportional advantages, while thwarting the needs and aspirations of the working people of the U.S.."
It's a very good idea to contextualize discussions like this one about "great" teachers so as not to individualize discussions of education and thereby miss the forest for the trees. Thanks for the reminder, Caissa.
I like this quote from the article Sven just posted
That doesn't surprise me at all. I think great teachers are driven by passion for their students, a desire for excellence, an interest in overcoming challenges, and many other positive factors -- not fear.
I think those are the same things which drive most successful professionals.
I didn't realize there was a thread on this, I referenced this article in the Rhode Island thread, here are my thoughts:
************************
There was a good article in a recent issue of The Atlantic on the US social program Teach for America. TFA is set up to get recent university graduates to go teach in inner city schools that can't attract staff for one or two years. They've been at it for a few decades now, and they've collected a wealth of data on the question of what makes a good teacher. It comes with a catch though.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-t...
What they've found is that what makes a good teacher is the "oooooomph", do the applicants have a history of not just being in leadership position, but being useful leaders who get things done? How good is their attitude? That's what makes a great teacher in their experience, and today, due to their better selection criteria, 44% of TFA teachers raise students by over 1.5 grade levels in 1 year.
What's the catch? A huge number of TFA teachers either burn out at the end of the two years, or they burn out even faster and quit after one year. The lesson here, imo, is that even in these worst environments, a teacher can make a difference... however, it has to be the absolutely greatest teachers, and even then it can only be for a very short period of time. It's kind of like the Heisenberg Time-Energy uncertainty principle, yes you can violate conservation of energy, but only for a very short period of time. Here we have the sociology-time uncertainty principle, yes you can repudiate sociological predictions via "hard work", but only for a very short period of time.
TFA gets access to government money, corporate sponsors, and it can select its teachers with very high rate of selectiveness. They've been modulating their criteria for 20 years, and even they cannot reasonably break the sociological shackles these kids find themselves in.
I want you to think some more about this. TFA selects teachers who got into and completed degrees at places like Harvard and Princeton. These are overachieving kids who put in 20 or 30 hours a week of volounteering and extra curricuulars from the age of 13 through 23 while maintaining straight A's in HS. All that, and they get burned out from teaching in inner city schools for just one or two years.
The internets were awash in articles about the US educational system this morning, all of which put these "teacher" threads in context.
The Struggle Against Privatization This Battle is About More Than SchoolsIn Washington State, a movement is developing around announced budget cuts aimed at the public education system--from kindergarten to the university. Just as in other places mentioned in this article, the proposed cuts will hit those who can least afford it. That is, working class families, many of whom are either unemployed or partially employed due to the current capitalist crisis. Also, like the other situations mentioned here, the growing crisis in Washington state is but the latest volley in a battle over the nature of public education the modern United States.
Schooling in Orange JumpsuitsAs I say, high-stakes testing is all about holding someone accountable. Diane Ravitch, writing last week on HuffingtonPost about the recent firing of all 93 teachers, administrators and support staff at the "underperforming" high school in Central Falls, R.I., commented, quoting a blogger called Mrs. Mimi, that "we fire teachers because ‘we can't fire poverty.'"
The "underperforming," low-testing schools - the ones that get shut down, emptied out, metaphorically forced to don the orange jumpsuits - are always in low-income communities, where children struggle against enormous obstacles, at home and on the streets, that schools cannot control. Rather than take a holistic approach to the educational challenges of these communities, rather than mandating smaller class size, the equitable allocation of resources and other changes that would do immediate good, test-pushing pols seek to punish convenient scapegoats, start over and change nothing.
Corporate Barbarians at the Gate: Wal-Mart internships at Detroit SchoolsWhen Jamal, an 11th grade student, arrived at his English class in January of this year, he thought he would be continuing with his reading and analysis of The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is 11th grade reading for the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, a 6-12 high school in Detroit, Michigan . Jamal was sadly mistaken. As he took his seat in class the teacher notified all students that they would be shifting their focus, just for awhile she told them, from the reading and analysis of literature to the construction of a mock ‘resume’ or ‘job application’.
A Challenge to Corporate Feudalism?19,000 California public school teachers have received pink slips and 20,000 students will be turned away from community colleges next fall. Add in thousands more support staff facing layoffs, cutbacks, and shrunken benefit packages and you have a mass of angry students, educators, and workers.
