Elizabeth Green, one of our leading education journalists, has just published a book titled “Building a Better Teacher.”
In this thoughtful post, Andrea Gabor points out the strengths and weaknesses of Green’s book. Gabor believes that Green makes a strong case for those who are doing a god job of teaching teachers.
Gabor writes:
“I picked up Elizabeth Green’s new book, Building a Better Teacher, with great anticipation. By the time I finished reading the nicely written, highly detailed descriptions of some of the latest efforts to improve teaching, I was alternatively gratified, intrigued and more-than-a-little frustrated.
“Let’s start with why I was gratified: Her book argues that good teaching can and must-be taught. This would seem to be mere common sense. But what Green calls the “black box” of teaching has been long neglected not only by university based schools of education, but also by education-policy makers.
“Green’s narrative seeks to debunk the notion that the secret to improving U.S. education is to place a superstar teacher in every classroom. She argues, instead, what many education reformers would consider heresy: That improving education is about teaching teachers, including ordinary ones, how to improve. Being a good teacher, Green painstakingly shows us, is extraordinarily difficult. And teaching someone to become a good teacher is even more difficult. Writes Green: “By misunderstanding how teaching works, we misunderstand what it will take to make it better—ensuring that, far too often, teaching doesn’t work at all.”
“Green argues that by making accountability (via test scores) and autonomy (the notion that teachers are professionals who should be treated accordingly) the two dominant theories of teacher improvement, policymakers and pundits “have left us with no real plan. Autonomy lets teachers succeed or fail on their own terms with little guidance. Accountability tells them only whether they have succeeded, not what to do to improve. Instead of helping, both prescriptions preserve a long-standing culture of abandonment.”
Further:
“Green’s subject is hugely important. But to make her argument she must navigate the minefield of the highly politicized education-reform movement. And, at times, she seems to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid offending education reformers who have made accountability—not improvement of either teachers or pedagogical methods—the centerpiece of both private education-reform efforts and the nation’s education policy.”
Gabor was disappointed by Green’s deference to the “reformers,” especially those who think that young people can become effective teachers with only five weeks training. Gabor is also uncomfortable with Green’s lengthy treatment of Doug Lemov, “the managing director of Uncommon Schools, a charter chain, and author of best-selling books that have become the gospel of the no-excuses behavioralist approach embraced by most charter schools. This approach holds that what disadvantaged kids need more than anything is strict discipline, even if it sometimes verges on being ‘punishing, even cruel.'”
Gabor clearly admires Green’s appreciation for the study and practice of teaching. She especially enjoyed what Green learned about Japanese teaching. Japanese educators borrowed American ideas–starting with John Dewey–that Americans had forgotten or ignored. The same things happened in business, Gabor notes, where the Japanese learned from the work of W. Edwards Deming, but his own countrymen did not. Deming had many great insights, one of which was that the system created the conditions in which individuals can succeed or fail. Thus, accountability begins at the top, not the bottom.
Green is CEO of an education journal called “Chalkbeat.” Gabor implies, though she doesn’t say so outright, that Green must walk a fine line between reporting what she knows and not offending her funders, who include the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. Although she doesn’t like test-based accountability, she can’t bring herself to criticize Eric Hanushek, who is the father of the test-based accountability movement. Also, she writes admiringly about the charter movement and its devotion to improving the craft of teaching even though charters are known for high rates of teacher attrition.
I know and like Elizabeth Green. She is a talented journalist and a gifted writer. And yes, she does have a dilemma, one which is shared by many media outlets. The survival of independent journalism is now dependent on foundations that have an agenda. Can independent journalism exist if it must be funded by those with an agenda? Unless this situation changes, good writing in America will become–if it isn’t already–samizdat.
I suggest that it is time for us to be less concerned with offending any individual or group’s position on issues and more concerned with improving the effectiveness in how we develop the next generation so that we can improve to reach the top quartile in international measurements of student development.
OK then, you should not be offended that I do not agree with aspiring for higher test scores, when America has NEVER scored in the “top quartile in international measurements of student development,” but we have are still a world leader in many different areas, including creativity –which is not measured by such tests. Students should be encouraged to achieve their personal bests, not to compete with students in foreign countries.
