Why educators (and others) behave badly under pressure
Blog contributor and statistician Jerry Eads, a faculty member at Georgia Gwinnett College and past president of the Georgia Educational Research Association, sent me this provocative essay and series of questions about why educators cheat and whether we have created accountability systems that foster such behaviors:
Here is his piece:
This inferential statistician asks a probability question: Who among you think that two school systems in Georgia were the only ones in the nation that engaged in unauthorized test data manipulation (“cheating”) under No Child Left Behind?
I have watched the Georgia events unfold since questions arose about test results more than a decade ago. This saga has reminded me frequently of Stanley Milgram’s research in the 1960’s. See an overview here.
Milgram wondered whether Adolf Eichmann could have “just” followed orders as he testified during his trial. In Milgram’s studies, participants readily administered what they were told were potentially lethal electric shocks to others after simply being told to do so. (The “recipients” actually just acted as if they received shock.) Numerous other studies have confirmed Milgram’s findings (a review of them was published by Thomas Blass in 1999).
In his 1974 book “Obedience to Authority,” Milgram asked, “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”
Generalizing his findings beyond questions about the Holocaust, he concluded that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”
Of course, the Holocaust was infinitely worse than any amount of student test results manipulation, yet if the Milgram study illustrates how readily so many will shock others, and if the Holocaust illustrates how readily so many will send others to their deaths, it’s not at all difficult to imagine that some educators might manipulate test scores if pressured by higher authorities.
That’s not to say manipulating test scores (or shocking participants in an experiment) is excusable; it’s simply to suggest that current national accountability policy creates an environment in which we should not be surprised that some people behaved badly. Perhaps we should be surprised, pleased, and perhaps even awed that the vast majority remained steadfast to their core educational beliefs and focused on doing what they knew was best for their students.
Given we’re so incessantly disposed to finger pointing, who in relation to No Child would you choose as the equivalent to Hitler and Eichmann?
Far more importantly, how might you suggest the-beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves-prone policymakers rethink education policy so that we might begin making public education better rather than continuing to tear it apart?
Will “Race to the Top” correct the mistakes of NCLB or is it just working around the edges of the same underlying approach?
I find this lesson from Milgram’s later work of interest: When a peer, told privately to refuse to administer high shock, was “planted” in the room, almost all of the participants also refused to administer high shock.
Unfortunately, teachers who objected to cheating or refused to cheat were frequently threatened, punished or fired, and others learned that lesson. Perhaps, if teachers were treated as respected professionals rather than as serfs (and scapegoats), they might have been heard when they spoke and we never would have had the sad tragedy of Georgia’s cheating scandals. But then if teachers were treated as respected professionals, perhaps we would never have had the inexcusable travesty of NCLB in the first place.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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193 comments Add your comment
Top School
December 28th, 2011
10:13 pm
Yes …@ Beverly Fraud…look up the issues with Top School and GAE…The are all in the same “hood”.
@ Lori Ballington …on the same page. Not looking for money…looking for justice. And I wanted to know the Georgia Professional Standards Commission was a safety net for reporting wrong doing.
WRONG…We took it all the way to the Federal Court House…ALL SYSTEMS FAILED.
http://www.TopPublicSchoolCorruptionAtlanta.com
I’ve been blogging about the RETALIATION for 10+ years.
Nobody listens…and nobody cares.
Top School
December 28th, 2011
10:16 pm
So why are my comments under moderation AGAIN ???
Jerry Eads
December 28th, 2011
10:16 pm
HI Monica – yes, I know. I’ve been doing ed policy work for nigh on three decades, and hence have some sense of the various versions of the history of education. Treating teachers as professionals doesn’t suggest we should have anarchy. That likely wouldn’t work in education any more than it would in medicine, but at the same time, the competent practitioner must meet the highly complex needs of each and every student or patient. Neither anarchy nor one size fits all meets the needs of the children or society. I might note, by the way, that my read of research suggests that autopromotion seems seldom the “fault” of the teacher, but rather meets the needs of administration.
