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As a former teacher in FL, that 37K actually goes very far as cost of living is quite low and there is no state income tax.

My salary in NYC is twice what it was in Florida, but my take home pay is only about $300 more per month due to the insane tax rate up here.

Peter, that intangible quality is certainly not about grievances, vacation days, or work rules either. The sad thing is that not matter how much a principal wants to keep and reward a teacher with that intangible quality they cannot because of the salary schedule and prohibitions against merit pay based on results.

How about a better dose of reality, which is that simple truth that everyone the school system hires to be a classroom teacher should not have become one. It is only the mechanism of teacher tenure that forces these kinds of decisions to be made far far too early on in a teacher’s career. But of course, teacher tenure is not about what’s best for kids. It’s about what’s best for adults.

QP:

Actually three years, (or a fourth if the principal choses to extend probation) is an appropriate length of time to determine whether or not a teacher has the essentials.

In the “bad old days” the superintendent would observe every teacher up for tenure to assure that the principal’s judgment was correct.

In those same “bad old days” that archaic institution known as the Distict Office housed subject area/grade specialists who, at the behest of a principal worked with teachers to improve skills.

Now, it’s all in the domain of the principal, who, in too many cases, lacks the experience and skills.

Peter,
I too believe in the “teaching gene.”

And speaking of tenure gone awry, I also believe in the Chancellor gene. Quite simply, if you put making your boss (an adult) look good above all else (including and especially the kids)… you ain’t got it.

It is certainly worthwhile to analyze what makes for effective teaching and try to put these into words so that these practices could be more widely imparted. But I am so tired of all these articles that look at teaching in a vacuum, and ignore the conditions that would allow for better teaching. In surveys, more than 90% of teachers say that class size reduction would be the most effective way to improve the quality of teaching, and the efficacy of CSR has been confirmed by research, over and over again. Yet reporters, commentators, and policymakers continue to ignore these sorts of factors. Why? It is part and parcel of the neo-conservative ideology that has taken over our mindset — and is determined to lay blame on individuals, rather than identify the deficiencies inherent in the system that leads to poor outcomes.

This is great reporting.

I also think some of the methods could apply to parenting. (Though I was hoping the Listen Up Spray was being developed by a researcher.)

Congratulations to Elizabeth Green for making a superb debut as an author for the NYT Magazine. I have watched Doug Lemov in action in several capacities, including taking school tours with him; he sees things going on that layman like myself do not see. He’s an excellent example to profile, and constantly seeks to expand his own knowledge, and impart to others. Well done.

This guy is the real deal.

He has an astute eye for deconstructing how good teachers engage students, manage a classroom, and verify that every kid is successfully proceeding through a lesson.

He respects teachers as professionals. He notes the importance of giving teachers authority – and responsibility – for their classrooms and students.

I’m a better, and happier, educator because of his efforts.

When will the DOE stop and reevaluate the manner in which they run their schools? When a teacher loses autonomy over their classroom, learning is sabotaged. Teacher efficacy is marginalized in deference to teaching methodologies, curriculum, and administrative authority not aligned to the learning, emotional, and structural needs of the teacher’s students.

Lemov understands and practices this very basic concept.

Elizabeth,
First of all, congratulations on your piece- I read it, LOVED it, and immediately printed it. Thank you for such great reporting.

But before I continue telling you how fabulous you are, Queens Parent…REALLY? I’m sure you did not mean to imply that every single teacher hired is not qualified. I’m sure you didn’t. Because while I am fully able to admit that not every teacher is a rock star, you are just wrong. I say, enough of unproductive, generalized finger pointing.

Now, back to the article. LOVED IT! Had to say it again. I really appreciated the blend between the practical knowledge necessary to run a classroom and the content knowledge needed to teach children deeply and well. It’s not just about knowing how to subtract yourself! Teaching to the misinformation or the misunderstanding is truly difficult as is creating an environment where children are focused and feel safe enough to take risks.