“. . . so that we can improve to reach the top quartile in international measurements of student development.”
Attempting to do that will guarantee the continued decline of the teaching and learning process in the US.
That’s probably one of the worst goals for public education that there is.
The objective is to improve the competitiveness of the US vs, our incredibly efffective foreign competititon.
This can only be achieved by having people with superior abiltiies in critical thinking, analytical ability and abilities to communicate with others both verbally and in writing.
Otherwise, we are destined to slide to second or even third tier status in international competiveness.
Our people are our destiny.
Dormand,
Do you know what kind of curriculum can create students with superior critical thinking and analytical abilities? It seems to me that in our quest to reach this goal, we may be taking a path that leads in the opposite direction.
Sadly, I think good writing in America is already samizdat. Look how many articles posted here come from clandestine sources instead of the mainstream media, because so few will print any truths that are contrary to the ideologies and political preferences of billionaire media owners today.
The finding of Green that I think has to be out first is that in the US we have not done anything to build the capacity for teaching. Even those of us opposed to most recent reforms focus on policies we oppose – not building and supporting teachers.
If anything, Green’s work could get us focused on where we should go.
We need to hear more from Deborah Ball and Magdalene Lampert. We do need to actually prepare teachers o teach.
And what do Ball and Lampert have to say?
Duane, I highly recommend you read Green’s book. Or Google them. That way it’s first hand.
Charter, er, Chalkbeat, while occasionally providing some useful reportage, is primarily a vehicle for promoting so-called education reform. Simply perusing its posts will give readers an idea of that, with its insistence on giving legitimacy to fifth columnist groups like Educators 4 Excellence, which has no real support among active teachers, but much funding from Bill Gates. The former TFA mercenaries who run that group can belch forth the most preposterous anti-union nonsense and be confident that Ms.Green’s stenography service will promote it.
The title alone reveals Green’s unspoken allegiance to so-called education reform: clearly implying that teachers are passive receptacles to be “built” according to whatever hare-brained panacea currently controls the education narrative.
And we all know who formulated and benefits from that master narrative she echoes so professionally.
Green’s fawning and uncritical coverage of Doug Lemov’s “Teach (For America) Like a Champion” a few years ago, with it’s soulless technocratic dissection of teaching as little more than keeping the lab rats under control, and it’s sports metaphor of “champions” and presumed “losers” – sound familiar? it did to Obama and Duncan – gave us clear indications of biases she refuses to acknowledge, and her promotion of the premises and practice of so-called education reform.
Michael, have you read the entire book?
No, I have not. My response is based on the (very revealing) title, Green’s reporting on Lemov’s book, which seems to take an almost identical tack, and her editing of Charterbeat.
Michael, she didn’t give Lemov a pass. Nor the no-excuse people. Or any reformers.
She actually gives better arguments to use against them.
I take the title as what we should be about. As teachers ourselves and those who work with teachers. Maybe it should have been Building Better Teaching.
She most certainly did give him a pass four years ago in the Times Magazine, which was an uncritical puff piece…
She maybe gave Lemov a pass on what he was doing four years ago. But in he book she takes down a lot of what he was doing ten and more recently.
That’s why I think it’s important to read the whole thing.
I opened my NY Times this morning and saw that much of the Book section focused on education books, including Elizabeth Green’s book..
Here is the link:
In addition, I happened to find Green’s original article in the NY times in 2010 – that probably led to her book (they both have the same title):
Notice in the book review that the first names Ball and Lampert and of course mentions Hanushek, but makes no reference of Doug Lemov…Furthermore in the 2010 article, while Green discusses Lemov at the outset of the article, halfway to two thirds down she asks, “ANOTHER QUESTION IS THIS: Is good classroom management enough to ensure good instruction?”…after this, she addresses Ball and Lampert. Heather Hill (who is a professor at Harvard but comes from Michigan where Ball is at), notes how one teacher “Wilma” has charisma; every eye in the classroom is on her as she moves back and forth across the blackboard. But Hill saw something else. “If you look at it from a pedagogical lens, Wilma is actually a good teacher,” Hill told me. “But when you look at the math, things begin to fall apart.”
