I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt
Who remembers their favorite test from school? You know, the one that inspired you to become who you are now, or saved you from the wrong part of yourself? Who remembers the test that made you want to come out of your shell? Which test gave you the courage to try new things and challenge yourself? For me, it was the 1966 Regents Comprehensive Examination in Social Studies.
Ok, only kidding. We all know that it is teachers who inspire and challenge us to be our best. It isn’t testing, or much of what is now being called teaching. We also know which teachers did that. We might remember some incidents in their classes, or things they said or wrote to us. Do we remember the everyday things? The attitude they brought to the room? Their techniques?
When I see former students (from the Bronx to Scarsdale), they don’t tell me about the Goals or Aim or Motivation from October 23rd, 2002. They will tell me about my energy, my excitement, my caring, and my prodding them to do their best, not to settle for mediocrity. They tell me about a particular project that inspired or challenged them to think critically, or do things they never thought they could. They even remember what they learned while doing those things. What they don’t know is how all of that was planned.
“Great teaching is an art.” Of course, there are great techniques that have been used by great teachers, but it isn’t the technique that makes the teacher great. It is what the great teacher brings to the technique. I have watched these techniques used perfectly in perfectly horrible lessons and marginally well in absolutely magnificent lessons, because of who the teacher is as much as what the teacher does. This is true, whatever the teacher’s age or experience level. Teaching is as much talent as it is skill.
Great teachers plan objectives, then matching assessments and activities. What is also important is the quality of the activities and the probing, challenging, written, and oral questions accompanying those activities. It is all one big package. How does that lesson or activity, as simple or complex as it may be, get your kids to learn and understand those objectives and succeed on the assessments?
So, what is a good teacher? The sum of all those things. Each and every day a good teacher is a motivator, planner, questioner, assessor, mother or father, even entertainer. Plan accordingly. It is the key. Your kids rely on that. But don’t make it look too planned.
So many so-called educational reformers believe that given their version of the right tools, techniques, and tests, any top college student can I KNOW GREAT TEACHING WHEN I SEE IT: A Book Excerpt | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing: