Peter Greene learned that the Tulsa public schools have adopted a program to standardize teaching by putting a little microphone in teachers’ ears through which they can get real-time coaching. The superintendent in Tulsa is Deborah Gist, a reformer who was previously State Commisssioner of Education in Rhode Island, where she achieved plaudits from President Obama and Arne Duncan for supporting the mass firing of the entire staff of Central Falls High School.
Tulsa public schools invited the press to see a demonstration of scripted teaching.
“The press were there to watch Remote Control Scripting in action because they had been invited there by Tulsa Public Schools and the company TPS hired to provide this program. It’s the same company that put Berard through her paces– CT3 (The Center for Transformative Teacher Training). They are partners with all the cool kids– Success Academies, Teach for America, Aspire, and many other charter schools….
“No Nonsense Nurturing has been around forever, but previously we’ve called it “tough love” or “taking a hard line” or even “acting like an emotionally-withholding, borderline-abusive jerk.” I have never seen nor read of an example of it that doesn’t make me immediately think “this is no way to treat human beings.”
“Real-Time Coaching, the part that got all the press attention in Tulsa, is actually Real-Time Scripting, and like scripting, it has no place in a classroom. Ever. No child should ever, ever have a teacher whose answer to, “Why are we doing this?” is “Because the voices in my head tell me to.”
“The real time nature of the coaching is actually a bug, not a feature. If I’m coaching another teacher, after I’ve watched the lesson, I’ll need at least a few minutes to reflect. In the real time moment, I’m pretty much limited to the instant thought of What I Would Do, or, if I’ve been trained in a particular method, the One Correct Response to that situation. Either response devalues and dismisses that teacher’s own teaching voice.
“It’s just silly to say that there is One Correct Way to teach a particular lesson, irregardless of the teacher or the class involved. It makes no more sense than saying there is One Correct Way to be a spouse, irregardless of who is your partner.
Borrero defends CT3 practices by saying, “Our programs were developed through careful analysis of high performing teachers’ practices in schools serving traditionally disenfranchised communities across the country; all of our work is rooted in building positive life-altering relationships with youth and their families.” But it is hard for me to imagine how Real Time Coaching could possibly help accomplish any such thing.
“Standardizing and human behavior is the worst kind of folly. To fit in such a system requires the practitioners to be less themselves, less real, less human. It is a favored dream of people who are too small to comprehend the vast variety of human experience and behavior, too scared to face anything but the narrow sliver of possibilities they feel prepared to master, or too morally impaired to respect the independence and autonomy of other human beings.
“Good teaching exists at the intersection of the material, the humanity of the teacher, and the humanity of the students in the room. Additionally, that intersection is influenced by a background of previous experience, current events, and the feelings of the moment. It cannot be standardized any more than a marriage or a child or a pancake or a planet can be standardized. And it can’t be attempted because it shouldn’t be attempted.
“I have no doubt that buried here in there in the real-time scripting and the no-nurturing nonsense, there are occasional nuggets of useful information or technique. But it is saddening to see CT3 still successfully peddling their wares. Nobody needs to teach like a robot.”
This program is a vivid demonstration of lack of respect for teachers. It strips them of both their professionalism and their dignity.
Idiotic.
This is spreading almost as fast as clown hysteria. Thanks for a great reflection on it, Peter and Diane.
Sounds like Bridge International Academies in Africa
Sadly, Oklahoma is behind the curve. They keep fracking despite a 5,000% increase in earthquakes. Last year while Obama visited a federal prison, protesters appeared waving the confederate flag. They didn’t become a state until 1907 because there was so much confederate resistance. Now they want to teach “like a robot.” Oklahoma is not OK.http://crooksandliars.com/2016/05/oklahoma-continues-marching-backwards
This sounds perfect for a Saturday Night Live Script with Trump mumbling in the background about grabbing _ _ _ _ _.
Huh, the earbud method finally got implemented in practice, though the rigor of the original proposal hasn’t been completely incorporated. But it’s a good start.
Here is the original proposal
http://wd369.csi.hu/apu/earbud_method.html
Of course, TNTP already used the inventive bud-teaching method years ago
http://tntp.org/blog/post/let-me-put-a-bug-in-your-ear
Almost as accountable as LiveWire
That’s our girl, Deborah Gist, the queen of scripts.
Ludicrous. When are we going to acknowledge that ‘reform’ was a bad idea to start with? When will we start holding the real perpetrators (others are more or less lap dogs) responsible, a greedy and unregulated silicon valley, who collectively don’t remotely understand people, their needs, how a human being actually functions? It may sound like hyperbole, but s.v. is, in very tangible ways, like a fourth Reich. When will the people that deal with them start having the courage to say, ‘No!’ to their money? We really are watching our society crumble and planting the seeds for its eventual fall if we don’t wise up and actually act in the world from that wisdom.
I do not know whether to laugh or cry. This is ridiculous. Actually beyond ridiculous and wrong.