Thus, Green appears to note that there is more than just strictly getting kids attention (via Lemov’s techniques)…
Again, I will point out, I have not read Green’s book – I hope to read it (and others mentioned in the NY times review) soon…However, this is just a snapshot of a comparison…If Green was solely a mouthpiece for Lemov, would she mention Ball or Lampert as much as she does?
I opened my NY Times this morning and saw that much of the Book section focused on education books, including Elizabeth Green’s book..
Here is the link:
In addition, I happened to find Green’s original article in the NY times in 2010 – that probably led to her book (they both have the same title):
Notice in the book review that the first names Ball and Lampert and of course mentions Hanushek, but makes no reference of Doug Lemov…Furthermore in the 2010 article, while Green discusses Lemov at the outset of the article, halfway to two thirds down she asks, “ANOTHER QUESTION IS THIS: Is good classroom management enough to ensure good instruction?”…after this, she addresses Ball and Lampert. Heather Hill (who is a professor at Harvard but comes from Michigan where Ball is at), notes how one teacher “Wilma” has charisma; every eye in the classroom is on her as she moves back and forth across the blackboard. But Hill saw something else. “If you look at it from a pedagogical lens, Wilma is actually a good teacher,” Hill told me. “But when you look at the math, things begin to fall apart.”
Thus, Green appears to note that there is more than just strictly getting kids attention (via Lemov’s techniques)…
Again, I will point out, I have not read Green’s book – I hope to read it (and others mentioned in the NY times review) soon…However, this is just a snapshot of a comparison…If Green was solely a mouthpiece for Lemov, would she mention Ball or Lampert as much as she does?
Thanks for pointing out these two articles.
How can a researcher, author or investigative journalist be “independent” when they are being paid by billionaires? If you criticize your funders, you will be de-funded and relegated to the low-rent social media blogosphere, your closeness to “power, wealth, prestige, and advancement” taken away.
Ira, have you read the book? If not please do before rambling.
Peter,
Have you read the book?
Have you read her blindly uncritical “reporting”/promotion of Lemov’s reworked-truisms-and-clichés-passed-off-as-something-new?
Have you paid any attention to the noticeably pro so-called reform slant of the website she edits?
Or are you seeking to misdirect attention?
It is incredibly hard for me to stomach any attention given to these folks who have never taught – even if they have good intentions – even if they care about kids. Giving them attention gives credibility to their words that are forever slanted in order to protect those who fund them and therefore protect their actions which are being used to privatize public education. I have not read the book, but I can tell you about Teach Like a Champion and what that looks like because I have been a part of staff that was asked to read the book and implement the “no excuse” approach. We ditched it. I have not read her book, but I can tell you about how to support teachers and improve teaching because I have taught for going on 19 years and I have taught grades, K, 1, 2,4,5,and 6 and I have taught teachers in elementary school, middle school and high school. I have not read the book but I can tell you about the charter movement because I have watched children leave my school in favor of the charter school down the road due to our school being labeled as “turnaround.” I have not read her book but I can tell you about accountability because I just left a meeting in which we discussed the PARCC questions, authentic teaching and learning, and how we are going to manage all of this, knowing that only 30% may pass this test and we are not likely to be in that 30% considering that many of our students live in poverty and we have over 40 languages represented in our school. I have not read the book, and I will not read the book. I will continue to do my best to navigate this nightmare as I protect children and do my best to support the teachers in our building in doing the least amount of damage to children, and to ourselves – under this horrific system, that a CEO of a Gates funded online “education” journal could not possibly begin to fathom, let alone, understand. – Peggy Robertson, www {dot} pegwithpen {dot} com, www {dot} unitedoptout {dot} com
The root cause of many of these problems was the veto of the Congressional bill authorizing universal preschooling by President Richard M. Nixon.
The US now has more incarcerated citizens than Russia and China combined. Many of those now incarcerated would have developed into productive citizens had they had the opportunity to achieve preparedness before that first day of kindergarten.
Our prison infrastructure costs far more of your tax dollars than any conceivable preschool infrastructure could possibly cost.
