From Whence Come Ideas for Reforming Teaching Practices?
Over many years I have written about reforms aimed at classroom teachers and how they have fallen flat. Think about major past efforts–and yes, in the present moment also–to alter how teachers taught reading, math, science, and social studies. Or reform-driven decision-makers making enormous investments to get teachers to use new technologies in classroom lessons, past and present. Teachers have selectively adopted bits and pieces of these reforms and, yes, even ignored such efforts. No surprise, then, in this super-heated hothouse of reform, teachers have been called resistant, hostile, and even blamed for failed reforms.
Rather than keep reminding people that there is a long chain that extends from policymakers adopting a new reading program to that third grade teacher working with three groups in a 30-minute lesson or pecking at