Go to http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/ and read, What Makes a Great Teacher and watch The Motivator. After reading and watching the video briefly describe your idea on what makes a great teacher.
I think I great teachers is some one who loves what they are doing and it shows in their work. They take time to interact with their students and make learning fun. A teacher should be willing to listen to their students and learn from them just as their students learn from them. I think that being any kind of teacher takes a special person and those people are truly helping make every day a better place.
The Atlantic Monthly article is interesting and raises some important questions. What do we know when someone scores better on an "easy" test? Are we really addressing the correct issues? I think not. If we were, would the results cited have been the same? Yes,probably. My guess would be the better school would have produced better results. So indirectly maybe we know something. The trouble is that people get to thinking we are measuring the correct things when we are not.
ReplyDeleteSo what makes a great teacher? The article suggests these characteristics:
They set big goals
They constantly reevaluate what they are doing
"They avidly recruited students and their families into the process
They maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning
They planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome
They worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls."
From the context we also know this:
They learn from their students
They use efficient procedures
They follow predictable routines
They redirect questions
They had a history of perseverance
They were already successful in other areas
Their own grades improved over time in college.
Finally, Rhee is out and Kamras is out. The public didn't like what they were doing in the schools. Or, more likely, the teachers' union didn't like it. They went all out to defeat the mayor who had brought in Rhee. And they did so. And Rhee and her team resigned effective November 1.
The Wall Street Journal had a fascinating article summing up the school changes and the political outcome in the Oct 30 edition of the paper.
So what do we make of all this?
1. We measure the wrong things.
2. The system makes it verydifficult to bring about change and success.
3. We do not get enough good teachers into schools.
4. We do not keep them there.
I'm not sure I will use this next semester, but you certainly have stimulated a blog post on the topic. I'll send you the link when I write it.
Thank you very much.