This was an opportunity lost.
Peggy, I respect all you’ve done, but I hope you’re not taking Green down for being a journalist writing about education, but not having taught. This is not an opinion piece.
Journalists cover things that few have done. Otherwise we couldn’t have reporting. Same with sports writing.
Peggy, I have the exact same response as you… VERY HARD TO STOMACH this brand of non educator “expert-for-a-profit”. I have absolutely no interest in reading it either. There are way too many over-the-top paid “experts” who build sandcastles oh I mean theories in the air and then foist the implementation of them on teachers with full and paid approval by ed departments! So I don’t need to read one that is not being forced upon me.
Peter….I will begin by saying that I have not ready the book…but it is on my list…That said I completely agree with you about needing to hear more from folks like Deborah Ball, Lampert and Pam Grossman…One thing that was disappointing to me was that in looking at the index there was no mention at all of one of the other stalwarts of teacher preparation, Linda Darling Hammond from Stanford. Darling-Hammond has been advocating for many years of “professionalizing the profession” and making stronger connections to how pre-service teachers are assessed to how districts assess teachers in the classroom.
I was happy that Green acknowledged those in teacher preparation like Ball and Lampert…I also think while discussing Lemov that, from what I have seen, she gives both the strengths and weaknesses of his methods…
I agree. She didn’t give Lemov a pass.
One of the characteristics of the charterite/privatizer movement is their fascination with discrete skills, clever tricks and anything that can be reduced to ordered numbers. Combine this with a frenetic approach to everything educational—it doesn’t matter what you do, just do something!—and you’ve got a very large part of the “thinking” of the “thought leaders” of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
Hence, the popularity in rheephorm circles of things like the Doug Lemov-variety of ‘Teach Like A Champion!’
It derives in large part from their use of worst business practices as applied to schools and schooling. Top-down, you can’t control what you can’t measure, management by fear, hug the numbers and keep your distance from people.
That’s because there’s a value judgment involved. If $tudent $ucce$$ and ROI [Return On Investment] are what ‘count’ the most, then everything else falls into place. Badly, painfully, but in service to their highest values.
W. Edwards Deming had a different notion. From THE ESSENTIAL DEMING (Joyce Orsini, ed., 2013, pp. 156-157). Note that he seems to be describing the practices associated with the business plans masquerading as educational models and those associated with genuine teaching and learning. From a section entitled “Destruction of a System.”
[start quote]
A job description won’t do more than prescribe motions. Do this. Do that. Do it this way. Do it that way. It must tell me what the work is used for. How this work contributes to the aim of the system.
Suppose that you teach me how to wash tables. How to use brushes, how to use rags, hot water, soap. I should rub this way and that way and round and round. I’m good at it. Now, you ask me to wash this table (one in front of him) and I could not do it. With all the teaching that you gave me, ask me to wash this table and I cannot do it. Not until you tell me what you’re going to use the table for. What’s the next stage? What happens to my work? Somebody’s going to use it. Until I know my customer, who’s going to use the table, I cannot wash the table. I’m helpless when asked to wash the table. I have no idea what you mean. Want to eat off of it? Lickity split, good enough. Going to pile books up on it. Lickity split, good enough. But suppose you tell me you’re going to use it as an operating table. Now what do I do? I scrub it. Top, bottom, sides, legs, inside, upside, I wash the floor over a wide radius. Totally different from a table you’re going to eat off of. You see, unless I know what you’re going to use the table for, unless I understand the next stage, I cannot do my work. That flow diagram tells people what the next stage is. Who depends on me? On whom do I depend? Then by communication, people may work together, improve their work. And then there may be joy in work.
[end quote]
Notice near the beginning of the quote the phrase “aim of a system.” That’s a value judgment. Is public education all about the narrow interests and self-serving goals of the putative “education reformers”? Or do the aims and goals of public education encompass being citizens in a democracy, developing a lifelong love of learning, being responsible and compassionate and caring?
The prescribed and atomized one-size-fits-all pedagogy of the self-proclaimed leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” fits their narrow aims and monetized values.
