Teachers are (or should be) role models

I'm my own worst critic. OK, I don't know that that's true, but I know I'm constantly critiquing myself. I'm often genuinely surprised when people find what I do valuable or inspiring or helpful.

There are many reasons for my potentially overly self-critical disposition. Perhaps one of the strongest reasons is the sense of responsibility I have in the knowledge that, life it or not, I am a role model. Teachers are role models.

Teaching reveals this. Having children of one's own makes it even more clear. My actions and my words, planned or spontaneous, kind or cruel, set the tone for classes, weeks, even terms. The way I live is part of my teaching, whether my students or my children. It's more true than people realize that actions speak louder than words.

I'm aware that what I eat sends messages. I know that how and where I spend my "free time" sends messages. I realize that what I post on online is not innocuous.  I'm aware that how I interact with others, in reality and in virtual reality, sends messages. I know that how I spend my money matters. I realize that what I indulge and do not indulge is not simply a "personal decision" without social effect.

I also know how severely I fail to meet my own expectations. I'm am probably more aware of my folly and failures than I am of my successes. With my children even more than my students. Sometimes it seems that every loss of temper and every poor example is indelibly engraved in my memory. That's obvious hyperbole, but it's more true than than saying I recall my successes.

I don't always cope with this pressure well. I'm too hard on myself, I always have been, which arguably leads to more errors in judgement. Nevertheless, I press on knowing that I set out to change lives, and change lives I will. I step forward in faith that students will somehow acquire what is important and will graciously ignore or forget my mistakes. We live not for ourselves.

Are many of you like this? Are you aware of the importance of the examples you set? How do you maintain perspective?


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What exactly is a good (or great) teacher? (Part 5: Closing thoughts)

A good teacher is hard to define. It is even more difficult to develop formal evaluation protocols. Over the past few posts, I discussed evaluating teachers based on their ability to inspire. I've discussed evaluation based on students' test scores (a very prevalent idea today). Student evaluation of teachers has been touched on, as has teachers' own test scores and academic performance.

We've also seen how all of these fail to truly and fully evaluate a teacher.

What else could be looked at? How about peer evaluation? How about changed lives of the students? How about a continuum based on the number of students who fall asleep in class? There are strengths and weaknesses of every conceivable method, though some methods would be stronger than others.

What qualities do we look for in good teachers? The following is a list of some qualities I would want for my own children and for my students:

• a sense of duty to the students
• the willingness to let students explore
• the readiness and ability to reflect upon their own practice
• the courage to make mistakes
• the humility to say "I was wrong"
• competence in their field
• a love for reading
• the willingness to be unpopular (with students or peers) it improves justice
• a desire to refine their craft through study, research, and acquiring feedback
• a love for learning
• a belief that passion for learning is more valuable than orderliness
• the hope that students will achieve

What would you add to this list? What would you take away?




Other posts in the series:
Part 1: Inspiration?
Part 2: Test scores?
Part 3: Student evaluations?
Part 4: Grades and scores?


Follow me on Twitter @MatthewTShowman

What exactly is a good (or great) teacher? (Part 4: Good grades?)

This is part four of my series examining various criteria the public, teachers, administrators, government officials and others seem to mention when answer this question: What is a good teacher?

There's no universal standard by which to define a good, let alone great, teacher. There are no universally agreed upon measures rubrics or checklists. Can we simply say we know a good teacher when I see one? We can but shouldn't.

Today's topic is an identifying construct: University grades and scores on teacher training exams.

Are good teachers those with the best grades?

My wife and I have discussed the difference between what Chinese consider a good student and what I consider a good student. For her (Chinese, also a teacher), a good student is one with good grades, and the best student is the one with the best grades. For me, a good student will usually have good grades, but I look more at motivation, diligence, and those traits that lead to success, not the success itself.

I wonder if this is true for teachers, as well. Or perhaps any profession, for that matter.

A few weeks back I was looking into getting my teaching license in Texas. Regardless of my experience or my existing endorsements listed on my Iowa license, I was told that I would have to take a battery of exams: one for teaching in general, one for my mathematics endorsement, and one for my ESL endorsement. Eventually I found a job in Arkansas, so I've put the Texas licensure on hold.

It got me thinking, however.

Exams can be positive
In some ways, the exams are surely positive. Obviously, you'd want to ensure teachers know their subject areas. A math teacher should understand math. A biology teacher should understand biology. Also, especially in elementary education, you'd want to make sure teachers have all the basic skills of math, language, etc. needed to instruct students.