Teachers' unions would obviously resist what's going on in the above articles, hence the reason they have become such clear tagets.
Yea, well, once right-wing atrocities are successful in the US, the (Conservative) 5th columnists in this country bray like mules to import the same horrors here. It's useful to see what's going on in the US for that reason; also, we have the actions and statements of those who resist to guide us.
Here's one parent's struggle to get a child out of writing Ontario's EQAO standardized tests: http://eqaomustdie.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/hello-world/.
From the Ontario College of Teachers:
The Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession are:
Commitment to Students and Student Learning
Members are dedicated in their care and commitment to students. They treat students equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning. Members facilitate the development of students as contributing citizens of Canadian society.
Professional Knowledge
Members strive to be current in their professional knowledge and recognize its relationship to practice. They understand and reflect on student development, learning theory, pedagogy, curriculum, ethics, educational research and related policies and legislation to inform professional judgment in practice.
Professional Practice
Members apply professional knowledge and experience to promote student learning. They use appropriate pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, resources and technology in planning for and responding to the needs of individual students and learning communities. Members refine their professional practice through ongoing inquiry, dialogue and reflection.
Leadership in Learning Communities
Members promote and participate in the creation of collaborative, safe and supportive learning communities. They recognize their shared responsibilities and their leadership roles in order to facilitate student success. Members maintain and uphold the principles of the ethical standards in these learning communities.
Ongoing Professional Learning
Members recognize that a commitment to ongoing professional learning is integral to effective practice and to student learning. Professional practice and self-directed learning are informed by experience, research, collaboration and knowledge.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/
I will state that the public school teachers in my region work with the same degree of professionalism that the teachers in Teach For America do. The main difference is the terminology used by American and Canadian (Ontario) teachers.
Never would I say or write that students from low socio-economic status groups are impossible to teach. A good teacher and school will know that one way to reach the students is to make their school into a community centre where students can participate in creative programs during morning and lunch recesses and after school. Many teachers do volunteer with students at least once per week. One teacher I know teaches African drumming. About 95% of the students are white.
One teacher in the article took it personally when about one-quarter of his students did not pass a standardized test. Something I have learned is not to take things personally. When I teach, I do my best. I have great days and not-so-great days. Yes, I do reflect on my teaching and figure out what I can do better next time. I do talk to other teachers to find out what they do in similar situations. One thing I love about teaching is that I get to have fun with the students. It's a lot of hard work; it's also very rewarding.
Elizebeth Green had a piece in the NYTimes Magazine along the lines of "Can Teachers Be Taught to Teach Better?" or some idiot title like that.
Idiot, I say, because this issue is addressed by Professional Development in every educational system in the world. Idiot as in obvious. Anyway, the article is full of the usual cheerleading for privatization of education, war on teacher unions, charter schools, child abuse (OK - kidding about the last one!) , etc., etc. in the USA but the comments section is full of excellent rebuttals for all of this usual right wing drivel. For whatever reason - perhaps the escalation to mass firings of teachers - the political right in the US is interested in this subject.
I think some babblers have posted userids and passwords to the NYTimes and that may be useful here.
Anyway, here's the article. Check out the comments section. There are hundreds of them.
I read the very lengthy piece. I enjoyed many of the comments.
SD BEd
I read the very lengthy piece. I enjoyed many of the comments.
Here's one of them:
In my experience here in Brasil and as a teacher in a Chicago Public High School for three years I strongly believe that great teachers CAN be cultivated, but this takes patient nurturing. What type of nurturing?
Simone Weil once wrote that "The authentic and pure values-truth, beauty and goodness- in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act."
Great teachers attend to their students as full human beings, not merely as children/adolescents being trained to enter the job market, not merely as vessels to be filled with information. They have cultivated their attention to the world, others, themselves and this shows in their attention to their work.
A second way to nurture great teachers is through teaching teachers the art of dialogue (and there are some great School of Ed. profs. in the US that do this). When students are engaged in problematizing the world they live in, when they are engrossed in examining areas of knowledge with other interlocutors (the teacher included) they are learning how to learn and they are motivated to learn on their own. Teachers and students alike become more involved in the world they live in by calling the world they live in into question. Likewise, when students and teachers are allowed to inquiry into the problematical nature of the areas under study they become more engaged in the actual studying of the area.
