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The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introductio

by glenra 12y ago

The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introduction; it doesn't say anything useful or even give much of a hint as to what the author believes. Certainly it doesn't live up to the title. It doesn't tell us what the "secrets of amazing teachers" are, nor establish that there are only TWO sides of "the education debate" and as for the subtitle, it vaguely appears to be knocking down a straw man. Certainly some teachers say "we need more autonomy!" and some teacher critics say "we need more accountability!" but neither one is saying "...and if we had THAT, everything would be perfect and teachers would know what exactly they need to do to improve!" So it's not clear that the people who want autonomy and accountability are actually getting anything wrong. The writer appears to think that good teaching can be taught, but doesn't (in this article) say how.

kaitai 12y ago
Moreover, the arguments are slightly misrepresented. If the autonomy folks are comparing to Finnish education, they're talking about a system with plenty of time and attention devoted to ongoing development of professional teaching skills. I don't think anyone believes that we can just let American teachers have complete autonomy and expect good results: many American teachers have been placed into positions teaching subjects they don't have degrees in, and they're given very little time for class prep or continuing education. At best this autonomy would free some of the teachers to teach to the classes they have rather than being forced to push through the mandated syllabus that says by week 4 you should be on fractions whether the kids understand multiplication or not.
javajosh 12y ago
>doesn't say anything useful Doesn't it? The author asserts clearly that a great teacher is, first and foremost, defined by their ability to gleen "where the mind fired incorrectly", rather than it being some innate, unlearnable thing. A great teacher is more like a programmer debugging a problem in the kids head than a "born performer". And I found this insight, well, insightful.
- glenra 12y ago
  She does indeed seem to assert that, supporting the point with an anecdote I found less than convincing. But suppose we grant her that point. Let us suppose that "master brain debugger" is indeed the crucial skill that makes for a good teacher. Here's the problem: she doesn't (in this article) indicate how THAT skill can be taught either! So for all we know, being able to do THAT - debug what's going on in a student's head - might be an innate, untrainable thing that teachers are innately born with or magically acquire through experience without knowing how it's done. So for this point to be useful, we'd need both (a) stronger evidence that it's actually true, (b) evidence that it's teachable. Absent those things, it's just somebody's random assertion. And wouldn't it be just as easy to tell a story of that sort claiming the key to great teaching is empathy, or flexibility, or knowing the material really well? (Actually, the featured anecdote featured TWO attributes. (1) skill at debugging what's going on in the student's brain, (2) skill at figuring out how best to CORRECT the misconception without unduly harming the student's ego. And I'm sure these are both useful skills for a teacher, but I would need more convincing that they matter more than all the OTHER skills such as being organized, speaking clearly, presenting NEW material effectively, etcetera.) Side note: in the back of my mind while I read the piece I was probably thinking about Direct Instruction. One provably superior teaching method is to have teachers follow an exact script that is carefully designed to minimize misconceptions in the first place. If teachers could get better at not introducing misconceptions to their students, it might be less important to be good at debugging those misconceptions.

by glenra 12y ago

kaitai 12y ago

Moreover, the arguments are slightly misrepresented. If the autonomy folks are comparing to Finnish education, they're talking about a system with plenty of time and attention devoted to ongoing development of professional teaching skills. I don't think anyone believes that we can just let American teachers have complete autonomy and expect good results: many American teachers have been placed into positions teaching subjects they don't have degrees in, and they're given very little time for class prep or continuing education. At best this autonomy would free some of the teachers to teach to the classes they have rather than being forced to push through the mandated syllabus that says by week 4 you should be on fractions whether the kids understand multiplication or not.

javajosh 12y ago

>doesn't say anything useful Doesn't it? The author asserts clearly that a great teacher is, first and foremost, defined by their ability to gleen "where the mind fired incorrectly", rather than it being some innate, unlearnable thing. A great teacher is more like a programmer debugging a problem in the kids head than a "born performer". And I found this insight, well, insightful.

glenra 12y ago
She does indeed seem to assert that, supporting the point with an anecdote I found less than convincing. But suppose we grant her that point. Let us suppose that "master brain debugger" is indeed the crucial skill that makes for a good teacher. Here's the problem: she doesn't (in this article) indicate how THAT skill can be taught either! So for all we know, being able to do THAT - debug what's going on in a student's head - might be an innate, untrainable thing that teachers are innately born with or magically acquire through experience without knowing how it's done. So for this point to be useful, we'd need both (a) stronger evidence that it's actually true, (b) evidence that it's teachable. Absent those things, it's just somebody's random assertion. And wouldn't it be just as easy to tell a story of that sort claiming the key to great teaching is empathy, or flexibility, or knowing the material really well? (Actually, the featured anecdote featured TWO attributes. (1) skill at debugging what's going on in the student's brain, (2) skill at figuring out how best to CORRECT the misconception without unduly harming the student's ego. And I'm sure these are both useful skills for a teacher, but I would need more convincing that they matter more than all the OTHER skills such as being organized, speaking clearly, presenting NEW material effectively, etcetera.) Side note: in the back of my mind while I read the piece I was probably thinking about Direct Instruction. One provably superior teaching method is to have teachers follow an exact script that is carefully designed to minimize misconceptions in the first place. If teachers could get better at not introducing misconceptions to their students, it might be less important to be good at debugging those misconceptions.