Teacher blasts popular classroom training program: It is turning us into robots.
Have you ever heard of of a classroom management method called the No-Nonsense Nurturer® Program created by The Center for Transformative Teacher Training? Educator Amy Berard was trained in it at Guilmette Middle School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, when she was teaching English Language Arts there last year, and she became a fierce critic for reasons she explains in the following tough critique.
Berard was among dozens of teachers who were let go in Lawrence at the end of the school year. A Boston Globe story about the dismissals quoted Superintendent and district receiver Jeffrey Riley as saying that nontenured teachers can be let go if they are deemed to be a bad fit for the district, while union President Frank McLaughlin called them “a punch in the gut.”
I asked Kristyn Klei Borrero, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Center for Transformative Teacher Training, if she had seen the piece, and, in an e-mail, she responded that she had. She also said that “we honor every teacher’s right to disagree with our approach and use feedback like this to reflect on our practices to ensure we are constantly improving as an organization and enhancing the body of work.” You can read her full response following the Berard post, which first appeared on the EduShyster blog of Jennifer Berkshire, a freelance journalist and public education advocate.
Here is a video explaining the No-Nonsense Nurturer® Program:
And here is the critique of the program:
By Amy Berard
“Give him a warning,” said the voice through the earpiece I was wearing. I did as instructed, speaking in the emotionless monotone I’d been coached to use. But the student, a sixth grader with some impulsivity issues and whose trust I’d spent months working to gain, was excited and spoke out of turn again. “Tell him he has a detention,” my earpiece commanded. At which point the boy stood up and pointed to the back of the room, where the three classroom “coaches” huddled around a walkie talkie. “Miss: don’t listen to them! You be you. Talk to me! I’m a person! Be a person, Miss. Be you!”
Meet C3PO
Last year, my school contracted with the Center for Transformational Training. or CT3, to train teachers using an approach called “No Nonsense Nurturing™.” It was supposed to make us more effective instructors by providing “immediate, non-distracting feedback to teachers using wireless technology.” In other words, earpieces and walkie talkies. I wore a bug in my Teacher blasts popular classroom training program: It is turning us into robots. - The Washington Post:
