Thursday, July 22, 2010

Classroom Management vs. Teaching

From Bad Teachers, by Guy Strickland:

[The teacher] was taught that if she follows the approved method, she will be an approved teacher. She was also taught that the approved method leads to student learning and that the accepted method is the only path to student learning...

This is very sad for our schools, because approved teaching methodology does not equal student learning, and there are many reasons. The biggest reason is that approved teaching methodology is not even aimed at student learning; its goal is classroom management, which is a whole lot different from learning...

Having twenty (or more) children in one classroom, with wide differences in abilities and attitudes, requires that a teacher have skills in organizing and supervising children before any learning begins.

Teacher training recognizes this very real problem, and gives teachers the skills they will need to organize and manage a classroom full of children. The problems arise because the best way to manage is not the best way to educate, but given a choice between the two, principals and teachers prefer to manage rather than to educate.

Parents should be concerned if their child's teacher is enamored of approved teaching methodology...

Listen to the teacher talk. If she talks about what she is doing rather than what the children are doing, gently bring the focus back to the children. Ask how the teacher knows whether the methods are working; ask for evidence that the children are learning.

5 comments:

  1. PsychMom says...and that's exactly what I tried to extract from the Whole Brain teacher...and got nowhere. I noticed how she just didn't respond anymore when I asked for the evidence.

    What really is disconcerting is that parents and children are so disengaged. Society and children are disengaged from one another too and the only thing that society really wants to do is "manage" kids somehow until they become real people from whom you can collect money, either in the form of taxes or through commerce.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PsychMom, right. WBT is always claiming to be "scientific", but there's no evidence that it accomplishes anything useful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "The biggest reason is that approved teaching methodology is not even aimed at student learning; its goal is classroom management, which is a whole lot different from learning..."

    Is this true? I don't know of a school that isn't interested in curriculum/learning.

    The thing is though, teachers must have control "behavior management" over the class to get to the good stuff "learning." Some kids show up to class ready, excited, respectful; some kids show up to class throwing chairs at the teacher. Try teaching while dodging a flying chair!

    I think control can and does (ie; Whole Brain Teaching) go too far, I also think hucksters conflate control and learning, (again as in Whole Brain Teaching,) but let's not pretend all kids, or even your and my kids all of the time, are these perfect little vessels just open and waiting for knowledge to be poured into.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ***
    Is this true? I don't know of a school that isn't interested in curriculum/learning.
    ***

    Oh boy, that's another series of posts. I am really not impressed with the curriculum at either of the schools my kids have been involved with, public or private. In both places I've seen pointless, ill-conceived assignments, and curriculum that either covers too much or too little.

    ***
    Try teaching while dodging a flying chair!
    ***

    No doubt, there are terrible teaching environments. A teacher in a public school in Philly recently got his neck broken by one of his students.

    ***
    these perfect little vessels just open and waiting for knowledge to be poured into.
    ***

    Hmmm .. that's not my picture of how I want my kids to be. I don't want my kids to be so passive.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous -- Yes, there will always have to be discipline in public schools, but it's really a question of degree. At some point you have to ask whether the cost exceeds the benefit. In my kids' school, there is so now much emphasis on obedience -- all in hopes of squeezing a few more standardized testing points out of the kids -- that I think it does more harm than good. The kids may be learning their math skills a little sooner, but it's clear that what they're really learning is "Be quiet and obedient and never question the authority figure."

    In discipline, like in anything, there's something to be said for moderation.

    ReplyDelete