Genuine education. That’s much much bigger. That’s a world beater.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
that she is receiving funding from Gates and Waltons should end the conversation. Teachers just need a supportive and collaborative environment with other teachers. and a keen sense of observation, which can be developed with some basic qualitative analysis activities in graduate school. Oh. one other ingredient, they need to like kids and recognize when they are hurting them. So many teachers are on automatic pilot without a self examined life.
I would offer a word of caution about prejudging either a book from its title or an article from its headline, as those titles and headlines are generally written by different individuals from those whose blood, sweat, and tears went into the development of the book or piece.
If that assistant editor was under time pressure, had a bad day, had his/her own agenda, or simply “knew what they were going to say” and thus skipped reading fully the piece, it is quite likely that you will have a significant variance between the piece and its title.
Along this line, I would suggest that the very best book ever published on parentlng is the
out-of-print classic “How to Talk So Your Kids Will LIsten & How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk”.
This cumbersome title probably sunk the book, as few without a reference would bother to even skim such an awkwardly titled book. It is worth its weight in gold, just poorly titled.
There is a slippery grey area these days between “journalism” and “advertising” in this era of corporate sponsored policy-adding insult to injury as Peggy pointed out, that the voices of teachers are silenced or ignored while paid for promotions touted as “journalism” garner weight in the public eye-
sounds like the book is reporting less about what’s really going on and more about offering an “expert” (really?) opinion for policy that is funded by gates -can you blame some if us educators for feeling critical of this???
I agree that it is a great book. This reference from a publisher says that How to Talk…has sold more 3 million copies:
http://www.piccadillypress.co.uk/parenting/faber-mazlish/howtotalkkids.html
That appears to be an extension of the world’s oldest profession.
I think I need to take a break from reading all the ideas for improving our public schools, especially ideas coming from people who have never taught a day in their lives; never attended a public school themselves, and certainly their children have no clue what is like to go to a school whose leaders see them as commodities. These self-proclaimed education reformers promote a type of schooling, not education, for other people’s children, whom they hope will become the labor force that will never question them; while their children enjoy the kind of schooling that is required in a democracy. I’m going to spend some time writing about how we can improve our health care systems,
Having determined that just as the for-profit prison system has proven very profitable for the 1%, while incarcerating the majority of Black and Brown men, they have come to realize that building the “school to-Prison pipeline will ensure their continued profit power for generations to come. It is not hard for these moguls to employ the help of “poverty pimps” to do their biding for them, as we know that Gates and company have their hands on every profit making scam of the Corporate education so-called reforms. But, as we can see across the country, they just have to pay those who will sell their souls to the devil and they will use every sound bite available to attempt to convince the masses of their real altruism. They have investments in the testing industry, consulting firms, students private data collection, virtual schools,along with their union scabs that is TFA….the list goes on. But here is the problem I have with these hypocrites, why make the claim that they are doing it for our children, to help our broken schools. Really? I would consider respecting these people if they would simply make the claim, which is that they are in this for the profitability that public tax monies has become to those investors who brought our economy down to its knees.
I came across a panhandler in the North side of Boston who had a sign that read, “Please give anything you can, so I can buy me a drink”> I said to the young man, I am almost compelled to give a dollar just for your honesty. See here, it would behoove Mr Gates and his gang of education self-proclaim reformers to simply admit as to their real intentions, instead of making claims that they care about our children, teachers and community, because if they did care about our schools, they would be listening to real educators, they would do what Finland is doing, that is that they adopted the research findings form improving our schools done by our finest institutions.
Hi Ruth Rodriguez-Fay:
Bravo. You say it all. I love your lovely conclusion. I love to repeat it.
“… if they (Mr Gates and his gang of education self-proclaim reformers) did care about our schools, they would be listening to real educators, they would do what Finland is doing, that is that they adopted the research findings form improving our schools done by our finest institutions.”
Thank you for your keen observation. I wish that every educator in America has the same determination like you. I also love to repeat and to spread this information:
“These self-proclaimed education reformers promote a type of schooling, not education, for other people’s children, whom they hope will become the labor force that will never question them; while their children enjoy the kind of schooling that is required in a democracy.”
