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"If all or our teachers were excellent we would not be faced with failing schools!"
That was the comment from a friend of mine who was talking about the problem with schools and education today.
I tried to tell him that it was not really the teachers fault but the fault of unmotivated students, poverty, ignorance, teachers unions, a sick youth society, and government policies that says anyone who is interested in learning is a nerd, and a thousand other reasons. He would not buy it.
He went on to say: "If the teachers were any good they could get the students to listen to them and every student would excel. And if the teacher does not get results, fire them and bring in someone who can do the job."
Do you think my friend is right? Most of the fault is the teachers?
Ask him how he defines an "excellent" teacher?
If you ask ME...and "excellent" teacher is not one who teaches to the test, teaches kids to puke up an answer on demand, in order to pass this or that test.
The excellent teacher is one who teaches critical thinking to his/her students...and, unfortunately, there is no measuring stick that can measure this.
Here's an example of what I mean...it is one of my favorite questions to ask someone:
Imagine a man, six feet tall, were to walk around the Earth at the Equator - 25,000 miles.
How much further would his head travel than his feet?
I am not going to answer this question right now...but there IS a legitimate answer to the question...and a legitimate method to getting the answer.
I'll give you a hint:
I could tell you the answer, and teach you to puke it up on demand...but what would you do now, if I asked the same question...but, this time, it was a five-foot-tall woman? Could you answer it then?
The teacher who teaches the METHOD...his/her students could. The teacher who teaches only to the test...his/her students couldn't.
And that is the problem with these standardized tests that are supposed to grade a good teacher versus a not-so-good teacher.
The great teacher makes their subject interesting, so that his/her students pay attention and learn. The way in which a teaches does this could be many and varied.
"If all or our teachers were excellent we would not be faced with failing schools!"
That was the comment from a friend of mine who was talking about the problem with schools and education today.
I tried to tell him that it was not really the teachers fault but the fault of unmotivated students, poverty, ignorance, teachers unions, a sick youth society, and government policies that says anyone who is interested in learning is a nerd, and a thousand other reasons. He would not buy it.
He went on to say: "If the teachers were any good they could get the students to listen to them and every student would excel. And if the teacher does not get results, fire them and bring in someone who can do the job."
Do you think my friend is right? Most of the fault is the teachers?
You and your friend are both half right. I taught high school for one year and have been a private teacher for substantially longer, so I can talk about this as much as anyone.
"Unmotivated students" - that's half the fault of the government for insisting that students learn garbage that few of them will ever use (and could very easily learn in college if they need it), and half the fault of the teachers for not being engaging in the classroom.
"Poverty" - Poverty doesn't predispose kids to classroom failure, though it may put them at a disadvantage. Some poor kids take to school quite well, because it's the only escape they have from their life of poverty... so this can work both ways. Besides, I'm sure that teachers can recognize when a kid is at a disadvantage through no fault of his own. I had a student like that. He was one of my best, though sometimes he'd come into school looking like a zombie. I knew his home life was messed up, so I cut him as many breaks as I could. He tried his hardest.
"Ignorance"- Well, a teacher should be able to overcome this for the student as ignorance is defined as "a lack of knowledge". However, there's little a teacher can do to overcome the ignorance of the parents, which is a HUGE problem for teachers.
"Teachers' unions" - Yeah, they tend to serve the purpose of keeping incompetent teachers employed. I'm not opposed to teachers' unions in principle when the point thereof is to keep good teachers from being arbitrarily terminated... but when they keep bad teachers employed... bad.
"Sick youth society" - I blame the parents and the government for this. We take God out of everything and then wonder why society is going to hell.
"If teachers were any good, they could get the students to listen to them"... there's a difference between listening and internalizing. My students thought I was an awesome teacher but how can I keep their interest when I'm trying to teach them something that both I and they know they will never need to know... and I'm only teaching it to them because the state government tells me I have to?
If you ask ME...and "excellent" teacher is not one who teaches to the test, teaches kids to puke up an answer on demand, in order to pass this or that test.
The excellent teacher is one who teaches critical thinking to his/her students...and, unfortunately, there is no measuring stick that can measure this.
Here's an example of what I mean...it is one of my favorite questions to ask someone:
Imagine a man, six feet tall, were to walk around the Earth at the Equator - 25,000 miles.
How much further would his head travel than his feet?
I am not going to answer this question right now...but there IS a legitimate answer to the question...and a legitimate method to getting the answer.
