"Building a Better Teacher"

The article I had read was called “Building a Better Teacher” by Elizabeth Green. This article tells us that we need to make sure that teachers are strengthen there ways of teacher to achieve the students goals. In school systems there is a saying that says “No Child Left Behide” which they use standardized testing as the solution. Doug Lemov would go from school to school and see each child’s weaknesses, and strengths. Some students are very well at taking tests and doing homework, but when it comes to listening in actual class many kids seem to wonder.

Within time people had believed that if you improve the quality of the teaching crops by firing the bad teachers and hiring better ones and they called this “Creating a New Teaching Profession”. Within this article there were many different methods that could improve children’s ability in learning. Traditionally many educational schools had divided there curriculums into three certain parts which were, regular academic subjects which was used to make sure that the teachers had known the basics of what they had been assigned to teach; The nest one is Foundations that had given them a sense of history and philosophy of education; and the last one is Methods course which are really supposed to offer ideas on how to teach particular subjects.

It had been showed in a study that a 2006 report had found that 12 percent of educational school faculty members never had taught in elementary schools or even secondary school themselves. It is also known that only nearly 80 percent of teachers earn there bachelor’s degree in education according to “U.S Department of Education”.

Another question that had been raised in the air was is a good classroom management enough ensures a good instruction? Well to find this out they had spoken to a women by the name of Heather Hill who had showed them a video of a certain teacher that was called by pseudonym Wilma. She was a great teacher and had great charisma but things had seemed to fall apart when it had come to math time. Hill had been a member of group educators who like “Lemov” are also studying great teachers. Rather than focusing on universal teachings techniques that can be applied across subjects and grade levels, Hill and her colleagues had asked what good teachers should know about the specific subjects that they teach.

Another researcher was by the name of Deborah Liebenberg Ball, she had been an assistant professor who also taught math part-time at an East Lansing elementary school and her classroom had been a model for teachers in training. In 1990 Ball had filmed her third-grade math class at the Spartan Village Elementary School, and those videos had become the foundation for a great deal of teaching training research.

These days Lemov had been single-mindedly focused on the mechanics of teaching and the secret steps behide getting and holding the floor weather you’re teaching fractions or the American Revolution. Lemov for his part finds hope in what he has already accomplished.

Building a Better Teacher

In the article “Building a better teacher”, by Elizabeth Green she gives a call to action that we need to strengthen our teachers to be able to better educate our children. By the 1930’s teachers started to be mass produced. But what is being produced by these teachers is the question at hand. Though the teachers have the correct degree and the technical training to be in their field of work the students may still suffer. As the evidence in this article suggest that there is more to teaching then what is solely learned in the college classrooms.

There are many different methods and styles that are being tested to find the best way to move children forward. Deborah Lowewenberg Ball introduced a test called the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching; this test has given us a small window to look into the results of the quality of teachers on the quality of students. There has been studies that show that how a teacher fairs on the M.K.T. test, his or her students will follow suit. The children have of a likelihood of scoring lower on standard tests if their teacher also scored low. Ball believes that to teach you must not only know the material but be able to know how your students might also come to the wrong answers.

There are also many different opinions on whether teachers need continuing education or if it should be considered just throwing money away. It is stated that another educational expert Jonah Rockoff, feels as though there is no evidence that having teachers take continuing education classes would increase the knowledge of the student’s under their care. Some schools have tried to introduce a compensation package or merit pay to be able to stay competitive with other professions.

Doug Lemov has been one of the leaders in the field of training teachers. He has videotaped teachers in their classroom which has helped him to become an expert in this field. He has used what he has discovered to introduce 49 techniques called taxonomy soon to be released in a book. He travels to provide training workshops and lectures to teachers. The many different ideas that Lemov has come up with are simple and easy to be used and implemented. “Central to Lemov’s argument is a belief that students can’t learn unless the teacher succeeds in capturing their attention and getting them to follow instructions.” Lemov has seen his taxonomy put into practice and the results have been raised scores.

“Lemov and Ball focus on different problems, yet in another way they are compatriots in the same vanguard, arguing that great teachers are not born but made.”