Back2basic
Hi Ruth Rodriguez-Fay:
Bravo. You say it all. I love your lovely conclusion. I love to repeat it.
“… if they (Mr Gates and his gang of education self-proclaim reformers) did care about our schools, they would be listening to real educators, they would do what Finland is doing, that is that they adopted the research findings form improving our schools done by our finest institutions.”
Thank you for your keen observation. I wish that every educator in America has the same determination like you. I also love to repeat and to spread this information:
“These self-proclaimed education reformers promote a type of schooling, not education, for other people’s children, whom they hope will become the labor force that will never question them; while their children enjoy the kind of schooling that is required in a democracy.”
Back2basic
educationrealist (No Dewey eyed dreamers here), who doesn’t care too much for Diane, examined some details on Green and Lemov:
Doug Lemov’s Creation Myth
By educationrealist
So Elizabeth Green wants to tell us why Americans stink at math, an article promo for her book—apparently builds on all the negatives she incorporated in the article Building a Better Teacher, the hagiography on charter consultant Doug Lemov that served as a launching point for his book. I hadn’t read “Building a Better Teacher” since I began blogging, so I refreshed my memory and was about to click out to write a furious article on journalists functioning as little more than PR hacks…
….and then the phrase caught my eye, “After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder,”
Well, hey now. I knew that wording, often used to obscure the fact that the person in question hadn’t done much time in teaching. Back when I wrote the Wonks piece, I’d done Lemov the mild credit of assuming he was someone who could properly call himself a teacher.
As her tweets make obvious, Green is doubling down on Great Lemov, so I decided to take an upclose look at his resume, so Green’s readers, and Lemov’s (what, you didn’t know he had a book coming out in few months? It’s, like, a complete coincidence!) can have some context.
…..
If you came here looking for a smoking gun, some sort of declaration that Lemov is a complete fraud, leave disappointed (or reassured). Assuming they can’t be explained, none of these discrepancies are fraudulent so much as self-serving. But that’s really the question—why did he bother to obscure his actual resume?
Why would Lemov deny Guen and the APR founders their place in history? Why would Green fail to mention Lemov’s two or more years at NPR?
Lemov’s resume from 2000 on has no classroom time. Zip, nada, zilch. Look at the first two pages of his resume. The man spent the ten years before Green launched him as a consultant, and he wasn’t advising his clients on the finer points of teaching. He visited classrooms, yes. He trains principals and teachers, yes. But on what basis does he claim expertise, other than all those visits? And what kind of teacher calls charter governance a “dream job”?
My best guess: Lemov can’t really sell the image of a man fascinated by teaching, so obsessed by the subject that he went out and studied teachers for hours and hours, dedicated to discovering, as Green puts it, “an American language of teaching.” His real resume makes it much harder present himself as an innovative dreamer (and dreaming about teaching, not checking schools’ test scores), given that he appears to have been more of an….employee for his first twelve years. His little creation myth lends credibility to his teaching primer and allows him to sell his charter system as an education option whose founding members are dedicated to all aspects of learning. He doesn’t want to be seen as someone who sought to escape the classroom as quickly as possible; he’s got to be the guy who dreams of the perfect lesson. His resume forces us to take his word for his real values. The creation myth has the evidence built right in.
Of course, Lemov can push whatever creation myth he likes. The real shame is that he’s gotten Green to help him. While many “anti-reform” folk complain about Chalbeat’s relationship with Bill Gates, I wonder whether she’s acknowledged the potential bias in taking money from SeaChange Capital, a primary investor in Uncommon Schools, Lemov’s organization.
But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, too.