The third aspect of cultivating a great teacher is by allowing teachers to diverge from the "quest for certainty" that testing and data collection seek and instead practice what Keats once called ‘negative capability'-the ability to live in mystery, uncertainty and doubt. The teacher/student/knowledge encounter is full of uncertainty/mystery/doubt. We must foster a teacher disposition that is capable of flourishing in this encounter.
Finally, I think that the article shows that teachers must be knowledgeable in their subject areas. Knowledge in this case grants freedom-the freedom to create.
The above may all sound a bit romantic but keep in mind that it is based on years of teaching experience in one of the ‘toughest' public schools in Chicago and in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where class size reaches over 40, sometimes schools lack even water, and parents work days and nights.
We can and must cultivate great teachers. We have no other choice.
Highlights by me.
In my many years as a student I had more good teachers than I had bad ones. I can say the best ones were incredibly diverse. The bad ones, at least in my public school experience, all had one thing in common, poor classroom management skills.
Can you elaborate what you mean here by poor classroom management skills? While I do see how one student who gets the mind to can ruin it for everyone I cringe when I suspect someone is correlating good disipline to good teaching. I am hoping this is not what you mean. This attitude on my part comes from working with one teacher in particular who was adept a keeping the students quiet and bored. She was good at teaching obedience, which is fine if that is your goal. Personally I feel the best classroom managment you can do is to make the learning experience truly engaging(easier said than done I know), for me there is a very important distinction between teaching a respect for learning and teaching obedience.
In general I think being conscious of what we are teaching is an important piece of information missing from this discussion(I'm guessing anyway as I haven't read all of the old thread.). I Just don't know how you can decide what qualities make a good teacher unless you decide what it is you want to teach. Even if you decide you want to teach addition you are always also teaching something else through whatever approach you might use in teaching addition. Let's take individualism vs. co-operation for example. How many people do you know that hated group work in school? How many of them had more than just the occasional token group work assignment in school?
edit: Ok, I read some more, I see Tommy_Paine mentioned it way back around post 15 of the original...but then the union thing became more interesting to everyone. I award 500 points to Tommy.
1. The Standard Reference on Classroom Management - in at least one Faculty of Education in BC - is the book "Classroom Management: A thinking and caring approach" by Barrie Bennett and Peter Smilanich. The contents include:
-effective and ineffective teachers
- why students misbehave
- preventing misbehaviour
- role of cooperative learning
- theory of bumping. See the following link:
www.nipissingu.ca/education/mariacw/EDUC4128/Resources/TheBumpingModel.d...
2. Group work is considered as extremely important. So much so, in fact, that prospective teachers are expected to demonstrate skill in this area themselves ... as a prerequisite, presumably, to teaching others. It really is a very important kind of learning. See the quote above on the use of dialogue, etc.
by way of explanation I grew up with this hanging in my bedroom. I wonder what that was intended to teach me?
2. Group work is considered as extremely important. So much so, in fact, that prospective teachers are expected to demonstrate skill in this area themselves ... as a prerequisite, presumably, to teaching others. It really is a very important kind of learning. See the quote above on the use of dialogue, etc.
Does it have a place in the heirarchy of of skills/competencies/qualities to be fostered in any of the curriculums throughout the country? Is there any kind of prioritization of skill/competencies/qualities to be taught?
Is group work being given more attention now than it has been in the past? I don't remember very much of it during my schooling in the 80's/90's? How far have we come? How effective do you estimate(assuming this would be a terribly difficult thing to objectively test) we general are in nuturing co-operation skills within the public school system?
Here's a kind of lesson plan for Grade 10 on the Struggle for Human Rights. Note the use of group activities in the plan. The example is from BC.
If student learning cannot be evaluated, then I agree that teacher performance, likewise, cannot be evaluated.
But, if student learning can be evaluated -- then teacher performance can also be evaluated.
I am a teacher, and I agree that student learning can and should be evaluated in order to evaluate teachers.