That’s why they shouldn’t pretend this is about “choice”.
It’s about adopting charter practices in every single public school- scratch that- in every single LOWER AND MIDDLE income public school.
This stuff is reserved for the children of the teeming masses. You also won’t see canned computer instruction replacing teachers in high income public schools. That’s for the lower classes too.
Why don’t they try out these innovations in their own schools? Let their kids be the guinea pigs. Let me know how it works out, Then I’ll consider it.
Next step: surgical implants. We need to coin a new word to describe the ridiculous stupidity of schemes like this. What a joke!
My heart breaks for the kids in those classrooms. So many students come to school absolutely needing the encouragement and kindness and gentleness that may be missing elsewhere in their lives. Once a kid trusts you, and knows you have his back and believe in him, then miracles in learning can take place.
Well stated, Melissa! This is my experience working with poor students.
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Another step closer to totally roboticizing teaching. And learning, as well.
Teachers are not robots, and students are not “little robots” who all learn the same way and need to be “programmed.”
What are we doing and what have we done to the teaching profession?
Even worse, what are we doing to the children? 😢
Another way to dehumanize ourselves, our teachers, and our students. It’s not even metaphysically correct–it ignores the structure of history–that is, no two experiences are exactly alike and we have thinking executive-functioning minds because we are constantly dealing with those different details. Think of sports–those folks know about being “in the zone.” Well, “zoning” applies in the classroom, only more-so with much more overall significance. How do you think a quarterback would operate if his coach was constantly “in his ear”? “Wait a minute, tell me if I should run or throw! Ooops, the play is over.” Also, if the “bug-person” is in real time, who is watching them?
What’s missing is the right ear-bug of the program-writers–while they were writing their programs. It doesn’t even matter if all their writing and talking were correctly drawn. The correct applications are still “in the zone” and ON PRINCIPLE cannot be pre-scripted for exact, un-thought-out application. They just cannot give over their power to: where it belongs.
Where is Charlie Chaplin when you need him?
I can see the appeal of this to people who know nothing about teachers and think teaching is a skill-less job. After all, what we do requires no intellectual work, right? As a local school board member quipped about kindergarten teaching, it is just babysitting.
I admit there have been times I wish I could unobtrusively whisper a comment to my student teacher, but, upon reflection, I am glad I cannot. They need to develop their own skills at reading the class,developing a concept, answering questions, dealing with the fallout when you inadvertently set the students up for a misunderstanding… all the things good teachers learn to do. Me directing their every move would do great harm to their development as a teacher.
This approach has nothing to do with the way real teaching or real coaching of teachers works. I suspect that among the countless misconceptions that underlie it, this method presumes that making “mistakes” is the worst thing that could ever happen for learning (by students or teachers). It is bound to reinforce the already prevalent nonsense that mistaken answers from students must instantly be corrected by the teacher so that the other students don’t internalize the error. Teachers with that belief often reject the notion that the class could benefit from questioning each answer, right or wrong, that peers offer. And of course, if errors from peers are so readily internalized, why aren’t correct, reasonable answers from peers readily internalized?
I think we could endlessly analyze the wrong answer of ear-bud instant coaching and what it says about the sort of philosophies and beliefs that inform it. It’s a priceless opportunity to interrogate the countless contradictions and errors behind the deform movement.
But who coaches the teacher coaches?
They are wearing ear buds too. And those people are wired into a higher system. At the top is Trump!
Real-time coaching reminds me why I find the tweeting that is encouraged on webinars so irritating. I am trying to concentrate on the presentation while this annoying scroll of comments competes for attention. There is a reason why people don’t just shout out questions or comments while a speaker is presenting. Or how about when someone insists on talking to you while you are having a phone conversation? ARGH!!!
At least the coach attempted to not “remote control script” while the teacher was speaking, but there seemed to be an assumption that if the teacher wasn’t speaking nothing was going on in her head. I wonder how often her train of thought was interrupted.
I have participated in a peer coaching program that had the potential to be quite helpful. The teacher who was teaching could ask the observer(s) to watch for particular behaviors to inform their instruction. I remember a teacher asking me to watch how often she interacted with each of her special ed students in a general ed classroom. It helped her to look at ways to improve the support she was giving. I did not direct her movements to try to balance contacts. I just reported on the number and length of contacts after class. She could then reflect on her interactions. She made the decisions about what the data meant; she was the one who knew the kids. I could give her my impressions and make suggestions if she had particular concerns, but I never was in a position to dictate her behavior, real-time or otherwise.
I do like the earpiece as an application of technology. The idea can be separated from scripting. I would have liked my mentor in the back of the room giving me real-time feedback rather than an icy stare. Her feedback was invaluable.
It made me think of:
http://edushyster.com/i-am-not-tom-brady/
This is so scary! What can we do to help these students and educators?! I would pull my child from school so fast if this was being implemented at our local school.