If you ever want to get busy teachers to actually respond quickly to an email try asking them a question like this: “If you were to give one brief piece of advice, like one or two sentences, about what makes for good teaching, what would it be?” Unsurprisingly, it turns out that most teachers are the kind of people who are more than willing to impart words of wisdom.
That’s the question I posed to a few colleagues at a small boarding school for students with mild learning (dis)abilities yesterday. And now I’m posing it to you as well dear reader. The only requirement is that your answer be brief, a sentence or two (teachers aren’t always good at following directions). Take a moment right now to pour your wisdom, in a dram-sized dose, into the comment box below. (Hint: You don’t have to be a teacher to answer the question.)
Leaving out the tongue-in-cheek or downright sarcastic (not sure if you know my colleagues); here are some of the responses I got in no particular order. They run the gamut from pithy two-word zingers to matter-of-fact practical advice to deep philosophical stances, but all are worth pondering.
~This week, I’d have to say proper scaffolding/differentiation.
~Strong active listening skills and mutual respect combined with a passion for your discipline.
~Being prepared to veer away from your set ideas of what you will accomplish in a given lesson and be flexible. Know what it is you want to achieve during the course and concentrate on essential questions and don’t sweat the small stuff. Remember that the students are the most important ingredient in a successful lesson.
~Good teaching requires a combination of patience, ethics, and understanding while being careful to not expunge what children have already been taught or what is important to them.
~Good teaching to me comes from the heart, an honest desire to see someone else succeed on their own terms and open their world to new ideas. Good teaching to me shows students the strengths and abilities they didn’t feel they had inside and gives them a safe and comfortable place in which to explore and exercise those strengths.
~Do not try to be someone you are not (as a disciplinarian and as a teacher).
~The ability to think on your feet and be aware of students’ needs, rather than just what the “plan” is. Sometimes we get so focused on what we had planned that we don’t realize that the kids either need more or less time than we had planned, or they need more information before they can really understand what we are trying to teach; teachers need to be willing to part ways with the plan if it is not working and adjust so that it will.
~Teaching is making a difference in a student’s life. The result of teaching may be obvious now, or it may take years to pay off, but good teaching – or bad teaching – has an impact on a student’s life.
~I try to find ways to teach that I imagine would have worked on me when I was a kid.
~I believe that good teaching requires teachers to genuinely care about what their students WANT to learn, and incorporate pieces of that into the skills that the teachers know the students NEED in order find success for the rest of their lives.
~A good teacher needs to be connected with the vibe of the room and sensitive to what enlivens the students and conversely what causes rapid eye glazing. Good educators must never be satisfied with the quality of their craft.
~ A good teacher rejects “fairness” between their students and inserts appropriateness in its stead. A good teacher evolves and risks applying new techniques to improve their effectiveness and does not lazily wallow in the confines of a stagnant methodology where they can retreat to a familiar comfort. A good teacher creates opportunities for their students to be “actually” proud of their accomplishments by appropriately challenging them.
~What’s important is empathy and a conviction that you have something important to share.
~Inspire curiosity.
Lately I have been very focused and entranced by the idea of connectivism, and how it correlates with thinking, learning, and computers in the classroom. I recently stumbled upon George Siemens’ article that details the differences between constructivism and chaos in addition to understanding connectivism, and it was valuable to me as a teacher most specifically when he states, “Unlike constructivism, which states that learners attempt to foster understanding by meaning making tasks, chaos states that the meaning exists—the learner’s challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden. Mean-making and forming connections between specialized communities are important activities.” This quote activated my sense of connectivism as I attempted to think of examples from my work or life to explain why it was relevant to me as a reader and an educator. It felt very meta—in a sense—because as I attempted to understand the quote and find meaning in it, I engaged in the act of connectivism by trying to activate my own network of personal knowledge.
