Talking Back, Part 2

I had, as usually, bought more than I meant to at the grocery store, and was just looking for a checkout stand that included an actual person, when I walked past the magazine display. 'Education' was the word that caught my eye.

On closer look, I saw the complete title was 'The Solution to Education,' splashed in a red ribbon on the cover of Newsweek. Behind it, written as if by a boy suffering old fashioned punishment, over and over on a blackboard, were the words 'we must fire bad teachers.'

It's such a simple solution, isn't it? And it has the force of research - the quality of a teacher can make up to a 75% change in the achievement of the kids with the same background, even in the same school.

And I've seen it. I've seen the kid that seems to be attempting to wiggle right off the ground in one class, literally bounce, smile radiating, from the praise of another teacher.

And like everyone who's read the New Yorker article or heard the This American Life story, I recoiled at the tales of New York's 'rubber room,' where teacher who have proved their unsuitability for the classroom sit all day, doing nothing, collecting paychecks.

But, as with most problems, the immediate solution looks much more complicated, close up.

What is a bad teacher, anyway? More to the point - what is a good teacher?

Take the wiggly kid. The class he likes better is science; language arts, not so much. Yes, the science teacher has a charisma that, perhaps cannot even be learned or duplicated. And he's a guy, and a coach. But teaching this student how to organize a paragraph is a much more daunting task than, say, helping him measure the volume of an irregular object. The first is abstract, and involves an ease with words that is beyond his third-grade level reading skills. The second involves measuring a water level, dunking the rock in, measuring the water level again. For a kid that learns with his eyes and body movements, the hands-on task is infinitely less frustrating.

Many teachers, too, are more effective with some groups of kids than others. I spend some time in an advanced language arts class every day. The kids are (well, mostly) very engaged in the presentation, discussion and implementation of every topic. Each time the teacher asks a question, several hands go up, and the kids usually arrive at the correct answer. She asks them to do a lot of writing, and they get it done. She fills up every second of the class with learning. Effective teacher, right? Yes she is. But I've also been in one of her less advanced classes. Chaos doesn't exactly rule there, but frustration does at least some of the time, both on the part of teacher and students. She's good. She isn't perfect.

The research that's been performed, shows that effective teachers establish classrooms in which the kids feel empowered but organized and orderly. She or he 'accepts and expands'- even a partial answer is accepted, praised, and built on to create the concept the kids need to learn. Important concepts and procedures are drilled, anchored, rehearsed, utilized. And kids' behaviors are shaped to the level desired through praise, structured rewards, and celebrations.

Teachers are largely evaluated on implementing these procedures. But, here's the crux. Although most of the time, this is what you do to get students to achieve and learn essential academic skills, that learning doesn't always show up on the most high-stakes measure of all - the state achievement tests.

My evaluations have, almost without exception, been stellar; I love the performance, the 'in the zone' aspect of teaching, and generally can keep a class engaged for the entire period, in activities that are 'standards-based' and oriented toward the most essential learning. But you know what? By the measure of the achievement tests, I stink worse than Stilton cheese. Because, I already know, the great majority of my kids will score 'unproficient.' Across the board.

But, you say, your kids have special needs. And it's true, they do. My heart gets broken every year about this time, as I watch some of my kids struggle, fail, and eventually largely give up on the state test. For some, learning the key terms in a word problem, that signal the desired operation (think 'less than' or 'how many more') was a victory - but none of those key terms are used on a state math test. Kids with Autism and Aspergers don't have the theory of mind that allows them to pretend a situation they haven't experienced - so the 'imagine this situation:' questions on the writing test are unintelligible. And some, like my student this morning, look over the test, decide it's too difficult, and simply refuse to even attempt it, because they don't have the emotional skills to handle taking a chance on failure.

I watch all this happen, and my internal dialogue is scathing. Fool, I think, you should've seen the question they're all stuck on, or have given up on, coming. You should have taught it, or something like it, directly.

I used to work with a special education professor who said, if your kids fail a test, 'you ain't taught it good enough.' I always liked that, but so often nowadays, I ask, what is it that I should have taught 'good enough?' Which of the hundreds of things they don't know?

Yes, my kids have special needs. But there are many children out there who are equally unsuccessful, but whose skills are just ok enough not to qualify for an Individual Education Program. How will we determine whether their test scores are the fault of bad teaching?

What, exactly, makes one a good or bad teacher?