Jordan: Nicely said, but Monica (I think that’s who said it) is correct – the bubble test took center stage because they’re (relatively) DIRT cheap. We (and I was truly honored to have been a part of the effort) tried to develop more complex assessment systems (performance & portfolios) in the late 80’s early 90’s under the guidance of Lauren Resnick. Many lessons learned – not the least of which was if we were going to do large scale performance assessment it was going to be REALLY expensive.
Ultimately, Monica put her finger on it: the reason we do all this external assessment – worthless cheap stuff like low bid minimum competency testing or otherwise – and I might note that there IS such a thing as useful bubble testing, is that we do not trust our education system, almost always personified by the one at the bottom of the pyramid. We did the same thing with American auto manufacturing. Even though the reason American cars in the latter half of the last century were of abominably terrible quality had to do with management of the industry, we blamed the guys and gals on the line. Again, if we were to treat and respect our teachers more like medical professionals and less like assembly line workers, we would GET more people we want as teachers, more like the many devoted day-to-day heroes and heroines who post here.
College Student
December 28th, 2011
10:57 pm
@To College Student form Good Mother—I am not complaining about having to learn the material, I have made high A’s in all of them. I am a Middle School Math and Reading Major. I will only be allowed to teach grades 4-8. All of my reading content classes have focused on the standards set forth by the State. We take these standards and cover them in detail and then are taught multiple teaching strategies for each standard. We even have mini lessons that we prepare and teach to the class. All Reading content classes are taught out of the Education department at my university, and we are being taught how to teach our future students. The Math classes are taught through the Math department. These classes consist of future engineers, chemists, mathematicians, etc…, it is strictly taught as a math class. Yes I know how to do it, but I am not covering the standards, or anything that that will help me be a better teacher for my students. It does my futures students no good if I know how to do the math in these classes. However, If I was taught multiply ways to teach the material to the students, then that would be the best for them.
College Student
December 28th, 2011
11:01 pm
@d— I am working on my 4 year not my masters, and these are the required classes that I am required to take with Math being one of my content areas. These same classes are required by anyone who is working on a High School degree as well. They are just required to take 5 addition classes because they only have one area of content.
d
December 29th, 2011
8:25 am
@College Student – you still cannot get a teacher certification in this state without some prerequisite classes that cover pedagogy. Even if you are in a 4-year program, there are required classes for implementation of the GPS.
College Student
December 29th, 2011
9:44 am
@d– Exactly, and these classes do not cover that. A Doctor goes to school and learns how to be a Dr. Would you want a Doctor to perform plastic surgery on you if he was a Heart Doctor. He could do research on how to do it, but that doesn’t mean he would do a good job. The same thought should go into the training of future educators. Instead of having advanced classes that are far advanced past what they will ever teach, teach them how to Teach their subjects. All one has to do to be certified in any subject is to take and pass the GASE in the subject they want. Even though I am Math and Reading, I can take the GASE for Science and if I pass I will be certified to teach Science without taking a single class.
ScienceTeacher671
December 29th, 2011
9:54 am
@College Student, my certificate is for grades 6-12. I’m not sure if I could actually get hired in a middle school without “official” middle grades certification in addition to my science certificate, but it seems to me that you might want to consider going for the whole enchilada.
Observer
December 29th, 2011
11:53 am
@ Top School, Dec. 28, 10:13 pm: “I’ve been blogging about the RETALIATION for 10+ years.
Nobody listens…and nobody cares.”
God sees the truth, but waits.
bootney farnsworth
December 29th, 2011
2:55 pm
@ Lori,
get yourself a good lawyer -unconnected to the system, preferrably one with a bone to pick with it – and protect yourself.
all the whileblower laws are worthless since the system uses three tactics Joe Public can’t 1) they kill you at work by nitpicking every thing you do, cherry picking facts as they go 2) they destroy your professional rep 3) they happily wait you out in court, since the system’s pockets are almost always deeper than yours.
also consider joining GAE and filing a formal complaint.
bootney farnsworth
December 29th, 2011
2:56 pm
@ Observer,
that’s fine and dandy, but while He waits we lose our jobs, reps, ect.
bootney farnsworth
December 29th, 2011
2:58 pm
@ top
you and me both.
nobody cares until they find themselves in the crosshairs of some political whore who has no problem with destroying you for their
benefit.
by then, its too late.
