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Goodhart's Law May be what OP is referring to. I have seen it in teaching. Teachers need xx hours of training per year. Training often satisfies that requirem
by heymijo 6y ago
Goodhart's Law
May be what OP is referring to.
I have seen it in teaching. Teachers need xx hours of training per year. Training often satisfies that requirement but provides no significant benefits in terms of pedagogical improvement or content knowledge.
Teachers that want to improve do so by other means. The training keeps us in compliance.
- pmiller2 6y agoI've known more than a few high school teachers who ended up with Masters or PhD degrees kind of by default via continuing education courses. That would seem to go against your "teachers that want to improve do so by other means" idea, unless I'm confused about the nature of continuing education requirements for teachers.
- heymijo 6y agoMy assertion is that continuing education credits, or advanced degrees are far from a guarantee of improving a teacher's practice. Continuing education suffers from "box checking." There are a number of reasons for this. It is in no way a knock on teachers. They are caught up in a bad system and are responding to systemic incentives. If we apply an always/sometimes/never framework to my assertion, we can find examples where teachers advanced their practice via continuing education. So the teachers you know certainly could have advanced degrees, some even very helpful in improving their practice. My experience in K-12 as well as studying the history of education reform in America since Sputnik was launched inform this assertion. It has been a recurring theme for 60 years.
- heymijo 6y agoCredentialism - I saw this word used today elsewhere and it sums up what I am trying to say