Most policymakers, researchers, and parents believe that good teachers and teaching are the keys to school improvement yet these very same folks know little about how teachers teach daily. And that is the rub. Good teachers and teaching are the agreed-upon policy solutions to both high- and low-performing students yet reliable knowledge of how most teachers teach and what are the best ways of teaching in either affluent or low-income, minority schools are absent among policymakers, researchers, and parents.
At a time when remote instruction has dominated the practice of teaching during the pandemic year, it is useful to take a moment to consider how teachers have taught for the past century and the traditions of teaching that teachers have straddled since the first age-graded school opened in the mid-19th century.
So how have most teachers taught and teach today?
The long answer can be found in many books such as Mary Kennedy, Inside Teaching (2005), Dan Lortie, Schoolteacher (1975), Philip Jackson, The Practice of Teaching (1986), and Larry Cuban, How Teachers Taught (1984).
The short answer is that teachers today draw from two traditions of teaching.
From the early 19th century, teacher-centered and student-centered traditions have dominated classroom instruction (see photo below of a classroom taught within this tradition a century ago).
The teacher-centered tradition refers to teachers controlling what is taught, when, and under what conditions. Were you to sit for a few minutes in such a CONTINUE READING: Classroom Teaching Then and Now | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice