We have had our fill of books about what’s wrong with our schools, most written by non-educators with an ax to grind.
Fortunately there is a new genre of books now appearing, mostly from publishers willing to take a chance with a new author. This new genre consists of books written by experienced teachers, who tell about real life in real schools and offer insights into realistic ways to improve schools.
Ken Previti has written an admiring review of David Greene’s new book, “Doing the Right Thing: A Teacher Speaks.”
If you want to know what schools need, ask a teacher, not a newspaper pundit or a financier. As Previti puts it, “Teachers should teach. Eye doctors should examine and prescribe what is needed for better eyesight.
But in this benighted time, decisions are made by legislators, politicians, and bureaucrats. Mandates rain down on schools. Wise teachers like David Greene will help us find our way back to a better path.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I read the book and a few things really annoyed me. First, it screams for a thorough editing. No teacher – including David Greene himself if we are to believe what he wrote – would let a student get away with handing in a final paper that had that many typos, missing words, repeated words, missing or extra punctuation and even entire paragraphs that repeat verbatim within the same essay.
Second, Greene buys hook, line and sinker into the rephormy idea that a lot of what is wrong with education is bad teachers. He repeats the tired old line that “two-thirds of teachers come from the bottom half of their class”. He seems to believe the bunk that principals can’t fire bad teachers. Bad teachers can damage students for life, yadda, yadda. I guess all teachers should be Doug Lemov, whom Greene repeatedly cites positively.
And finally, the book is very heavy on stale sports metaphors and generic affirmations and exhortations. He writes like he’s trying to be in with the “cool” kids rather than like an educator trying to build an argument about education.
His section on TfA was about the only part I found engaging – apparently he had more success actually getting to know them than many veteran educators have and, hence, has been more able to see them as individuals than as representatives of their vile organization.
If you’re looking for a good book on education by a teacher, check out WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO by Gregory Michie.
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What do you call a doctor who was bottom of his class in med school? Doctor.
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My thoughts too Dienne. We have too many heroes promoting themselves through books and blogs while we teachers and kids are still doomed with the horror of CCSS.
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I wouldn’t exactly say that Greene is trying to promote himself. I think he’s just airing a lot of frustrations, but he really hasn’t done his homework in terms of really studying the issues and really polishing his argument. He’s read some books, listened to other teachers and repeated the parts he agrees with.
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Dienne,
With this part of your critique I disagree and do not believe it is “bunk” as you said: “Bad teachers can damage students for life, yadda, yadda.”
As a family advocate for a juvenile justice court, I could tell you some personal horror stories of teachers who have damaged children for life. Living with a frightening and unpredictable teacher for a year can cause a young child ongoing trauma, especially if their home life is frightening and unpredictable as well.
One case that I will share was that of a young man who was paroled after a 4 year sentence following a violent crime when he was 17. After he returned to his small hometown in a rural part of NM, he passed the elementary school one Saturday morning and noticed the car of his 3rd grade teacher “tormentor” parked outside. He pried open a window, went inside, and brutally assaulted the teacher while her 5 year old grand daughter who happened to be with her watched in horror. He repeatedly reminded her throughout the assault that this was payback for all the hell she caused him when he was 8 years old.
In my opinion, “bad” teachers are those who do not recognize the individual needs of their students, cannot form healthy emotional bonds with them, and lack empathy. Bad teachers “Do Harm” to children, and even though the children may not grow up to seek revenge as in this case, they will certainly carry scars.
I do hope you recognize that any person can be “broken” if enough fear and intimidation is applied, and shaming children is one of the worst punishments that will cause permanent damage. It came out in this young man’s trial via witness testimony that this particular teacher had “scapegoated” and ridiculed him the entire year he was in her class. Some of her methods actually sounded sadistic, even though she was considered a respectable member of the community and an experienced teacher, although often referred to as a “witch” by adults who had been in her class. Would you consider this “yadda, yadda,” or do you think this teacher might have had a negative influence on his social and emotional development?
