Thinking about teaching

There is a good article on teaching in the New York Times Magazine. It points out that there is research that indicates that some teachers consistently get better results from their students on tests than do others.

The article suggests that to do so, teachers need:

• good classroom management technique
• command of the subject matter they are teaching
• an understanding of the way students understand and misunderstand that subject matter

The article also gives an example of a teacher who, having developed a good lesson plan for a lesson, departed from it when she saw an opportunity to enrich the students learning based on the intervention from a young student. This seems to me to be an example of good teaching that goes beyond the three points mentioned above.

The article further suggests that although most American teachers are graduates of colleges of education, most of those college neither teach means of assuring student attention in the classroom nor how to understand the students' mental response to the substance of a class.

I was reminded of a story that I heard attached to Henry Wallace. It seems that for decades American farmers competed in county fairs for the best looking corn. They saved as seed corn the seed from the winning farmers and fields, and corn got prettier and prettier. On the other hand, yield went down and down. Wallace, the founder of Pioneer Hybrid and popularizer of hybrid corn varieties in the United States, suggested that since cows don't seem to have our aesthetic bent, farmers instead seek to plant seed that would increase corn yields.

If schools don't know what makes teachers effective and seek to maximize something other than teaching effectiveness in their graduates -- general knowledge and culture, understanding of child growth and development, etc. -- then teaching will probably not improve over time.

The article suggested some places were fortunately teachers are being taught to teach better.