A teacher writes in response to the Match guide for teaching:
As a teacher of 23 years, I find this is absolutely an appalling disregard for the professionalism of the profession of education. It is also a very scary notion for teacher preparation. These authoritative, autocratic beliefs are not what makes for good teaching and classroom management. Teaching in the manner described above will elicit fear in students, not learning. When individuals (including kids) experience fear, the “flight or fight” mechanisms kick in. With either case (flight or flight), the students have shut down and motivation is nowhere to be found.
Subscribing to the beliefs described above seems to be creating something that maybe the politicians are searching for–throwaway teachers–teach for a year or two and then toss them out with yesterday’s garbage. And, then they can sit back and say, “Yep, we were right when we said the teachers are ineffective and we need to control their every move, etc, etc.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No teacher preparation needed here:
http://www.businessreport.com/article/20120709/BUSINESSREPORT0201/307099982/La-must-never-go-back-to-the-past
This is an ignorant article. He cites Harlem Village Academy to “prove” that teachers don’t need certification or any other qualifications. That’s because he read Deborah Kenny’s self-promotion in the Wall Street Journal. He should have read Gary Rubinstein, cited here, who notes that in 2009-2010, 61% of her teachers left the school. Apparently this kind of attrition is an annual ritual at this “great” school, among both students and teachers, but for different reasons. I noted in a different post on this blog that Buddy Roemer said at a meeting of the state board in Louisiana that he didn’t see why teachers needed to be college graduates.
When I posted this ridiculous commentary by Rolfe McCollister, I also included the link to your blog on Ms. Kenny’s miracle. Putting ideas and opinions on both sides together are often times a good thing. So should he.
High turnover is horrible for students. During the start of Desert Storm and through Desert Shield many teachers who were military reservists were deployed for long periods of time. The numbers deployed taxed many schools and the administration scrambled to find long-term subs for them. Some students had a new one just about every month, others would have the same person subbing for a longer period of time but eventually a new sub showed up. The good subs tried their hardest to do a good job, and many did. I worked at a Title 1 school at the time and saw the stress on the students with the constant change of a new teacher, a new set of rules, a new personality-even with a great sub, the stress on the students was obvious. These kids already had enough mess in their lives and school was supposed to be their one consistent place. The kids for the most part were doing their best to adapt with each change, some even expressed it as supporting their country to try and do their best knowing tomorrow a new face might appear.
Students need consistency. They need to be able to count on what to expect will happen in their classroom and how their day will go. They also became attached to the subs, especially the young students, and losing someone they were just starting to trust was hard. The confusion and frustration was horrible, and this was for a positive reason-supporting their teacher/soldiers! I cannot imagine the chaos for all these teachers and students being split up by privatization, closing schools and teacher turnover! In communities where teachers are fired and not rehired it must be heart breaking to see “your” kids with their new teacher. I know these teachers must be feeling such emotional pain.
The students know they have to go to school, they have new teachers they must adapt to but in this case it is not a positive reason for all the chaos. All this turnover is horrible! To bring in people who are like “add water and stir” instant teachers only devastates the students and destroys even those instant teachers who’s heart is in the right place but in the wrong program.
Have you ever visited the RELAY or MATCH schools to see first-person how they are preparing teachers? Have you ever seen a teacher trained at one of these schools teaching? I would expect that a scholar of your stature would want empirical or at least first-hand evidence about programs that you are commenting on. What is your specific evidence in these 2 cases? Evidence of quoted material taken out of context and provided by a potentially disgruntled rejected applicant does not seem like the unbiased data that a true scholar would trust.
John, as a historian, I constantly deal with information that I cannot personally verify because I was not there and, since the events happened long ago and everyone is dead, I cannot verify. If the Relay or Match schools believe I misrepresented their program, I’d love to hear from them. I read the websites of both, and assume the websites are faithful representations of what they do. I think that both should be considered a program to teach classroom management and test-taking skills. To call them a “graduate school of education” is offensive, at least to me. I explained in the post about Match that a graduate school of education should have a faculty of scholars and a full curriculum. I did not see a single scholar in either of these “graduate schools.” Nor did I see the curriculum or studies that a real graduate school would offer. Am I wrong? They should contact me and tell me about their professoriate and their course of study if I misrepresented.
After watching their videos, I don’t need to visit. They post a video titled Rigorous Classroom Discussion and it was anything but…if that is there best work for all to see, then I think I will pass. I don’t even think they know what they don’t know.
It shoud have been titled Blatant Classroom Indoctrination…..most of the kids are bored and just wiggling their fingers like trained puppets…even a deaf kid would know what to do and at the same time he or she wouldn’t be learning a damned thing.