Elizabeth Green -- Building a better teacher ============================================ Green's examples of teachers in the first several chapters (Maggie and Deborah) are both exceptionally gifted. Perhaps they were not "born teachers", but they were about as close as you'd ever get. They had abilities to learn (and to take risks and use initiative) that many of us do not. If you are trying to show that given the right training, many normal and struggling teachers can be turned into successful ones, then these two examples do not prove your case. How could they (Maggie and Deborah) possibly convince us that good teachers can be built, and that they do not need to be born that way? It also seems that what was going on at Michigan State and at Spartan Village, where some of the reported teaching takes place, was very special. Teachers had time and support that is not available in typical schools, much less inner city schools. Those who argue for improving education by rewarding and keeping good, gifted teachers and not rewarding and not retaining those who are not do not care when or even how a teacher her/his gifts and skills, only whether s/he has them. And, they are likely to complain about having to fund efforts for teacher development. To convincingly show that teachers can be built "using materials that you find around the house", seriously from not-so-gifted people, Green would have taken ordinary, non-exceptional, non-gifted individuals and shown how *they* can be trained to be better teachers. And, so the questions we need to ask are (1) Does Green do that? And, (2) does she show *how* it can be done? What's more, Green must show that we can "build a better teacher" in an environment that is more typical than the one she describes in the first several chapters, that is, learning and teaching conditions where teachers do not have all the support, observations, suggestions, etc that Deborah had at Spartan Village. Green seems to be claiming that the children/students she is reporting on are average students. But, her discussion of the video-taped session on even and odd numbers show that these children are *not* what you could expect to find in an average classroom. They've been "programmed" (by Deborah, I believe) to respond and think and work through a (math) problem in a particular way, a way that is very attractive to a math professor (e.g. Hyman Bass, who reviewed video tapes of Deborah's class). Next, we can argue whether we even *want* all children to act like miniature math professors or researchers. We want that at the college level, for sure, and we want some of it at the high school level, but at the elementary level? Perhaps there, we really do want to teach math skills, not math theory. I'm sure that there are many who would argue for drills, which is not discussed much in "Building a better teacher", and is not in the book's index at all. Teaching math theory at that young age to all children is an intriguing idea that, I'm sure, has occupied many educational theorists. But, it's a questionable one; and I'd feel uncomfortable turning all math education in the U.S. in that direction. Sounds like another miracle cure offered by another true believer. And, this suggests an even more serious issue: that before we can talk about producing and supporting better teachers, we need to agree on what we want to accomplish. I suspect that there are many who would argue that teaching theory and neglecting skills (which is a description of Green's methods that these critics might agree with) may be more interesting and fun for academic types doing the teaching, but is not in the best interests of the students. This is the kind of conflict over educational policy that Green does mention briefly; and when she does, seems to indicate that it would be impossible to get past in the U.S. It's also a matter of order. Should our schools be trying to produce little math professors (capable of formulating conjectures and proving or disproving them) *before* children learn math skills. Or, would students be better off learning skills *first*, then learning a bit of theory to increase their understanding. Green must be careful to avoid the criticism that she is presenting yet another teacher training program to follow the many such programs that it's claimed have failed and sure to be abandoned once it's discovered *not* to be the magical cure, just as many before it were. So, what can we learn "Building a better teacher"? If so, what? (1) Teachers need training. (2) Their training should be based on activities and structure. (3) The activities and structure must be based on and give support to content; it must be knowledge based. (4) Teachers need support for learning how to teach: they need mentors and guidance; they need to be observed and critiqued; they need very specific suggestions on what they've done in the classroom and how to improve it. And, most of all we need coherence. We need some kind of broad, national program that can be run in every local school and that helps teachers with method more than content. Yes, I know it's not going to happen. We all know that we are not willing to pay to have teachers spend that extra time preparing and helping each other. But, I'm pretty sure this is what Green believes needs to be done. Green seems to intend to stay away from giving specific recommendations. (I suspect that she know that if she does not stay vague enough, she will be accused of giving us the next educational miracle cure of the day.) But, she does make some recommendations about how to set up support structure for teachers, without saying specifically what teachers should do in the classroom. I believe this is what Green calls "educational infrastructure". For a model of how this might be done, Green looks at the jugyokenkyu practice in Japan. Jugyokenkyu is a set of practices that teachers in Japan use to improve the ways in which they teach. One significant aspect about this system is that teachers help each other: they observe each other while teaching; they give suggestions and offer ideas about how to present a specific topic or handle a given issue. This is importantly different from common practice in the U.S., where each teacher is working alone without the help of peers. In summary, in the U.S. we need to work on developing consistent, coherent programs that teach how-to teach and that help teachers learn and improve their teaching skills. Perhaps this is what Green, reporting on David Cohen, calls educational infrastructure. And, it is unsettling to notice that Green's claim that in the U.S. conflicts between Federal and local power and between different local powers made and will make the development of that coherent educational infrastructure impossible. The last chapter is an interesting one; Green tries to distinguish that short chapter by calling it "How to be a teacher (Part Two)". It describes Green's experience teaching two one-hour classes in high school. (I can just imagine one of my retired teacher rolling her eyeballs, and saying, How could she possibly learn what teaching is like from two hours, not struggling for help from janitorial staff, not having to deal with administration, not having to do five preps each day, and more?) But, that chapter is revealing, and it does reinforce Green's belief, in her own mind at least, that becoming a better teacher is something that can be learned, especially, possibly *only*, if you have help. Also note that Diane Ravitch claims that teachers have not failed. That's just promotional literature for charter schools. Teachers are doing very well, and in many cases, considering what they've been given to work with (the condition of school facilities and buildings, the students and how little help they get at home, etc), they are doing better than we can reasonably ask. See, for example, "Reign of error: the hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to America's public schools", by Ravitch. 10/31/2014 .. vim:ft=rst:fo+=a: