Teachers Teaching Well

Given the billions of dollars spent on ineffective school reform, reform that centered around everything that wasn't a teacher (and that included, among other idiocies, the concept of a "teacher-proof" curriculum), the idea that we may as a nation actually put teaching quality at the center of a discussion of education reform is revolutionary, no matter how "duh" it appears to those within the profession.

Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Most Likely to Succeed,” (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell), is a step in this direction. Here’s what I take from his article:

• Quality of teaching is most important.

“Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a ‘bad’ school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile.”

What makes good teachers good? According to Gladwell’s piece, there are four basic, research-supported qualities of good teaching:

• Good teachers have genuine regard for student engagement. They allow a class to be active (learning is an activity) without becoming a free-for-all.

Here’s a minor example: I am an inveterate, incorrigible doodler. I doodled in every class I ever had, I doodle when I’m on the phone, I doodle when I take notes in meetings, I doodle when I’m listening to student presentations. Some of my teachers tried to “correct” my doodling habit, to no avail. I was a good student, however, and my doodling never stood in the way of academic success. (It may even have promoted it, but that’s another topic.)

Despite my own experience, I used to try to stop students from doodling in my classes. A few years ago, I recalled my own experience, reflected on it, and decided to allow doodling—even to encourage it—in my classes. And, if students want to knit through a lecture or discussion, that’s fine, too. As long as quiet activity doesn’t disrupt the class, it seems actually to contribute to learning.

• Good teachers promote a “lively affect” in the classroom and do this, in part, by demonstrating high regard for student perspective.
• Good teachers give students immediate, personal feedback.

“Of all the teacher elements analyzed by the Virginia group, feedback—a direct, personal response by a teacher to a specific statement by a student—seems to be most closely linked to academic success.” “’High-quality feedback is where there is a back-and-forth exchange to get a deeper understanding.’”

• Good teachers are “with it;” they attend to students and let them know, nonverbally, while teaching, that they know what’s going on. They manage discipline before it becomes an issue.

For those already teaching and working in schools, these are not particularly new or surprising findings. We could add to them, as well:

• Good teachers teach to the best students or the “top of the class,” and then work like hell to keep the rest of the group up to speed.
• Good teachers make crystal clear their expectations for behavior, classwork, homework, thinking, participating, and other aspects of their classes.
• Good teachers are fair.
• Good teachers are authentically themselves (you might be surprised how many adults—including teachers—find it difficult simply to be themselves in front of a group of middle or high school students).
• Good teachers change themselves and their own habits before asking students to do the same.
• Good teachers create a sense of anticipation for what comes next.
• Good teachers have a light touch and know what to overlook, and when to overlook it, in their classes.
• Good teachers have a sense of humor.
• Good teachers “see” their students for who they are and respect them completely and unsentimentally.
• Good teachers are organized and prepared for their classes.
• Good teachers know what they’re talking about and, if they don’t know, don’t talk about it.

This list comes off the top of my head. Different teachers and researchers and authors would add to this list or group qualities of a good teacher differently.

The point is, we all (I hope) had at least one teacher whom we revered, a teacher we remember as a bright light among the rest. If we ourselves are to teach, we do well to hew close to these memories, and to emulate those we remember so well.

We can also learn, of course, from those who treat us badly. I carry bitterness to this day for a 6th grade teacher who falsely accused me of something—I can’t even remember what—,kept me after school to write fifty times that I wouldn’t do again what I hadn’t done to begin with, and then doubled the workload when she, again falsely, thought I was giggling when I wasn’t. Her patent lack of fairness has remained with me, and I know that I try to be unfailingly fair to my students as a sort of immaterial memorial to her obtuseness.