Getting the right answer requires more than critical thinking.
It also requires knowing the correct formula.
The critical thinking I could teach in philosophy, but getting the correct answer is going to require some actual math.
What do you think is fair compensation for someone who has mastered a body of knowledge, who has also mastered the metaknowledge of how that body of knowledge is acquired and transmitted, AND who has developed some proficiency in actually transmitting that body of knowledge to other people, all the while providing a spectrum of services ranging from child care to data collection and analysis? Would it make a difference if that person's area of expertise were one in a shortage area, say mathematics, science, or foreign language? Is there any reason a person with such knowledge and skills should NOT have a lucrative career?
Not necessarily. It's not all about money, and with regard to teachers, we don't want it to be about money.
In some professions, it's about mission rather than money. For teachers, soldiers, healthcare providers and such, we ideally want it to be about mission because their service to society is immensely more valuable than we could ever afford to pay them.
But the "hygiene factors" are crucial (I'm talking about the Herzberg motivational-hygiene theory here). The military essentially gets this right by pumping up security related benefits rather than depending on salary. When I was a young military supervisor, a mentor told me, "Your job is to train 'em, motivate 'em, point 'em at the goal, and then clear the obstacles out of their way."
For teachers, we need to look hard at what makes it hard for them to pursue the mission of teaching and clear away those obstacles. Obstructing a mission-oriented person from pursuing the mission is the primary way to force her to throw up her hands and go elsewhere.
In this case, you'd have to at least know that the solution to my question would involve using pi.
If you don't know that, you can't solve the problem.
Sure, I understand what you're saying here, but it's just a math word problem. Both high school and freshman undergrad physics are filled with such word problems (well, not as simple as this particular example) and I didn't realize math word problems are considered critical thinking. Perhaps they are. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
Quote:
So you had to think a bit...to figure out HOW to solve the problem...and what is critical thinking but thinking about HOW to do something?
Well, anything could be called critical thinking if only thinking is the qualifier. An example I would use as critical thinking is the scientific method.
Quote:
My point was...you could get a kid to barf up the correct answer to prepare for a test....but what if you changed one of the variables?
Variables like angles, degrees, molar concentrations, conversions? You have to know what they are and solve the word problem.
Quote:
The point I was trying to make is...you need to teach kids how to THINK.
What is critical thinking, really...other than using concepts you learned in one place...to deal with something unfamiliar?
Critical thinking is far more involved than plug and play word problems, wouldn't you think? There's a wiki article that sheds far more light than I can in this moment. I have to go feed my kid. I'll be back in a bit.
Critical thinking is far more involved than plug and play word problems, wouldn't you think? There's a wiki article that sheds far more light than I can in this moment. I have to go feed my kid. I'll be back in a bit.
Oh, I agree.
I only offered my word problem up as a very minor example.
And...probably most of our kids graduating our schools these days...could not have figured out how to solve the problem.
THAT was my real point.
Kids are taught answers.
They are taught concepts.
In this case, you'd have to at least know that the solution to my question would involve using pi.
If you don't know that, you can't solve the problem.
So you had to think a bit...to figure out HOW to solve the problem...and what is critical thinking but thinking about HOW to do something?
My point was...you could get a kid to barf up the correct answer to prepare for a test....but what if you changed one of the variables?
The point I was trying to make is...you need to teach kids how to THINK.
What is critical thinking, really...other than using concepts you learned in one place...to deal with something unfamiliar?
To continue- I'm looking into how to define critical thinking, or at least how others invested in the topic are defining it, and I've found this which looks ok to me. Let me know what you think. I have found an apparent teacher on some other website using your example as an example of criticle thinking and I'm curious if students are being taught that, that is what critical thinking is.
A SUPER-STREAMLINED CONCEPTION OF CRITICAL THINKING
Developed (last revised 11/26/10) by Robert H. Ennis, rhennis@illinois.edu.
A critical thinker:
1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives
2. Desires to be, and is, well-informed
3. Judges well the credibility of sources
4. Identifies reasons, assumptions, and conclusions
5. Asks appropriate clarifying questions
6. Judges well the quality of an argument, including its reasons, assumptions, evidence, and their degree of support for the conclusion
7. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position regarding a belief or an action, doing justice to challenges
8. Formulates plausible hypotheses
9. Plans and conducts experiments well
10. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context
11. Draws conclusions when warranted – but with caution
12. Integrates all of the above aspects of critical thinking
Honestly, all that sound like the run of the mill scientist.
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