Dr. Monica Henson
December 29th, 2011
4:55 pm
Jerry posted: “Again, if we were to treat and respect our teachers more like medical professionals and less like assembly line workers, we would GET more people we want as teachers, more like the many devoted day-to-day heroes and heroines who post here.”
I couldn’t agree more, with a strong caveat: having been a teacher myself, before becoming an administrator and working in education policy, if teachers desire the level of respect that physicians, attorneys, engineers, scientists, et al, enjoy, then there needs to be a massive ramp-up in the number of teachers willing to stay current on education research as it impacts their subject/grade levels, as well as teachers who conduct their own action research in their classrooms and publish. It’s all to easy to yell “Treat us with the respect with which you treat doctors!” and quite another thing to practice one’s profession as thoroughly as does any physician. I cannot tell you how many times that an irate teacher has made the comment to me, “Oh yeah, well I can find you loads of research that says the opposite [of whatever I cited during a conversation about school policies, practices & procedures].” As a K-12 administrator, I have never had a single teacher actually produce any research whatsoever to support a position they have taken with me when they have disagreed with a policy, practice, procedure, or decision that I have explained to them was supported by current research in the field. I have had a few folks who were accomplished teachers, most of them National Board Certified, who have brought research in to support their annual professional development plans they have written. It does my heart good to see teachers to this. However, I submit unequivocally that the majority of K-12 teachers in this country above the elementary grades do not have any idea what current educational research says about much of anything, other than snippets they might pick up while perusing the NEA monthly magazines or when looking at materials for the staff development that so many of them despise. Teachers just don’t build professional reading into their practice, as a general rule. Elementary teachers tend to know more about research because of their focus on teaching reading and the need to stay up to speed on developments in that area.
d
December 29th, 2011
7:08 pm
@college student – that rule you mentioned only applies once you have a clear-renewable certificate, which means you’ve had the “teacher classes” to obtain that certificate to begin with. Taking GACE alone can qualify you for a non-renewable certificate if you have the content courses under your belt, but it’s primarily designed for people seeking alternative certification. That’s the route I went – and I obtained my M.Ed and initial certification through Georgia State. @ST671, yes you can teach middle school science with your 6-12 certificate, but many middle schools want teachers with multiple fields which is why programs that specialize in the 4-8 certificates are usually multiple subjects.
College Student
December 29th, 2011
9:01 pm
@d–I have already taken the GASE for middle grades science and passed even though I haven’t taken any of the required science classes. When I graduate, I will be certified to teach science, as well as Reading and Math. However, I still have to take and pass both of those.
ScienceTeacher671
December 30th, 2011
7:48 am
@d, last time I looked (admittedly that was several years ago) they also wanted someone who had taken all the courses on the special needs of middle-grades students.
@College Student, I’m sure the availability of jobs and the definition of “highly qualified” can change on a dime – or the whim of Congress or the General Assembly – but right now we’re having a really hard time finding Special Education teachers who are qualified to teach math and science at the high school level. (Most of the SpEd teachers are teaching collaborative classes right now, at least in our district.) Anyway, if it’s not too hard to add SpEd as a field, it might greatly increase your ability to find a job as things now stand.
Chuck
December 30th, 2011
10:42 am
I had a duel major in college -Psychology in the liberal arts college and Physical Education in the College of Education. My father was a coach and I knew I would also coach. I got a masters with duel majors and had been accepted into the PHD program at Cal Berkley. When out of the blue I was offered a job coaching college football. I knew immediately when I step on the Practise field I was doing something in which i was uniquely cut out for. I loved teaching/coaching and I confident I made a contribution in the lives of my players. I ended up coaching in the NFL for 18 seasons, but I promise youbat any level teaching is teaching.
Beverly Fraud
December 31st, 2011
5:47 am
“As a K-12 administrator, I have never had a single teacher actually produce any research whatsoever to support a position they have taken with me when they have disagreed with a policy, practice, procedure, or decision that I have explained to them was supported by current research in the field.”