On the other hand...
A teacher may not be able to recite or even identify Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but is it needed to realize hungry children, sleep-deprived children, and children in unsafe home environments will have more difficulty in school? A teacher may not be incredibly familiar with Howard Gardener's multiple intelligence theory, but is such explicit knowledge necessary to a teacher experienced in looking for their students strengths and engaging them in those ways?

Does an ESL teacher have to remember Stephen Krashen and his input hypothesis, or is it enough to know that students need to get comprehensible input, even if that term is also unknown? Does an ESL teacher have to know the term scaffolding if they've been doing it since before the term hit the mainstream? An ESL teacher may not know the term recasting, but he or she may recast successfully 50 times a day.

Back to the initial question
For those who pass these exams with the highest scores, does that imply that they are the most qualified candidates?

High school and university and graduate school: I was a good student; I worked hard, and I earned relatively high scores. At the same time, school came relatively easy to me. That's not to say that everything was easy; rather, it just never seemed like the struggle it was for some of my classmates. Does that mean I should be a better teacher? I don't think so.

Could teachers who struggled to learn be more aware of the difficulties students may have? Could the teachers who've had to work harder to develop learning strategies be better able to help students develop learning strategies? Could teachers who themselves needed more personal attention from their teachers be more willing to give personal attention to their own students? Does high performance in academic training neccessarily translate into effective teaching in the classroom?

Football players with great performances at the NFL combine don't always become great (or even good) NFL players. How many great NCAA basketball players have become NBA draft busts? Likewise, brilliant med students don't always make the best doctors or surgeons, and there have been plenty of business failures made by mediocre and great business students alike. I assume the same is true of teachers.

There are simply intangibles that refuse to be assessed by exams, but these intangibles can make or break a teacher. These intangibles separate teachers who are more and less effective. Perhaps these can be taught and learned, but tested? Not as of yet.

Other posts in the series:

Part 1: Inspiration?

Part 2: Test scores?

Part 3: Student evaluations?
Part 5: Closing thoughts

Follow me on Twitter @MatthewTShowman

What exactly is a good (or great) teacher? (Part 3: Student evaluation?)

This is part three of my series examining various criteria the public, teachers, administrators, government officials and others seem to mention when answer this question: What is a good teacher?

There's no universal standard by which to define a good, let alone great, teacher. There are no universally agreed upon measures rubrics or checklists. Can we simply say we know a good teacher when I see one? We can but shouldn't

Today's topic hits a different note: Positive (or negative) student evaluations.

Are good teachers those whom the students like?

This seems like a good criterion. If students like a teacher, surely that teacher is doing a good job, right?

Maybe.

Obviously it would matter why the students like a specific teacher. Does the teacher inspire? Does the teacher excite the students about learning? Does the teacher transform what might be dull material into something students look forward to learning? Does the teacher help students exceed their own and other's expectations? Does the teacher help students feel successful and/or be successful? Do the students know this teacher cares about them?

Obviously these characteristics would be be excellent indications that students have identified a great teacher. However...

Does the teacher give little homework? Are the teacher's tests easy? Does the teacher teach a blow-off course? Does the teacher show videos and movies that entertain the students but may do little to educate them? Does the teacher 

How did students evaluate the teacher? Were surveys given? Were interviews done? Were responses anonymous or not? Where responses confidential, or were students being "supervised"? Were the evaluation tools accurate? Did the tools ask the questions that got to the root of why students liked or disliked a teacher?

Can we assume that the students (as a whole) evaluate well? Were tehy reading questions carefully? Were they putting thought into their responses? Were they rushing through checking boxes just to finish? Were they vindictive after the teacher called them out or challenged them more than they'd otherwise prefer? Student may have felt they learned a lot, but can they be sure they actually did (see p. 61)? Could students confuse teaching ability with their own enthusiasm or distaste for the subject matter?

All said, I do think there is great promise in students' evaluations of teachers. But there are some major concerns along the way.

Other posts in the series:
Part 1: Inspiration?
Part 2: Test scores?
Part 4: Grades and scores?
Part 5: Closing thoughts


Follow me on Twitter @MatthewTShowman

What exactly is a good (or great) teacher? (Part 2: Test scores?)

This is part two of my series examining various criteria people (e.g. the public, teachers, administrators, government officials) seem to mention when answer this question: What is a good teacher?

As I said previously, there's no universal standard by which to define a good, let alone great, teacher. There are no universally agreed upon measures rubrics or checklists. And saying "I know a good teacher when I see one," is woefully inadequate, at least with regards to official designation.

Today's topic is a contentious one: test scores.

Are good teachers those whose students get the highest test scores?

Almost any teacher would say absolutely not!

It seems government leaders think so.

The general public seems to lack consensus, as well they should, being caught between propaganda machines.

Let's ask some questions:

• How high would those test scores need to be for a teacher to be good? Would the evaluation be based on what the scores were before that teacher began teaching those students? Would it take into consideration yearly variation of students? Would evaluation take into consideration regression to the mean? (I.e. Excellent years are most likely followed by less performance, and terrible years are most likely followed by better performance.)

• Given that poverty is one of the best predictors of academic success (see references below), would the test score litmus test control for poverty?

• Should a good teacher be able to teach well regardless of the school and regardless of the students? That is, should a teacher in a poverty-stricken urban school be able to teach equally well in a wealthy suburban school? Should teachers be required to teach in both so as to "prove" they're good teachers?

• If a teacher is consistently able to get students to attain the highest test scores in a school or state, but that same teacher destroys the students' desire to ever study the subject again in the future, is that a true success? Is that a good teacher?

• Are the best teachers those who teach students to pass the tests or to understand the content? (I hope there's no debate over that question.) Could both be done?

• Who should make the tests? Educators? Administrator? Education policy makers? Academic organizations? Universities and colleges? Government leaders? Here's an idea: What about having business and industry create exams to test for life and job preparedness?

• Who is to say the exams are written well? Should teacher or students be punished for poorly written or designed tests?

I am not a proponent of increased testing. That's an understatement. I don't really like testing at all, as a student or a teacher. Only two tests ever really motivated me. One was the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) Chinese test. But, even that was born out of a love for learning Chinese. The other was an oral exam in a contemporary Chinese society during university. The novelty of an oral exam was simply intriguing.

More often than not, however, I felt as if exams got in the way of actually learning new material and new skills. I just wanted to learn. As a teacher, I just want to teach.



Other posts in the series:
Part 1: Inspiration?
Part 3: Student evaluation?
Part 4: Grades and scores?
Part 5: Closing thoughts



Follow me on Twitter @MatthewTShowman



References (from Krashen)
Ananat, E., Gassman-Pines, A., Francis, D., and Gibson-Davis, C. 2011. Children left behind: The effects of statewide job less on student achievement. NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) Working Paper No. 17104, JEL No. 12,16. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17104

Baker, K. 2007. Are international tests worth anything? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 101-104.

Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential:  Out-of-School Factors and School Success.  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential.

Krashen, S. 1997. Bridging inequity with books. Educational Leadership  55(4): 18-22.

Zhao, Y. 2009. Catching Up or Leading the Way? American Education in the Age of Globalization. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.

Teachers need high-quality feedback

During university I changed my major to education after becoming enamored with the process of learning and acquisition I saw in children. I've been a teacher ever since. All told, including teacher training, I've probably spent over 9000 hours in the classroom, and hundreds of others in one-on-one tutoring and the like.

I don't consider myself an expert teacher. I'm always learning more about my craft (an impetus for taking this course as well). Neither, however, do I consider myself a novice teacher.

I can't speak for people of all countries, but here in the US it seems like open season on teachers. It seems increasingly common to blame teachers for the problems in US education. It seems increasingly common for people to say teachers are just people who can't do other things well, so they teach. It seems many people think they could teach just as well as any teacher in today's schools.

Some of this criticism is surely justified. There surely are many poor teachers.

Yet as Kahneman describes, people with lots of experience teaching are really the only ones who really could have adequate expertise. Teachers who've spent 20,000 hours in the classroom, for example, would in theory be much better judges of what makes for good education. Better than students, parents, legislators, etc.

Perhaps the weakness, however, is that teachers do not often get rapid, high-quality feedback. They may know a lesson "worked" or not, but may not have time to inquire of students why it worked or didn't work. If teachers are too busy, they may not have time to reflect on those lessons that went well or went poorly. Teachers rarely have other teachers observe their classes to provide feedback: perhaps once or twice a semester, and that's being generous. Standardized tests give the illusion of teacher feedback, but that's really an availability heuristic, not a true measure of teaching effectiveness.

I wonder if more feedback (welcome or not) would be effective for bettering teaching quality. I wonder if it would be valuable for teachers to be observed by colleagues on a daily basis. What other ways could teachers get rapid, high-quality feedback so as to increase expertise?
Any thoughts?

Follow me on Twitter: @MatthewTShowman