And again, while I will not blindly defend every teacher, I will say that given this “fire all the teachers” attitude that seems to have taken over, Lemov’s assertion that we not throw the baby out with the bathwater is refreshing. We need to work with, support and develop the talent that we have, because (Queens Parent, I’m looking at YOU) it does exist currently.

Elizabeth,

This is the best education article I’ve ever read in the NYTimes. It was very satisfying to read. Unfortunately the bar has been set pretty low. I hope it reaches a mass audience, but, I’m afraid, the reformers who need to read it won’t.

It defies all reason that people still believe there is a teacher gene, an intangible ability that can’t be quantified, that defines good teaching. If you believe that every child can learn, then the parallel reasoning is that anyone who wants to can teach. Most teacher trainers fail to realize that they don’t practice what they preach when they conduct professional development. There are PD people who lecture to teachers about cooperative learning pedagogy. In 99% of the PD I’ve sat through the trainer acts as if the participants are already motivated to use the techniques they offer. If I assumed that as a teacher of high school students, I’d never succeed at anything.

Good teachers respect what the students already know, and make motivating the students to connect that knowledge to the new concepts the highest priority. That teacher creates the environment where the student feels that the learning is personal, that the lesson was made just for them. They must also believe that they will have to demonstrate their understanding of this learning in some tangible manner of performance. There are well mapped out strategies to achieving these goals, and they weren’t invented recently. A teacher needs to hold the students’ hands during this process, and use patience and consistency to develop the trust of the students. A new teacher needs someone to hold their hand and support them through this process until they feel confident, but this can only happen after years of experience and plenty of trial and error. A math teacher can’t understand how a student comes to an incorrect answer until they’ve seen just about every possible mistake a kid can make.

We need to have an article of this quality in the Times almost every day. Thank you, Elizabeth, for writing the first one.

As a first year teacher, I asked an experienced teacher if I could observe her, because she seemed to really do a great job with some of the kids I was struggling to reach (or even just manage). She let me observe her, but warned that it might not help, that what she had wasn’t something she could just pass on by giving me advice or by letting me see her in action. I found that depressing then and now I know that it is both false and a sad admission of defeat.

The fact is, there were things she was doing, other teachers were doing, and that I eventually learned to do, that made me a better teacher. Concrete things about body language, use of the voice, when to come on strong and when to back off, and so much more. Over time, I absorbed a lot of these techniques by being around people who practiced them, consciously or subconsciously. The following year my teaching improved. The year after that I started to really get the hang of it, as those techniques started to become part of who I was as a person and a teacher. I would have been so thrilled if that teacher had been able to articulate some of the things she was doing that made her successful. I also think a library of short video clips with specific techniques modeled and pointed out by a variety of teachers in a variety of settings could be immensely helpful during grad school.

I will say that when a teacher is in the middle of a difficult classroom situation, learning and practicing certain techniques may not have an immediate effect. Early mistakes made at the start of the year are incredibly difficult to turn around mid-year – but it’s not a coincidence that struggling first year teachers who are supported often become pretty good second year teachers and great third year teachers. It would be a mistake to expect immediate change in outcomes, but also a mistake to assume that a few bad months at the beginning means the person is doomed as a teacher.

It makes me sad that so many people, many teachers included, think that some combination of carrots & sticks or innate ability are the only tools we have in preparing nearly 4 million teachers. If good teaching is not something that can be taught, then I worry about how we manage to teach *anything.* (And I had an interesting conversation with my doctor today, who had read the article and told me about how he teaches med students and that things like empathy and other skills of doctoring can and should be explicitly taught to young doctors…).

The title of Elizabeth Green’s book, like the NYT article that preceded it, suggests its reductionist and anti-humanistic premises, and the pseudo-science that masks it. It implies that teachers are to be passively “built,” presumably by self-proclaimed experts (whose limited teaching experience, by the way, came through private charter schools) and whose faux scientific terminology is intended to make it impervious to criticism.

The end result, despite what Doug Lemov tells the public, or himself, will be a martinet sitting in the back of a classroom with a checklist.