Monica, I would submit to you, that if we are going to have an HONEST discussion about “educational research” we are going to have to talk about its MANY shortcomings.
Many things that are considered “dogma” by now, because they are “based on research” don’t pass the smell test when the “research” isn’t TAKEN FOR GRANTED.
Google What Does It Mean To Be A Research Based Profession? by Bonnie Grossen-University of Oregon, Eugene. She has an excellent take on the issues concerning “research”.
ScienceTeacher671
December 31st, 2011
9:10 am
Playing off Beverly, here, Dr. Monica says:
I submit unequivocally that the majority of K-12 teachers in this country above the elementary grades do not have any idea what current educational research says about much of anything, other than snippets they might pick up while perusing the NEA monthly magazines or when looking at materials for the staff development that so many of them despise.
I would submit unequivocally that the majority of administrators and central office personnel — and I’d go all the way up to the state DOE with that — do not have any idea either, and that if those administrators actually read the research upon which most of our “research-based” strategies are based, most of the snake-oil salesmen (and women) with the “research-based” silver bullet cures who present our “despised” staff development classes would be out of business.
mountain man
December 31st, 2011
9:13 am
Dr. Monica Henson – did all that past “research” dictate that children be “socially promoted” so that their fragile little egos not be hurt, but they end up dropping out of school because they can’t read or write? The education system seems like it went off track when the basics of education were ignored in the face of “new research”. Where are the multiplication tables? Oh, that’s right. Just give the student a calculator. If they are at a cash register and the register doesn’t tell them how much to give back, they are lost! That is not acceptable. EVERY student should have mastery over the BASICS, and should be retained in the grade until they do. If there are enough students, make special classes for them (the 15-year old first-graders). NO Child Left Behind assumes that no children WANT to be left behind, a false assumption.
mountain man
December 31st, 2011
9:15 am
Chuck – good thing you are a football coach. When you got a “duel” major – was that in saber dueling or in pistol dueling? My daughter just got a dual major from UGA.
mountain man
December 31st, 2011
9:17 am
And, yes, I know I sound like the grammar and spelling police, but when I see people who misuse the words your and you’re on these blogs, it makes me want to scream. Did all those people go to APS? Or is this the by-product of cell phone text messages?
Beverly Fraud
December 31st, 2011
11:08 am
@mountain man, you’re point is well taken in regards to grammar’ however, your going to make you’re points more effectively if you don’t engage in needless duals.
I hope your getting my drift
teacher&mom
December 31st, 2011
11:51 am
@Beverly Hall….I did the Google search. Love the Mt. Olympus analogy
Thanks for info.
btw: You strike me as someone who would appreciate Susan Ohanian’s blog.
teacher&mom
December 31st, 2011
11:57 am
@Beverly FRAUD…my sincere apology for using the wrong blog name….
(I feel like a character in Harry Potter who accidently said “Lord Voldemort/Hall” out loud…)
Happy New Year! Looking forward to your posts in 2012.
mountain man
December 31st, 2011
12:38 pm
Sometimes I get into verbal duels.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 1st, 2012
4:50 pm
@Beverly Fraud: I am familiar with the essay by Grossen, and thank you for including it here for folks to see. My favorite passage from that piece is:
“…some of the tactics teachers use to avoid reliance on a dysfunctional professional support system also undermine the development of a scientific professional-knowledge base about teaching. For example, an over-emphasis on individual teacher autonomy and creativity can undermine the development of a shared knowledge base. As Adam Urbanski said: ‘Everyone seems to think that all you need to do to be a good teacher is to love to teach. But no one thinks that all you need to do to be a good surgeon is to love to cut.’ Having teachers pick and choose instructional procedures according to personal preference, without any scientific information regarding the effectiveness of these procedures, is not likely to lead to significant improvements in the effectiveness of public education.”
The preceding paragraph underscores my point: teachers disparage the research that is produced in the field, yet they neither actually read it nor do they engage in their own action research. They want to make decisions on teaching based on how it “feels,” rather than what has been proved to work in similar classrooms with similar demographics. Or, worse, they continue to do things that have been demonstrated NOT to work, and not just in other classrooms with similar demographics, but in their own classrooms.