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Katie Parker,
While not denying the harm teachers can cause – I personally was physically assaulted and humiliated by teachers many years ago, and I can testify to the suffering it causes – you shouldn’t confuse these relatively rare occurrences with the systematic demonizing of “bad teachers,” never adequately defined, as a way of undermining the profession and the unions, and as a vehicle for justifying the takeover of the public schools.
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What you said, Michael.
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Michael, “you shouldn’t confuse these relatively rare occurrences with the systematic demonizing of “bad teachers.”
Because of the increase we are seeing in juvenile justice referrals, I do not think these cases of “teacher damage” are rare occurrences.
I am a strong advocate of public schools and was blessed with a grandmother who taught kindergarden in one of Atlanta’s most challenging areas. However, teachers are human, and the current stress of their work tends to bring out the worst. I think teachers need a “Do No Harm” motto like that of doctors. Children are required to attend school, but they should not be required to tolerate abuse on a daily basis. I think public schools will be strong only when they include a strong program that addresses children’s developmental needs, one that includes healthy outdoor studies, and less “incarceration” like the “pipeline to prison” that many urban schools have now become.
My attempt to point out the damage that individual teachers can do was in no way intended to undermine the profession as you suggested. It was intended to point out that while CCSS has caused teachers to hyper focus on children’s performance, there is an absolute void for monitoring and supporting teacher’s mental health issues as well as principals’ mental health. Too many children are at risk of harm from burned out teachers and principals who do not know they are causing abuse.
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Katie,
Two points:
1) So as to clear up any misunderstanding, I was not accusing you of intentionally using the privatization agenda-driven “bad teacher” meme, but rather urging you not to conflate that with the harm that individual teachers can do.
2) The juvenile justice referral/school-to-prison pipeline is also not a matter of bad teachers, but one of systemic racism and a punitive, law enforcement mentality run amok.
It’s not “bad teachers” who result in kindergartners being taken out of schools in handcuffs, but idiotic, fearful administrators and zero tolerance policies that in the aggregate express the racism that is too often the default program in American society.
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The problem is these anecdotal bad teacher stories have become a foundation for public policy. The person assaulting the teacher as “payback” might be a hero to the twisted anti-teacher types now dominating politics (read some of those conservative blogs). But that person is simply evil and sadistic.
I was humiliated by a particularly sick gym teacher in front of my classmates on more than one occasion due to being younger in an “accelerated” program and years behind athletically. Guess what, I didn’t seek revenge as “payback”. As a senior, I filled out and the guy started recruiting me for his prized football team. I politely suggested other things he could do. But the experience, negative as it was, prepared me for a cruel boss in private sector later on. Should that gym teacher been fired? Absolutely. But these guys know how to work the system – especially the ridiculous VAM, anti-teacher policies today that penalize the GOOD teachers.
We want as a nation a little emotional piece of each teacher every year for every student. So we shove hundreds of students through their classrooms each and demand “empathy” while demonizing those same teachers as “lazy”, “overpaid”, “failing”, or “incompetent”. Our country demands emotional bonds while forcing a regime of impersonal, cold testing and reducing each teacher and student to mere numbers in a database.
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I agree that teachers are being abused in the public schools from top down, and that is what is causing the pecking order of scapegoating to children. It is human nature for people to respond to mistreatment with anger, and children are becoming targets for this
displaced anger from battered teachers.
I would disagree with your assessment of having been abused by a sick twisted gym teacher as a positive thing that helped you deal with cruelty later. Even though damaged unstable teachers like that are the exception and not the rule, it appears they are increasing as a result of stress in the schools, and need to be weeded out. Putting less prepared TFA’s in their place is not an answer but will only increase the problem. I think better overall teacher preparation, better ongoing teacher support, and balanced holistic programs like that of Finland or Montessori methods are a better option.
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