The problem is that effectively evaluating student learning costs time and money. By way of example, I evaluate my students' reading levels at three points during the year. Each time requires three solid days of nothing but one on one assessment - me and a kid, reading aloud, one at a time. I get excellent data from this. The state-mandated standardized reading assessments are complete crap, and test nothing of value. But they are cheap, hence they are used. The state can't or won't pay for an army of teachers to come in and assess students individually, but that is really what is required in order to get accurate data.
I'd love to be able to submit my own data for an evalutation of my effectiveness, but I understand that's the fox guarding the henhouse. I wish the state would send in independent teachers to evaluate my kids thoroughly, so that I could get some independent validation that I'm doing the right thing!
I fight against using standardized tests to measure teacher performance. I don't disagree with the concept of evaluating teacher performance by evaluating student learning -- quite the opposite, I embrace that concept wholeheartedly. But fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests are cheap and inaccurate and no one, least of all professional teachers, should be evaluated on the basis of the crap data those tests produce.
Here's a kind of lesson plan for Grade 10 on the Struggle for Human Rights. Note the use of group activities in the plan. The example is from BC.
Sorry if I ask too many big questions at a time.
Is this a lesson you've tried out in class?
deleted.
double post
I can respect you're desire to be anonymous. Can you at least appreciate my feelings that I haven't actually learned much in this thread?
I like this quotation:
...In my experience here in Brasil and as a teacher in a Chicago Public High School for three years I strongly believe that great teachers CAN be cultivated, but this takes patient nurturing. What type of nurturing?
Great teachers attend to their students as full human beings, not merely as children/adolescents being trained to enter the job market, not merely as vessels to be filled with information. They have cultivated their attention to the world, others, themselves and this shows in their attention to their work.
A second way to nurture great teachers is through teaching teachers the art of dialogue (and there are some great School of Ed. profs. in the US that do this). When students are engaged in problematizing the world they live in, when they are engrossed in examining areas of knowledge with other interlocutors (the teacher included) they are learning how to learn and they are motivated to learn on their own. Teachers and students alike become more involved in the world they live in by calling the world they live in into question. Likewise, when students and teachers are allowed to inquiry into the problematical nature of the areas under study they become more engaged in the actual studying of the area.
The third aspect of cultivating a great teacher is by allowing teachers to diverge from the "quest for certainty" that testing and data collection seek and instead practice what Keats once called ‘negative capability'-the ability to live in mystery, uncertainty and doubt. The teacher/student/knowledge encounter is full of uncertainty/mystery/doubt. We must foster a teacher disposition that is capable of flourishing in this encounter...
...We can and must cultivate great teachers. We have no other choice.
Even though I appreciate diverging from the "quest for certainty," and do so whenever possible, I find that students desire a lot of certainty. This desire can manifest itself in such ways as equating each red mark on a paper with a specific percentage value and wanting to know exacly how many classes they can get away with skipping before their marks become adversely affected.
"Cultivate" is a good way of describing how teachers (and students) are able to improve. We aren't widgets being stamped out of a die (I've had arguments with instructors over this one), but living beings who need weed-free, fertile growing media for us to be able to thrive.
but living beings who need weed-free, fertile growing media for us to be able to thrive.
Can you explain what the metaphorical 'weeds' might be in or did you intend to keep it ambiguous?
Wax on, wax off.
What's Up with All the Teacher Bashing?
A few days ago I had a conversation with a teacher from Ontario who told me that she and her colleagues are facing similar attacks, as if Mike Harris had never left. Things don't seem so bleak here, although our union and management aren't negotiating right now. There are grumblings that we might be out on the ol' picket line come September.
In Nazi occupied France, the fascists "softened up" the population by a vitriolic attack on teachers. Plus ça change, ...
(Stromboulopoulos noted that in Love, Hate, and Propaganda recently.)
What's Up with All the Teacher Bashing?
I think that people are very disappointed with the results of public education, particularly in urban areas.
And, it's not due to a lack of funding.
Education spending over the few decades has far outstripped inflation. Between 1984 and 2004, per-pupil spending in real dollars in the U.S. increased by almost 50% (per-pupil spending exceeded inflation by 49%). In 1970-71, per-pupil expenditures were about $4,000 (in 2006 dollars) and about $9,200 in 2006 (again in 2006 dollars) - that's a 130% increase in real per-pupil spending.