Until teachers begin to acquaint themselves with the research base and to contribute to it by conducting their own classrooms as action research laboratories (which is essentially what the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards outlines in its certification process), they will never gain the respect commensurate with medical professionals.
ScienceTeacher671 expresses precisely the type of comment that most teachers hurl when confronted with the simple fact that they are not researchers or scholars: “Oh yeah? Well, neither is anyone in admin or DOE.” That’s just ridiculous. While there are no doubt some weak administrators out there, there are many, many of them who not only know the research base, but they contribute to it as well. I know a substantial number of folks at GaDOE, the SC state department of education, the NC department of public instruction, and the Massachusetts department of elementary & secondary education. They are well-grounded in the knowledge base.
mountain man’s sarcasm is likewise the resort of those who haven’t bothered to do the actual reading. The main problem has not been “social promotion”–which is in fact a symptom of a much larger underlying problem. The issues contributing to social promotion are complex; one assumption of many people is that the quality and type of instruction provided to all students in every classroom is equally strong and effective and that all teachers are equally competent and capable, and if a student didn’t “get it,” then the problem lies with the student. Above the primary and young elementary grades, there is not a whole lot of effective remediation that occurs in many schools. Much of the time it is simply reteaching the same concepts the same way, adjusting only the size of the group (via pullout or after school tutorial) and the amount of time spent–but the teaching is still done essentially the same way.
No five-year-old shows up the first day of kindergarten saying, “I I want to fail miserably and create problems for everyone around me because I don’t want to learn anything.” But if you give that child the weakest teacher in the building, year after year, and if that child doesn’t learn to read decently by third grade, and s/he is kept in the low track with the weakest teachers throughout elementary school, passed on year after year without effective remediation, then you have a recipe for a surly, angry child who hates school by the time the middle grades roll around. In high-poverty schools, there is much more likelihood that not every classroom will enjoy the benefit of a strong, capable teacher. Some of them will, and in lucky schools most of them will. But rarely will all of them. And who ends up being sacrificed to the least capable teachers? The school itself is more likely not to have a strong, capable administrator, although many of them might.
I understand that none of what I just wrote takes into account bad/lazy parenting and other external factors. However, the simple fact remains that we have our children for the school day, and we have to do whatever we can during that time to try to help them learn as much as they can. The most accomplished teachers are the ones who recognize the importance of research scholarship. Their student achievement outcomes prove it, whether they are in affluent, suburban classrooms or in high-poverty classrooms.
ScienceTeacher671
January 1st, 2012
7:14 pm
Dr. Monica Henson, in fact I have read much of the research. I’m sure I’m an exception to the rule, but when we have professional development, I actually do look up and read the original research upon which it is based.
Do you really think I made my comment up out of ignorance?
Dr. Monica Henson
January 1st, 2012
8:06 pm
ScienceTeacher671, it’s admirable that you do stay current on research and I apologize if my response came across as a personal insult toward you in particular. You are in the minority. I began reading research when I was a classroom teacher as well, once I began National Board certification and realized the value of it. That you are and I was an exception to the rule doesn’t change the fact that (1) the vast majority of teachers do not and (2) many/most district building and central office administrators, in large districts at least, generally, and state-level administrators do. They have to in order to secure and retain credibility among their peers.
ScienceTeacher671
January 1st, 2012
10:45 pm
Dr. Monica Henson, of course you meant your comment as a personal insult to me, and as an insult to most classroom teachers, because of course we aren’t as enlightened as you and other administrators.
I suspect that you aren’t as enamored of the Grossen essay as you pretend to be, or you’d have noticed that your “favorite passage” refers to the same “dysfunctional professional support system” I described in the post that you disparaged, and which Grossen had previously described in her essay.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 2nd, 2012
12:07 am
ScienceTeacher671, if it is an insult to classroom teachers to point out the reality that they don’t participate in at least reading the research in their field, much less practice action research in their classrooms,while at the same time they call for society to pay them the same respect as paid to practicing physicians, then there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. You clearly have an ax to grind against administrators, so grind away. Just be prepared for inaccuracies to be pointed out when you post them publicly.
