In Defense of Teacher-Ed

Who I am: Chris Lehmann

What I do: Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA (Opening 9/06).

What I did: Technology Coordinator / English Teacher / Girls Basketball Coach / Ultimate Coach at the Beacon School, a fantastic progressive public high school in Manhattan.

Email: chris [at] practicaltheory [dot] org.

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Gary Stager about New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement
Tue, 31.08.2010 05:14
I may have linked to the
wrong Merrow article -
http://takingnote.learnin
gmatters.tv/?p=4433

Gary Stager about New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement
Tue, 31.08.2010 05:05
Dear Chris:

We've had this discussion
privately, so I hope you
don't mind that I involve
the [...]

Julie Strong about New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement
Mon, 30.08.2010 13:35
I'll be curious to see
how #5 evolves. In
independent schools we
rarely lack for parent
[...]

dcollins about New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement
Sat, 28.08.2010 07:32
Those are great things to
look forward to! At my
alternative school, I'm
looking forward to seeing
[...]

Andrew Marcinek about New Year... New Challenges... New Goals... New Excitement
Sat, 28.08.2010 06:42
I am sure it will be very
weird vibe without your
original class in the
building, but now you
have [...]

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< Interview on ScholasticAdministrator.com | Sustainability, Media and Urban Schools >

Sunday, June 7. 2009

Tom VanderArk has a very interesting / provocative post about the teacher effectiveness debate and there are plenty of controversial and challenging in a very short post, but there's one in particular that I take issue with (tonight.)

Preparation and certification

* Now: worthless university certification that has little to do with the job

* Good: summer orientation plus job embedded coaching and training for two years

Now... I complained about my grad school classes when I was in them, but I'm not sure "worthless university certification that has little to do with the job" is accurate or fair.

I've studied under some truly brilliant folks in grad school, from Tom Sobol to Ruth Vinz to David Schaafsma. They were career educators who made me think about teaching differently. Sometimes, they forced me to confront the assumptions that I came into teaching with because of my experiences as a students, sometimes, they gave me language for things I thought but could not express. (And in the case of Tom Sobol, I just sat there trying to soak up as much of his wisdom as I could.)

It's interesting because, two years out of my English Ed masters, I went back and re-read a lot of my notes and books and papers from grad school and I found that I was in a much better place in my own teaching to try to do the stuff we were talking about then. Sometimes, I think we waste pre-service teacher programs on pre-service teachers who aren't yet at a point to fully get what they are learning. So much of what the first two or three years of teaching is about is about figuring out who you are and how that "you" relates to the stuff you learned in grad school (or undergrad) and how any of that relates to the kids in front of you in the classroom.

And while, yes, I think Mr. Vander Ark is correct that we need do to a much better job of coaching / mentoring our new teachers, I disagree that it follows that just because we don't do that, that means that our current pre-service program is invalid. In fact, I'd argue that, in the best of all worlds, better mentoring of new teachers would allow them to more quickly and more effectively access the skills they learned in graduate school.

I'd hate to think that we'd do away with the notion of teaching teachers how to teach because we don't do a good enough job of supporting young teachers. Our profession needs more thoughtful practice, not less. A summer of quick and dirty "here's how to teach" lessons will not create thoughtful pedagoges, but rather, mostly, it will create a generation of teachers who teach the way they've been taught -- at best.

(By the way... One of my biggest frustrations about our profession is how little we know about the history of our profession. One thing I think our teacher education programs could do better is to teach the history of our profession. We need to be a less a-historical profession, and we can use our teacher education programs to do that. But I digress.)

So yes, let's look at how we support our young teachers. Let's build in apprenticeships into teaching. Let's mentor and coach much better than we do. But let's also help young teachers become scholars of their fields. Let's give them the time to learn about teaching, not just in the middle of it all, but in study because we stand on the shoulders of giants... and our teachers should have the time to learn who they were, what we've learned, and how that can transform what we think our classrooms can be.

And one last thought -- if our teacher-ed programs don't always get there... that's reason to push to make them better, not get rid of them.

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Tags: teachereducation

Posted by Chris Lehmann in General Ed at 22:51 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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I've heard these criticisms before, but I tell people my preservice program 30 years ago did expose me to educational thinkers. There I first heard of Holt and Kohl--Illich, too. I can't imagine not having read those folks as I started in the classroom, and that exposure has kept me reading about good practice to this day. At our independent school, we often hire capable students right out of college, strong in their content but less sure in their pedagogy. Getting them to a comfortable place takes more time than if they had spent time in "thoughtful practice" as you say.

