Teaching is an Art (not a Science), Teamwork and Guided Practice are the Keys

Teaching is an Art (not a Science), Teamwork and Guided Practice are the Keys

Buying a new tennis racket does not make you into a better player, nor new golf clubs into a better golfer. Malcolm Gladwell proffers it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to reach expertise, Algebra 1 teachers will, maybe, receive two days in September. I asked a math guru about the new Algebra 1 curriculum, he shrugged, “It’s the skills of the teacher, not a curriculum.”

Bob Moses, the Civil Rights icon created the “Algebra Project ” and successfully taught the poorest and lowest achieving students Algebra.

The Gates Foundation funded “Balance the Equation,” a competition to select eleven organizations to create curriculum and methodologies to teach Algebra to diverse, low socioeconomic students.

Does NYC need another Algebra curriculum? Especially a curriculum imposed by Tweed.

Has anyone told Chancellor Banks the key to improving outcomes is improving instruction and improving instruction begins with teacher buy-in.

In the vast literature in the field of personal and organizational change, Rule # 1,

* Externally imposed change is perceived as punishment (“Your experience is irrelevant, your doing it wrong”), and Rule # 2,

Participation reduces resistance. (“Let’s work together to improve outcomes”)

A principal friend invited me to sit in on a teacher-initiated meeting in her school, teachers of Algebra 1 and the predecessor course. The teachers had scored the Algebra 1 Regents Exam, created an error matrix, the most common incorrect answers and were discussing changes to their lesson plans, why did students select the “wrong” answers and how can they improve their lessons.

Usually referred to as “ownership of practice,” teacher driven, not Danielson driven instruction

Next school year all K-8 schools are mandated to use a phonics reading curriculum, most choose the Harcourt Brace curriculum, a major shift for teachers, the governor followed up, districts across the state will be required to use phonics-based curriculum. The Science of Reading gang won the battle!  Students may be the losers.

Weren’t we taught to differentiate instruction, to use the instructional “tool” that suits the needs of the student?. 

Teachers are not happy, professional development is largely absent, new materials slow to arrive, and, the cost: probably tens of millions, btw, is anyone checking whether “higher ups” purchased Harcourt Brace stock before the announcement, no one would do that …

Once again, the key to improving outcomes is instruction: how do we create collaborative schools, teachers sharing what works, schools sharing with other schools, school cultures willing to explore, to adapt and adopt.

Sprinkled across the city are shining stars, truly effective schools, glittering stars that are too few and the potentates in the eyries of power seem determined to be extinguish them.

Innovative school leaders are viewed as troublemakers, not team players. One of those troublemaker principals invited me into his school, an Afro-American student body, and suggested a few teachers, who welcomed me into their classrooms.  An English classroom, the kids were reading Hamlet and Freud, in an AP European History class written on the board, “God is Dead,” asked students reactions, others to comment on the reactions, and continue by reading a passage from Nietzsche, the topic of the week, sadly in most schools leaders, with no choice but to swallow the remedy of the moment.

Challenging instruction engages and motivates students, and students who struggle need supports, tutoring is effective, not making Regents Exams voluntary.

In his new book, “A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools (2024).” David Steiner urges,

“Our collective disinclination to aim higher, far from adding to the demoralization of our education system, has solidified it. For the sake of America’s children and the future of our country, we need to imagine what aiming higher means – and then get back to work.”