I’m not particular “enamored” of everything in the Grossen piece, although there are some good points that are made in the essay. Another item that is of particular interest to me is the discussion of cooperative learning. Grossen points out that there is extensive research on cooperative learning (more than 600 studies to date, in fact), but that if this strategy is employed in a research-based manner, it becomes an extension of the teacher-designed and -directed instructional plan. Students are assigned specific roles and responsibilities, there is group and individual accountability, etc. Using cooperative learning effectively in a K-12 classroom takes extensive planning in advance on the part of a skilled teacher. (The teacher also cannot abdicate responsibility for oversight and sit and grade papers at his/her desk while the students are in groups, which I have observed on more than one occasion when dropping in on classrooms.) When used in this manner, cooperative learning can be a powerful tool that increases student engagement and achievement. Nevertheless, many teachers describe cooperative learning as a waste of time, a socializing opportunity, and claim that they’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.
Grossen attributes this failure to inadequate implementation on the part of school districts. I agree that if districts promote a strategy, they owe it to their teachers to provide sufficient training and support to make sure that the teachers understand WHY the strategy is useful and HOW to execute properly. However, when I was in the classroom, I didn’t learn to use cooperative learning effectively from a districtwide initiative. I took it upon myself to read about it and glean from the knowledge base the very things that Grossen summarizes about it. As a result, cooperative learning in my classroom was a powerful and effective strategy. As a teacher, I shared my knowledge with colleagues who were interested, and as an administrator, I provided job-embedded staff development on the technique, which is another topic Grossen touches on–sharing the knowledge base.
ScienceTeacher671
January 2nd, 2012
7:32 am
Dr. Monica Henson, nice deflection! I know that one problem plaguing internet discussion is that tone of voice and facial expressions are missing, but surely you can see that your “tone” in your comments over the past couple of days has been extremely condescending toward classroom teachers and other posters.
Also, your pointing out of “inaccuracies” basically consists of he said/she said. Although you state that it’s true, you have not given any evidence that “many/most district building and central office administrators, in large districts at least, generally, and state-level administrators do” read and understand research – in fact, you’ve qualified your assertion by limiting it to large districts.
So far as cooperative learning is concerned, IMHO Grossen points out one of the major problems, but does not go into great detail, and that would be both the conflation of cooperative learning with inquiry-based learning – “In most schools today, cooperative learning is used to replace teacher-directed instruction and students are expected to construct their own knowledge working in groups.”
As you are probably aware, teachers now are urged to be “the guide on the side” rather than “the sage on the stage,” so the direct instruction which you allude to and Grossen states that cooperative learning is designed to complement (not replace) gets left out — and the strategy does not work, since it was not implemented correctly.
I would submit that in many cases, it’s not the WHY or the HOW that is the problem, but the TIME to adequately plan for the lesson. As Grossen states:
To be a profession is to have a professional-knowledge base comprised of shared procedures that work. To have shared procedures that work is a new idea for teachers, though it is quite old for other professions. Good teachers using well-engineered tools and detailed procedures can achieve remarkable results with their students, and, this is the good news, teachers can get these results and also have a life. The reformers providing teachers with theories, and no details for how to use them, are also asking teachers to create their own tools and curricula. This is like asking airplane pilots to build their own airplanes; like asking farmers to design their own tractors. When would teachers have time to do this? There’s no time. Teachers have to teach all day. Engineering a highly effective instructional sequence would more than consume the teachers’ private lives. Are teachers entitled to a life?
Maybe the idea of the “old maid schoolteacher” who devotes all her time and energy to the classroom really is what we want.
Jerry Eads
January 2nd, 2012
9:38 am
Monica: Couldn’t agree more (your response to me). That means we need to prepare teachers in that vein, too. I’ll do my best
Sorry wasn’t here for a bit – lost internet for a while.
J
Dr. Monica Henson
January 2nd, 2012
1:46 pm
ScienceTeacher671 posted: “I would submit that in many cases, it’s not the WHY or the HOW that is the problem, but the TIME to adequately plan for the lesson.”