#1 Susan Carter Morgan (Link) on 2009-06-08 03:50 (Reply)

"So much of what the first two or three years of teaching is about is about figuring out who you are...and how any of that relates to the kids in front of you in the classroom."
Bingo. Amen. Yea Baby.

#2 Paul Bogush (Link) on 2009-06-08 04:08 (Reply)

I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis here. Practitioners who cannot think critically and draw upon a body of professional knowledge knowledge are just dangerous. We want/need learners, not robots, who can adapt, reflect, evaluate, experiment, research, analyze, persist, collaborate, lead, take initiative, ... I think that time is perhaps the presevice teacher's biggest enemy in developing a teacher/learner mind during their 4 years of training. The reality is that they don't get enough exposure to the content areas/pedagogies that they will be teaching and drawing upon. The typical eled preservice teacher may get 2 courses in literacy, one course in math methods, one course in science methods, edpsych courses that do not integrate the content areas, poorly integrated instructional technologies or perhaps one course dedicated to them, mostly out of context... By the time they graduate, the one thing that they should realize is that they have soooooo much more to learn. If they have not at least learned to learn, then they are doomed at the gate.

#3 Steve Ransom (Link) on 2009-06-08 06:24 (Reply)

Has Tom VanderArk been through a university-situated teacher certification pre-service program?

Has he gone through the syllabi of all the courses in such a program?

How many class sessions in such a program has he sat through?

How is he the least bit qualified to criticisize these programs? Why should anyone believe that his criticism of pre-service programs is the appropriate criticism?

#4 ceolaf on 2009-06-08 06:52 (Reply)

I enjoyed your post. My wife is a teacher, so we have discussions related to this. I found your comment on the history of the profession to be very interesting. I am currently taking classes in a different profession. We spend quite a large amount of time on the history of the profession. Is this typical of teaching programs in general? I enjoyed the post, and I will let my wife know about this resource.

#5 Tim (Link) on 2009-06-08 10:44 (Reply)

I had a great preparation program at Trenton State College, Columbia, and now Delaware. It taught me to think for myself and I would suggest that the current dissatisfaction with teacher education program is a direct result of our “immediate results culture” where few have time for meaningful reflection.

It is interesting that Chris mentions the history of education, this course along with the philosophy of education are two of the major threads of teacher education that are MIA specifically as a result of the need to train teachers “more effectively”.

To the person who commented “practitioners who cannot think critically and draw upon a body of professional knowledge are just dangerous.”, you are quite correct. I think our current teacher education programs create people who can’t see past tomorrow’s test scores and are ill prepared to reimage education. If you don’t know where your profession has been historically and you don’t know what philosophical influences got you were you are, then you are doomed to repeat past mistakes.

#6 Joe (Link) on 2009-06-08 11:35 (Reply)

I raise a red flag when people who have advanced degrees themselves (Like TVA's MBA in Energy Finance from the University of Denver) and generally believe that getting a college degree is an admirable end goal for the educational process decide that the one and only type of certification that doesn't matter is a teaching credential. Why would teacher education be singularly unredeemable?

#7 Tom Hoffman (Link) on 2009-06-08 12:22 (Reply)

Its disturbing to me that the perception of "alternative certifciation is the answer" is getting a lounder voice. I'm all for getting people on board with education via Teach for America and other such groups, but its not the way to prepare the majority of our teaching staff. I fear that line of thought goes back to the line that "anyone can teach."

#8 Nathan on 2009-06-09 08:30 (Reply)

Chris,

You mention that teaching is a pretty ahistorical profession, and I'm inclined to agree. That said, can you recommend any reading that would give one a better sense of the history of our profession? Thanks, in advance, for your recommendations!

Emily

#9 Emily on 2009-06-10 13:52 (Reply)

Three good books:
Tinkering Toward Utopia - Tyack and Cuban
Education and the Cult of Efficiency - Ray Callahan
Changing Course: American Curriculum Reform in the 20th Century -- Harold Kliebard

Great stuff.

#9.1 Chris Lehmann (Link) on 2009-06-11 12:10 (Reply)

You might also try Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms by Diane Ravitch

#9.2 Steve Ransom (Link) on 2009-06-11 12:57 (Reply)

Chris, the points you make are very important. I've often detected what I call (for lack of a better term) an "anti-intellectualism" in the ranks of our profession that views higher education with disdain at the same time that we purport to be in support of education. If we do not wish to learn about the history of our profession, nor to think deeply about its practice and implications ---- why on earth do we do it?? This, more than many things, I think, gets in the way of true reform and effectiveness. You've really hit a nerve.

#10 Monica Williams-Mitchell on 2009-06-12 05:49 (Reply)

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