In Washington D.C., total expenditures on public schools a couple of years ago were $1.212 billion for an official enrollment of 49,422 students (that's about $24,000 per pupil - an amount that would pay almost half of a college degree [tuition, books, fees, and room & board] at the University of Minnesota).
Throwing money at the problem will do no good if there are systemic problems. And, a key systemic problem is that teachers are not paid for performance. If two teachers with the same number of years' of experience and the same education qualifications are teaching at the same school, the teachers will likely be paid the same thing, even if one teacher is a stellar instructor and the other teacher only puts in the absolute bare minimum effort to keep his or her job. That's not so much a problem with the teachers as it is a problem with a system which doesn't reward the stellar teachers and doesn't flush out the marginal teachers.
Probably the biggest factor (for good or ill) is parental involvement in their kids' education. But, that's hard to control or even influence. What can be determined is the structure of the system within the four walls of the school. And, the current system, despite gobs of money being thrown at it, is unlikely to deliver the results we should be expecting.
So, I don't think the focus should be on "bashing teachers". Instead, we should be bashing a bloated, inefficient, and ineffective system of teaching.
Introducing "performance based" teaching renumeration is really no better than the fascists. The aim is the same: to attack teachers. All the talk is goddam window dressing.This monstrosity presumes that all neighbourhoods are the same and that, therefore, one dollar spend in a rich neighbourhood has the same effect as a dollar spent in a poor neighbourhood. It doesn't.
...........................
Edited to add: Here in BC and Canada, the Fraser Institute's market idolatry has led that monstrous institution to set up a kind of school ranking that is noisily publicized by the private for-profit newspapers here. All sides, including the extreme right wing "Liberal" regime of Campbell agree that this does more harm than good. Why follow a stupid idea with more of the same?
Why, because someone can make money from it, that's why. And money, not human or child development, is God for some.
.....................................
But rich people love this shit. They want nothing to do with public education, would rather send their little bastards to private schools, and so on. The public system in the USA has been destroyed by this crap. And, 5th columnists and other conservative minded traitors in this country want to import this garbage?
Another Yanqui import that, along with all the frakkin handguns, should be sent back to from whence they came.
Introducing "performance based" teaching renumeration is really no better than the fascists. The aim is the same: to attack teachers.
Actually, it's not. The aim is to get the best possible educational results for the dollars spent.
That's simply propaganda. There are plenty of resources to show the horrific consequences of this sort of terrible policy.The poorer "results" in poor neighbourhoods, for example, reflects on a teacher in such a school through no fault of their own.This fantasy of a level playing field is the same sort of market idolatry that is sending the US educational system to hell.
Do your goddam homework and don't waste the timne of progrssive people with this shit.
The Rouge Forum
The Little Education REport
Performance-based renumeration - based on putting human and child development ahead of market idolatry - for conservative politicians would, however, be a great idea. They'd all be fired. And that would be a good thing.
Sven himself made the greatest argument against performance based remuneration when he wrote:Probably the biggest factor (for good or ill) is parental involvement in their kids' education. But, that's hard to control or even influence.
Sven himself made the greatest argument against performance based remuneration when he wrote:Probably the biggest factor (for good or ill) is parental involvement in their kids' education. But, that's hard to control or even influence.
Actually, that observation would be correct if teachers were irrelevant and the only factor dictating school outcomes was the degree of parental involvement. But, that is clearly not the case.
I'm not going down another debate about teacher efficacy other than to say that the primary influence on students academic success is their parents involvement or lack thereof.
I'm not going down another debate about teacher efficacy other than to say that the primary influence on students academic success is their parents involvement or lack thereof.
With that I totally agree.
Social class is the biggest factor in determining student success.
2. Bowles and Gintis demonstrated that what schools do, above all, is to reproduce social classes that already exist. Look it up.
3. Furthermore, How MUCH schooling children get - elementary, secondary, college, university, is directly connected to parental social class. There are plenty of studies - and some of which are in Cananda - that have demonstrated this.
Social class is the biggest factor in determining student success.
2. Bowles and Gintis demonstrated that what schools do, above all, is to reproduce social classes that already exist. Look it up.
3. Furthermore, How MUCH schooling children get - elementary, secondary, college, university, is directly connected to parental social class. There are plenty of studies - and some of which are in Cananda - that have demonstrated this.
I don't disagree with that and, so, let's stipulte that social class significantly affects (but is not determinative of) educational outcomes.
That may be an argument for why lower class sizes (as an example) may be more appropriate in schools which serve low-income populations (relative to schools which serve higher-income populations). But, that's not an agrument for having stellar teachers compensated at the same rate as slug teachers (or for not getting rid of slug teachers).
The whole thing is premised on some rather empty headed view of "results". Teaching creative and critical thinking are excluded, by definition, because such things are virtually impossible to quantify.That's just one example. The whole shebang goes back to a fetish for testing, endlessly, as though that has anythign to do with actual learning. I could go on.
I'm sorry if I sould a little over the top. To me it's like an imminent attack or invasion of a rather sacred part of what makes Canada great.
The whole thing is premised on some rather empty headed view of "results". Teaching creative and critical thinking are excluded, by definition, because such things are virtually impossible to quantify. That's just one example. The whole shebang goes back to a fetish for testing, endlessly, as though that has anythign to do with actual learning. I could go on.
I think the quality of a teacher depends on both quantitative and qualitative factors.
Making a qualitative assessment is not easy but it can be done. It's not a lot different than making a qualitative assessment of a lawyer's abilities. After working with a lawyer for a while (either as a colleague or across the table from her), I can tell whether the lawyer is skilled, average, or a moron (most are just average). The same is true for physicians, engineers, architects, and, yes, teachers.
We all know from personal experience that there are teachers who are idiots and who have no business being in a classroom. Is that assessment quantitative? No. I had one teacher who, quite properly, ended up being named the Minnesota Teacher of the Year. He was unquestionably superlative as an instructor. At the same time, I had a teacher who did virtually nothing but use up vital classroom oxygen. Everyone who dealt with those two teachers knew what their relative qualitative skills were. It wasn't a big secret.
Making teacher assessments is not easy but it's not even remotely close to being "virtually impossible".
Does anyone have advice for those of us who might be considering teaching?
bump
I have a B.Ed. and have taught at the university level. What sort of advice are you looking for Fidel?
Fidel! I read the previous message you wrote. Congratulations! That is great news. Are you leaning towards teaching or not?
I've only taught a few years and all at the university or adult-education level, so very different from high school or elementary school, but for me it's a very rewarding, very frustrating and very challenging vocation. I can't really offer advice, but it's so exciting that you are making this decision.
Thanks guys. I suppose I am looking to know what to expect at teacher's college at the secondary school level. And anything else related to teaching is fine, too. It doesn't necessarily have to be about high school ed or me. I don't want to takeover the thread for the sake of focusing on my agenda alone. Just thought I'd bump the thread as a reminder to rubberneckers that it does exist, and that it is a possible topic of discussion.
There may be others with more teaching experience than me on Babble. I'll take a stab at this fidel and it may be helpful or not.
By the time I did my education degree I had already taught, chess, tennis and raquetball, as well as Canadian history at the university level. I began this degree after 11 years of pse cilminating with being ABD in my doctoral programme. I had decided I didn't want to be a professor after all and would return to my first love teaching high school.
I completed my B.Ed. at a small school with only 60 of us in my cohort. It was a year of unlearning and learning. I quickly learned that most of what I thought I knew about teaching was based on my preferences as a student. My educational psychology classes were especially eye-opening in this regard. As well it was a year of learning to see with teacher's eyes as opposed to student eyes.Confronting my own educational prejudices was particularly painful although I believe I am a better teacher for having done so.
My B.Ed. included two teaching internships. My first was at the junior high I attended 15 years previously with my former English teacher being my supervising teacher. I taught grade 9 English and social studies. I flourished and loved the experience. In retrospect this is where I began to struggle with classroom management, my least favourite part of teaching. They say that the best classroom maneagtement is well-prepared lessons and knowledge of your field. Teaching 37 minute classes at the grade 9 level halped me to minimize disciplinary issues because the clock would often be my saviour.
My second six week internship was a nightmare. I was teaching 3 different subjects with 3 different supervising teachers in 70 minute classes. One of the subjects I had not taken since I had taken it as a student from my supervising teacher 14 years before. In Ancient and medieval history I was barely staying ahead of the students. My Maritime studies course had the chalenge of students who were struggling with school self-selecting for it. It was considered an easier subject than Ancient and Medieval history. Despite knowing the material , I struggled with adequately planning 70 minute lessons and developing effective classroom management techniques. My third course, Canadian history was a breeze since that was my academic speciality. Ver few classroom management problems and in retrospect I didn't handle those very well.
