On a Winter day five years ago, Doug Lemov realized he had a problem. After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder, he was working as a consultant, hired by troubled schools eager ”” desperate, in some cases ”” for Lemov to tell them what to do to get better. There was no shortage of prescriptions at the time for how to cure the poor performance that plagued so many American schools. Proponents of No Child Left Behind saw standardized testing as a solution. President Bush also championed a billion-dollar program to encourage schools to adopt reading curriculums with an emphasis on phonics. Others argued for smaller classes or more parental involvement or more state financing.
Lemov himself pushed for data-driven programs that would diagnose individual students’ strengths and weaknesses. But as he went from school to school that winter, he was getting the sinking feeling that there was something deeper he wasn’t reaching. On that particular day, he made a depressing visit to a school in Syracuse, N.Y., that was like so many he’d seen before: “a dispiriting exercise in good people failing,” as he described it to me recently. Sometimes Lemov could diagnose problems as soon as he walked in the door. But not here. Student test scores had dipped so low that administrators worried the state might close down the school. But the teachers seemed to care about their students. They sat down with them on the floor to read and picked activities that should have engaged them. The classes were small. The school had rigorous academic standards and state-of-the-art curriculums and used a software program to analyze test results for each student, pinpointing which skills she still needed to work on.
But when it came to actual teaching, the daily task of getting students to learn, the school floundered. Students disobeyed teachers’ instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn’t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting. A single quiet student soldiered on with the problems. As Lemov drove from Syracuse back to his home in Albany, he tried to figure out what he could do to help. He knew how to advise schools to adopt a better curriculum or raise standards or develop better communication channels between teachers and principals. But he realized that he had no clue how to advise schools about their main event: how to teach.
Around the country, education researchers were beginning to address similar questions.
[blockquote]Students disobeyed teachers’ instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn’t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting.[/blockquote]
It is a discipline issue as much as it is a teaching issue. As someone who worked as a school psychologist, the teachers who were able to keep their students on task the best had the best learning outcomes. Many teachers, especially new teachers lack classroom management skills. I would be more inclined to attribute the problems to teacher skills rather than teacher attributes is most cases. The teacher education programs I have evaluated lacked this component. School psychologists are often the after the fact instructors in this area.
I agree with #1. Discipline and keepings students on task is a HUGE problem in many schools even private schools. There are many skills that a excellent teacher needs- classroom management, and knowledge of subject matter being two that came to mind immediately. I have excellent knowledge of my subject matter but my classroom management skills are not enough to keep middle schoolers on task.
To keep middle school kids on task takes strict attention to lesson planning and subject matter as well as eyes that see everything and having the gumption to let the kids know it. For me, having to discipline 8th graders seemed like a waste of time. They should know how to behave so I assumed they did and failed as their teacher. Those who wanted to learn did but there were many who could have cared less about the subject matter.
My choice? back to teaching adults in a local community college where knowledge of subject matter is key not an extra thing that you can give if they are willing to listen. So often the real learning of key subjects really begins in college.
[blockquote] But the teachers seemed to care about their students. [/blockquote]
I am taken aback by this sentence. It is really so generally assumed that teachers [i]don’t[/i] care about their students?
The last sentence should read: “Is it…” If only there was an editing feature one could institute after the submit button.
Children know that there are no consequences to their actions. Teachers know this, and are taught to seek the consent of the children to their teaching and classroom activities. Therefore, the children have the power in the classroom, and learning only moves as fast as the most disruptive child or children in the room, who have no parents enforcing proper behavior at home. This is what classroom equity and “teaching to every child” has become. Public schools have no hope until teachers have the power to ENFORCE order, rather than undermining their authority and wasting time wheedling and coaxing and waiting and cajoling children who enjoy making the adults dance around while the shoe is on the other foot at home. This won’t change until society decides that teachers should have authority, which is in conflict with the constructivist theories that have been in vogue for the last 50 years. It’s funny to watch immigrant kids who can’t believe that adult “professionals” put up with their nonsense, and don’t cuff them upside the head and move on with the lesson.
#5, agree completely. Perhaps, if we could fix the homes (where parents can’t or won’t discipline the kids) teaching would cease to be a “burn out” occupation and children would come out of it better educated. Another part of the problem is admitting students to the teacher training programs who evidence no vocation to teach.
Frances Scott
I read the article (all the pages – a pity the NYT does not have longer site pages) wondering what the homiletic equivalent would be of those teacher attributes. Any ideas out there about how this translated into preaching?
#7. Terry Tee,
Terry, I’m not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that the piece is quite long and preachy?. If this is the case, it is well beyond my 2,000 word self imposed maximum for a Homily.
Dale, I was taking a quite different tack, wondering what would make for a good preacher or homilist, because quite a few of the problems of the typical classroom have their ecclesiastical equivalents, although perhaps more so in Catholic than in Protestant churches, as congregations at the latter tend to be better behaved. (I don’t know if you have seen the film Gran Torino but it opens with a funeral Mass at which a too-skimpily clad teenage girl is texting on her cell phone even although it is her grandmother’s funeral … I have seen EXACTLY the same thing.) So the teacher skills of classroom management, holding attention, knowing your message, delivery, would all seem to have their homiletic equivalent.
Terry Tee,
I think the main thing is, those in the congregation have chosen to be there. Students have to be there at least at the primary level. I am kind of a teacher preacher and find that if a topic is current it is more contagious (News paper in one hand and Bible in the other etc.). Humor helps and things that provoke the affect help too. I came from teaching graduate students which is even different than undergraduate students. I am probably still too “content intensive” and should focus on maybe less information. I believe that preaching the Gospel will reach each person where they are at but include real life examples, which in my case at age 65, there are plenty. Of course the examples where I use historical figures and celebrities from my era may not connect with many of the parishioners.My biggest problems are too much scripting of what I say, inadequate use of my physical presence and not always providing a good conclusion to address the “So what”? Thanks for giving me an opportunity to reflect on what I do in the Pulpit. For those in the congregation that read this, I am working on it!
#6:
I think looking at teaching as a “vocation” (vocal: a calling) is part of the problem. Teaching should be a career, not a religious calling. It should have practices and authority rather than relying upon “charisma” and messiah-like properties of people to mesmerize children. That’s the only way you’re going to make millions of effective teachers. Magical charismatic teachers are wonderful, but there are too few magical people to fill the millions of teaching jobs. The rest of the teachers will need more concrete things like skills which can be acquired, knowledge which is accessible, and authority which can be granted by administration to conduct their classrooms. I also think that if we wait for homes and parents to correct things, we will wait forever. Ending mainstreaming all kids in the same classroom is the answer. Kids who are uncontrollable (often due to absence of parenting) should be in different classrooms than kids who want to learn. It’s not an equity thing: each group of kids are ready to learn at different speeds. Kids with parents who are used to having limits placed upon them and meeting expectations will spend more time on task and learn more quickly. Articles like this with experts looking for answers, and finding them in “needle-in-a-haystack” teachers, who will always be rare, remind me of LBJ who said that these people couldn’t pour piss out of a boot that had instructions on the heel.