I’ve always said all a good teacher needs to teach is a stick and a patch of dirt… and I’m a techie.I've said it for years--schools are a microcosm of our society, and we have some "issues" in our society.
Proper education requires the factors – a competent teacher, willing students, and a suitable curriculum.
Big policy makers like to focus on curriculum because that’s the only thing they have power over right now. They tried to improve teacher quality through certification and evaluation, but failed.
What they won’t do is truly look at student responsibility because doing so would violate cultural taboos in the education world. Sadly, though, like a stool, no matter how solid two legs are, without a third the stool will still fall.
Education, politics, and anything else that catches my attention.
Wednesday, July 04, 2018
An Observation About Schools
From a commenter on Joanne's blog:
I can't remember any article on improving schools in the last few years that mentions the responsibility of the students and parents. It's as if we are supposed to make up for that huge part of the equation, over which we have NO CONTROL! I am entering my 32nd year of teaching HS English and when people ask what has changed the most in those years, THAT is the change that has had the most negative impact.
ReplyDeleteIn Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg provides the following weighted formula:
ReplyDeleteacademic achievement = intelligence (8) x motivation (4) x resources(5) x pedagogy(4) x instruction(4).
Note that if any factor equals zero, achievement is therefore zero; very non-pc but sadly true.