A recent post at Learningdiversity.org asks the question, “Are teachers more like social workers, doctors, or football coaches?” When I read the post—and the accompanying study by the Varkey Gems Foundation of teachers’ social status around the globe—I was not surprised to learn that teachers in the U.S. do not enjoy the status of other professionals. This is a common refrain, and rather than simply once again lament that it is the case, we need to take a more careful look at why it is the case. In his recent excellent book, The Allure of Order (click here for an Education Week review), on the history and future of school reform in the U.S., Jal Mehta explores the many interesting factors contributing to the social position of teachers and teaching in the U.S. The historical “feminization” of teaching, the multiple-paradigmatic status of the field, and the lack of control over educator licensure are among those reasons.
An educational system is often described as a black box. We can identify inputs and outcomes, but the complicated interaction of factors, what happens inside the box, remains something of a mystery. In trying to unravel the enduring mystery of what makes for a great educational system one of the few identifiable key factors is the social status of teachers. In cultures where educators enjoy a prestigious social status (though not necessarily a prodigious income; income, it seems, is only important insofar as it is linked to prestige) education outcomes tend to be better than in those cultures where teachers’ social status is low. No one is quite sure how this works. It may be that the prestige awarded the teaching profession in some cultures reflects a more general attitude that values education. It may be that the prestige attracts better and brighter teachers and allows them to ply their trade more effectively. It may be all those things and more. At any rate it is an indicator that correlates with educational outcomes. So, how do various countries see their teachers, and where does America stand? Gauging teacher status is not a straightforward thing, but the Economist published an interesting chart recently that can give us a good idea of where we stand.
The chart displays the results of a survey conducted by the Varkey Gems Foundation in which people were asked with what other profession they associate teachers. Choices include social worker, nurse, librarian, government manager, and doctor. In seven of the 15 countries surveyed people associated teachers more with social workers than the other options. Not surprising. Try a quick experiment; Do a Google-search for images of “teacher.” Your browser will quickly be populated by pictures of pleasant-looking, smiling young adults, mostly women, working closely with youngsters. Now do a Google image-search of “social worker.” The people and context will look much the same: smiling young women working with young people. According to Google at least teachers and social workers are pretty much the same people doing the same sort of thing. However, the United States and Brazil leaned closest to librarian, indicating perhaps a slightly higher perceived status. (The popular image of the librarian of course will be a slightly older, somewhat more dignified and serious woman, still often enough working with kids.)In the highly politicized climate of Japan’s educational system the majority of surveyed Japanese saw their teachers as being like government managers. Interestingly, only the Chinese saw their teachers as closest in prestige to doctors: highly educated, prestigious professionals.
Highest-paid public employees, by state 
The comments section of the Economist post is fairly rife with animosity toward teachers. It’s pretty clear this animosity stems from a perception that public school teachers are coddled and protected bureaucrats, government employees growing fat and lazy on the public dime. Given what we know about prestige of the profession and educational outcomes these attitudes don’t bode well. Add to that toxic attitude the implicit acceptance by the general public of the fact that the highest paid public employee in most states is either the football or basketball coach of the largest state school; we might have a considerable way to go in developing the profession.
Recently, in modern popular culture, there has been an on-going debate surrounding the necessity of the humanities in a liberal arts education. Various types of editorials have been written decreeing both the merits and the hindrances of focusing on the value of literature to a well-rounded education. If one were to specifically type “the death of the humanities” into a search engine, over twelve million results would become immediately available. In this debate, however, a singular question has emerged: how do readers become creatively and playfully engaged with a fictional text and use interpretations of their readings to explore their own self-identities?
I guess I’m not used to reading papers on education reform penned by business gurus. When a friend recently forwarded me this article from the guys at Innosight,…
As a student with a learning disability, confidence has always been half the battle. It has proven time and time again to be the difference between success and…
It goes without saying that social networking has redefined the ways in which we interact with each other and our socio-expectations regarding modern discourses surrounding the concept of communication. However, I have become curious lately about the ways in which online education can possibly surpass classroom learning, and furthermore, how the idea of anonymity can somehow enhance student-centered learning.
You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story. –Anthony De Mello There is something special about stories….
Learning Diversity