You know what I am tired of? People who have never taught, been in an actual college education program, or in a truly diverse school telling me how to teach better, how I didn’t learn what I needed at my university, or how to deal with actual real live children with FEELINGS, problems, and varied motivations. I wouldn’t read this book if you gave it to me for free because yet again, we are giving credence to someone who doesn’t have a clue about what she is talking about. MY education program was fantastic. I completed four classroom placements by the end of my senior year and then another full time placement in my Master’s year. I had to implement action research and then present to faculty. We were well versed in helping children become critical thinkers…a little thing called Bloom’s Taxonomy was just one piece. We were asked to be reflective about the classroom practices we saw, we used, and wanted to try. We were told we were professionals and as such needed to know what backed our choices and classroom practice. ANd Demming?! Oh yeah. We learned all about Demming in the late 90s in Broward County, Florida schools as we were given autonomy and supported….until Jeb and his merry band of reformers came to town. It’s not teachers that don’t know what to do and how to do it. It’s the reformers with no experience and lots of corporate backing who perpetuate these myths, encourage lawmaking and rules that tie our hands and have killed professional autonomy. Smyth is just another pusher of reforms who is working really hard to defend these edupreneurs. It’s not just my profession that suffers, but ultimately my OWN two children who know nothing but scripted curriculum and high stakes testing in the last 6 years. This another book for the education scrap heap.
Rosemarie, Green is not telling anyone how to teach. She’s reporting. Some of the people in the book are telling people how to teach; not all come out smelling too good.
I’m guessing you’ve read the book if you’re critiquing it.
Peter Symth.. if Green is reporting then let her report via newspaper, radio etc.. save the books for the academics. We teachers have enough “mandated” reading to do that I much prefer to read an education book by an actual educator.
So Art, Diane Ravitch shouldn’t “report” in a book form? She hasn’t taught K-12 at least lately. But most of us trust her. Read Green’s book, then criticize.
Ever heard of Ida Tarbell? She was never in the oil business.
I said I wouldn’t read it if you gave it to me for free.I am honest about that. Not one penny more of my money is going to anyone who is part and parcel of the destruction of public education and the teaching profession. For the most part she has supported the reformy ideas that are being shoveled like snow. And reporting these days is really just being paid to promote in the guise of reporting. We teachers NOW how to teach. Truly we do.And if you or anyone listened to Demming, he supported the actuially WORKERS coming up with the solutions, not outside consultants. THis is just slick support wrapped in a faux journalism cover.
I don’t think close-mindedness serves anyone well. There are journalists who dismay their paymasters and cocktail party buddies; perhaps Green is one. As for Lemov, he is neither angel nor demon. I was smitten by his book when I read it about four years ago. I saw it as a needed corrective to slack, mushy Dewey-type pedagogy. Face it, Dewey is the orthodoxy in the ed schools and in teachers’ hearts. There is a baleful philosophical monoculture in many ed schools. Lemov was fresh air. What dawned on me as I tried implementing some of his ideas was that they don’t mesh with standard public school culture. All of his model teachers were from no-excuses charter schools. You need that culture to employ his strategies. So the book is almost useless for those of us in regular schools. Since then I’ve developed a distaste for that hyperregimented style. That said, I think his ideas ought to be respected and considered, not vilified.
“Samizdat” – will that make the list of approved new words?
On Deborah Ball of U of Michigan. I am not an education scholar and cannot comment on her as a researcher, just as retired teacher and a retired journalist. I am U of M prepared teacher long before Deborah Ball. Also a journalist and someone who has personally known all the top editors of major papers in my years now past. And someone who has met Dean Ball and spoken to her, urged her to invite our Diane to speak on the campus and emailed her on her silence regarding the devastation of public schools in the State of Michigan under Gov. Snyder and the Legislature there. Of the rise of charter schools some created by Michigan’s state colleges such as Eastern Michigan. And the expose by the Detroit Free Press that I hope will win a Pulitzer Prize. Meanwhile while somewhat aware of her efforts to codify how to teach, what good will it do if public schools are destroyed by crazy politicians like in Michigan and North Carolina and charter schools that hire uncertified or trained teachers? This is why I ponder the silence of respected Deans of Schools of Education on what has been happening to teachers and public schools nearly everywhere In the U.S.
To all conscientious educators:
We all need to stick with Dr. Ravitch through thick and thin situations in order to strengthen American Public School, and to protect/ maintain our Democracy.
All other “fake” educators (GAGAs “go along to get along” with power) who seek fame and fortune will face to their own dismay whenever they realize that devils possess their soul and dignity to the point of no return.