This is absolutely a serious issue in American K-12 education. At the higher education levels, instructors and professors are granted significant time for preparation & planning, along with research & writing, compared to classroom contact hours, whereas in K-12, contact hours are used primarily to ensure that students are supervised in age cohorts by certificated personnel as much as possible (crowd control). It is far more difficult to combine daycare/crowd control management with effective curriculum & instruction practice because the opportunity for planning, professional reading, researching, and publishing is not provided during the work day for K-12 teachers. I would not advise holding one’s breath for any school district in this country to decide that granting teachers two hours’ planning time daily would be economically feasible.
When I was in the classroom, I developed the ability to do a tremendous amount of planning and “front-end loading” during the summertime, so that by the time the school year began, I wasn’t swamped with lesson planning day by day. It took several years of fine-tuning my teaching to be able to get to that point.
On a couple of other points you raise (and I am enjoying this discussion greatly, as I love to talk about teaching & learning), I am of the professional opinion, based again on my own classroom practice, that the “guide on the side” teaching model does not in any way preclude direct instruction–rather, it enhances it. There is always a place for some direct instruction in every classroom, some more than others, depending on the nature of the subject matter. Relying exclusively on “sage on the stage” mode is a disservice to students, as it prevents them from the opportunity to engage fully in their own learning. Nevertheless, it is educationally irresponsible to rely heavily on student-directed activity without sufficient preplanning and scaffolding laid by the teacher, in the name of “constructivism.” Effective constructivist practice is guided, always, by the hand of the expert, even if that hand is not visible in every activity students engage in.
I understand that many teachers are put off by my assertions regarding researching the knowledge base, engaging in professional reading, and conducting classroom action research. However, the truth makes the comfortable uncomfortable. I would argue that it is not a matter of tone, but of content, that is the agitator in what I say. I certainly perceive a high degree of hostility in your characterization of administrators, but I don’t take personal offense, primarily because I have encountered this kind of hostility for so long that I’m used to it.
I qualified my characterization of K-12 administrators who participate in research to large districts because in my experience, smaller districts tend not to require doctoral degrees and evidence of professional scholarship in their candidates for administrative positions, while larger districts frequently do. My experience working with folks at the state level is quite varied, although limited to the Southeast and Northeast regions, but I have found strong scholarly practice to be the norm rather than the exception at that level of administration.
Prof
January 2nd, 2012
2:16 pm
@ Dr. Monica Henson: “At the higher education levels, instructors and professors are granted significant time for preparation & planning, along with research & writing, compared to classroom contact hours.”
Yes, that may seem true, but there are other factors to take into account, at least for professors who are tenure-track or tenured. The instructors often have course loads that compare with anything high school teachers have; and usually at the research universities they are also taking graduate courses.
* These professors are expected to keep up with the research in their fields, and also to contribute to it through publishing. No or little publishing = heavier course loads, or “classroom contact hours.” Publishing is not something that K-12 teachers are expected to do.
* Tenured faculty are expected to participate in the “shared governance” that characterizes higher education by serving on committees at the departmental, college, and (especially the Full Professors) University levels. They also must serve on the hiring committees for new faculty, and the promotion/tenure committees of their faculty peers. These activities also are not expected of K-12 teachers.
Time for class-preparation and planning can be hard to find in higher education, too.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 2nd, 2012
2:23 pm
Prof, those are interesting points–I didn’t realize that tenured professors take on class loads approaching what high school teachers carry (150 to 180 students)? And do they not have TAs to assist with the grading?
I thought that TAs & comparatively small class loads were provided in order to permit time for research & publishing at the higher ed levels, at least for professors.
Prof
January 2nd, 2012
3:14 pm
I wrote that often Instructors have heavy teaching loads approaching those of high school teachers. This is a specific rank that is untenured, usually teaching the larger freshman-sophomore classes and the “gateway” courses. They certainly don’t have TAs!
In USG’s non-research universities and colleges, Instructors often teach 4 and sometimes 5 classes a term, with 25-30 students per class. In the research universities, usually the Instructors are graduate students taking 2-3 classes of their own while teaching at least 2 classes of 20-30 students each.