I guess the takeaway is the importance of developing good classroom management skills. I left my B.Ed. not sure if i wanted to teach. I landed a position in a university writing centre in 1994, a form of one on one teaching. In the last 18 years I have ussed the skills I learned in my B.Ed. in the university student services field as a writing centre consultant, academic and career counsellor, student development counsellor and student employment counsellor. Most of my teaching has been one on one. When I have ventured into the classroom, it has been to teach at risk students how to suceed in university. I think they benefited from my B.Ed. experience.
I hope that is helpful Fidel and I hope I haven't bored too many people. I'd love to hear of the teaching experiences of fellow babblers.
Thank you, Caissa. Wow! That's impressive. I have some experience with adult ed and tutoring adults. I have no experience whatsoever in a class room other than the 80 plus hours mentoring young people in a robotics club, FIRSt robotics competition this spring. Lesson planning wasn't too difficult for me in adult ed(unpaid volunteer) as they allowed me plenty of slack. It is a learn at their own pace sort of thing. I realize lesson plans in high school will be more structured and goal-oriented. I am somewhat familiar with creating individualized lesson plans for one or two people at a time, and so larger classes will be a challenge for me. I'm thinking that supply teaching will be a reality for me for some time, but I am willing and able. I have some personal challenges to overcome as well. I am hard of hearing.
Police in Georgia handcuffed a kindergartner after the girl threw a tantrum at school, and the police chief defended the action.
The girl's family demanded Tuesday that the central Georgia city of Milledgeville change its policy so that other children aren't treated the same way. They say the child was shaken up by being put in a cell at the police station.
Salecia Johnson, 6, was accused of tearing items off the walls and throwing furniture in an outburst Friday at Creekside Elementary School, Macon television station WMAZ-TV reported. Police said the girl knocked over a shelf that injured the principal.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/04/17/georgia-kindergarten-handc...
I think some people attain their ultimate level of incompetence, and they never look back. It could be a law of nature or something.
A quote from a Dr. Seuss book about a turtle trying to assert his rights is too political for students who shouldn't be caught in the middle of the current teachers' dispute, says a school administrator in Prince Rupert, B.C.
Dave Stigant, acting director of instruction for the local school district, said Wednesday he vetoed a quote from Yertle the Turtle when a teacher asked him to look at about 20 quotes to determine if they would be appropriate to expose students to during the ongoing labour dispute.
The quote was: "I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we too should have rights."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/04/25/bc-seuss...I had good teachers in public school in the late 50s and early 60s, but after those years, all the teachers I had truly sucked, until I started my Master's degree at Trinity. Fanshawe College and Trent University were especially bad, but maybe that was more due to large class sizes and teachers being overly stressed. The only thing good about Fanshawe (1969 - 1971) was the weekend concerts at London's Wonderland, and occasional bus trips to Wayne State University in Detroit to hear some incredible soul and rock. I never understood why Trent was held in high esteem, I couldn't wait to get out of that place. It was mostly rich kids getting drunk all the time, but maybe it's changed since 1975-1977. Trinity College was great, the only drawback was the residence - and certain traditions in Strachan Hall. After one year, I started a housing co-op (off campus) with other students not associated with Trinity.
I'm looking at renting the cheapest damn place I can get come September. And I get the feeling there will be some wealthy people's kids living in better housing than I will. I've looked at some of the blogs for student housing in that city of which the name rhymes with Blingston, and money doesn't seem to be an issue for some of them. Some are concerned mainly about location with respect to entertainment and all the high spots. And I will need to do group projects with some of these kids. Gulp!
These study looks at what makes a good student. Its findings provide empirical evidence to what educators have known for a long time.
A study released Friday by the Toronto District School Board, shows that giving children a nutritious breakfast each morning has a direct effect on their academic performance.
The two-year study, Feeding Our Future, followed 6,000 Toronto students. It found those who were fed properly had improved marks and better behaviour.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/05/11/toronto-school-nutrition.html