I appreciate Dr. Ravitch for being extremely tolerance with many fake educators in her forum. Most of all, I really admire many experienced and outspoken educators, like: KrazyTA, EdHarris , Peggy Robertson, Michael Fiorillo, Ruth Rodriguez-Fay, Rosemarie, artseagal and gailj2 in this particular thread, and many other conscientious educators in many other threads where I cannot recall in this moment of writing. Back2basic
What I find absolutely offensive is Mr. Smyth’s incredibly rude comment to Ira Shor.So much revealed in that one response.. Me thinks Mr. Smyth has some type of personal investment in this book. Again,the attack on colleges of ed is spawned from the same contempt and blame that reformers place on teachers without ever having been in one or wanting to look at the true barriers to learning.
Rosemarie, what’s worse than rude is people commenting and giving opinions on a book without reading it. It’s more like intellectually dishonest.
When those of us who question and even oppose the ed reforms start sounding like Fox News, there’s a problem.
Please get off your high horse: Green has a well-established record as a skilled mouthpiece for so-called reform, pre-dating this book. The credulous and disproportionate coverage of charter schools and their touts on her Chalkbeat site, predictably funded by the Usual Suspects, is proof enough, as is her puff piece on Lemov’s book in the Times Magazine some years back.
Sorry, Michael. I was having a conversation about the book. When a journalist gets some things right, I focus on that.
Spoiler alert: she doesn’t find too many happy outcomes for the recent reforms. And as a math person I appreciate what she reported about the work of Ball, Lambert, and even attempts to remake teacher preparation.
Should we demonize that?
Want better teachers? GIVE THEM LIGHTER LOADS. The reality of K-12 teaching is that there is always more that can and should be done than can be done in the time available. The people who say that “class size doesn’t matter” haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
Absolutely, Bob. Besides smaller class sizes, time to actually prepare to teach, develop and refine lessons and strategies is what makes the difference.
Maybe the better title would have been Building Better Teaching Capacity. That’s actually what I took from the book that hasn’t been done.
And time for something like Japanese-style lesson study, in which teachers meet to go over what they did, what worked and what didn’t, and to share ideas for the next week’s work. “[T]ime to actually prepare to teach, develop and refine lessons and strategies is what makes the difference.” You said a great deal there, Peter. Yes yes yes.
Generally, teacher education does not (because it cannot) prepare a beginning teacher for being alone in a classroom full of students. It seems to make more sense to support the new or struggling teacher with a strong mentor that is actually willing to share important and trivial ideas, strategies and methods. In my experience, the teachers most often touted as “great” tend to be more than a little invested in “how good they look” and have little regard for the school as a whole. Reflection can only be worthwhile if you understand how to improve what is not working.
Lies my Education School Professors Taught Me:
1. Knowledge isn’t that important.
2. Firm discipline is bad practice.
3. Teaching reading is a matter of teaching reading skills.
4. Cooperative learning is far better practice than lecture. (in fact, they gave no indication that lecture had any place in school).
5. Reading children’s books to teenagers is a good way to teach history.
6. It’s bad to question your education school professors.
Few of my ed school professors had taught K-12. One admitted that she had been a failure at it, so she went to get her doctorate. They were all on the same page ideologically and their mission seemed to be to indoctrinate, not educate.
Ponderosa I am sorry to hear that you had such a poor experience at your school of education program. It’s experiences like yours that I see some value in the recent NCTQ ranking of schools of education (granted, I am firmly against the methodology of how the rankings are obtained. That said, it’s unfair to lump all schools of education together into one group.
“. . . .Green must walk a fine line between reporting what she knows and not offending her funders, who include the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. Although she doesn’t like test-based accountability, she can’t bring herself to criticize Eric Hanushek, who is the father of the test-based accountability movement. Also, she writes admiringly about the charter movement and its devotion to improving the craft of teaching even though charters are known for high rates of teacher attrition.”
this seems to me to be true all over: certainly of POLITICO ‘s Education reporting (despite the excellent Stephanie Simon), NPR’s new Education Desk, Marketplace, PBS . . . the “fine line” is everywhere and all presented oh so objectively, very professionally.