As for the tenured professors having TAs and small classes, it depends upon the field. In my own case, as a Full Professor at a research university who’s taught for 25+ years, I’ve never had a TA. The TAs usually come only with the larger undergraduate classes (50-100), as in the sciences and business. The small classes (15 or less) are the graduate seminars, which don’t usually come with TAs.
Of course, if one is a tenured professor who has won a $1+ million grant, part of that will be used for TAs!
And as a side-note, the USG budget-cuts of the last few years have meant that most classes are larger than before, under-enrolled classes are not allowed to “make,” and professors are assigned more classes per term. When a class doesn’t “make,” the faculty member is assigned a large freshman or sophomore class in its place. Average undergraduate class sizes are 30-35, and the “gateway” courses” may be 75-100.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 2nd, 2012
3:57 pm
(Sorry for the misreading on instructors vs tenured profs.) This is interesting to get a glimpse of instructional life at the university level. Thanks!
Prof
January 2nd, 2012
3:57 pm
P.S. And don’t under-estimate the time required for faculty to serve on hiring committees and tenure/promotion committees, which is considerable.
The former, which hires the new tenure-track /tenured professors, assures the future of one’s department. The latter makes perhaps the most important decision of all, for it determines the career of one’s colleague…and also, given that tenure is permanent, who will be one’s co-worker for a long, long time.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 2nd, 2012
8:24 pm
@Prof: Noted.
@Jerry: Thank you!
@ScienceTeacher 671: LOL at the “old maid schoolteacher” reference. That’s my Twitter motto. “I”m an old maid schoolteacher on a mission to change the world.”
ScienceTeacher671
January 2nd, 2012
9:54 pm
Dr. Monica Henson, there is definitely not enough time during the day for all that we’re supposed to do, plus keeping up with the latest research and planning challenging, research- and standards-based lessons, plus “having a life”…it seems that something always suffers.
I’m sorry you feel that I’m hostile towards administrators. It’s just that I don’t think that most of those I know are any better acquainted with the finer points of the research than are the average teachers. That might be one reason that, for instance, teachers feel the need to use cooperative learning techniques without the accompanying direct instruction.
However, I’m interested in the following comment: “Nevertheless, it is educationally irresponsible to rely heavily on student-directed activity without sufficient preplanning and scaffolding laid by the teacher, in the name of ‘constructivism.’ “
Again, we’re back to that pesky time factor, and just as teachers are limited in planning time, they’re also limited in instructional time, particularly when there are many standards to be “covered” before the state assessments, which don’t necessarily come at the end of the year, or if classes are especially diverse, or if teachers have other things they are expected to do during class time other than teach.
I would submit that there are many times that teachers do know of better ways of doing things, but simply do not have time to do them. That probably sounds like “whining” to some, but it’s true.
Beverly Fraud
January 3rd, 2012
8:59 am
Dr. Monica I must say there is one point I stand squarely behind ScienceTeacher671 on. If teachers are to do some of the things you suggest, there must be an HONEST discussion of the time involved, as well as if it the most EFFECTIVE use of time.
If one approach (totally hypothetical) takes 6 hours a day of planning, and another takes 1 hour of planning, and for all practical purposes they are equally effective…
Dr. Monica Henson
January 3rd, 2012
1:01 pm
ScienceTeacher671 and Beverly Fraud (:)), I agree completely that there is not enough time in the instructional day to get everything done that would be optimum in a K-12 classroom. The lack of available planning time is a serious deficiency that I don’t think will ever be remedied on a large scale. There are a few charter schools I know of that have weekly early dismissal on Wednesdays or Fridays to allow for common planning & staff development, but I don’t know of any school district that deviates from the typical planning schedule for teachers.
I agree with Beverly that the discussion needs to be honest and the approach selected needs to be effective to justify the time required to plan for it. The key term there is “effective.” Using cooperative learning in a research-based manner, as I described above and as Grossen touches on in her essay really doesn’t require substantially longer planning time than is typical for a lesson. In fact, once a teacher becomes acquainted with the correct use of the techniques involved, and as students become acclimated to the teacher-assigned groupings and the types of roles assigned, planning becomes quite expedient. The student learning outcomes from this type of instruction, when executed correctly, are significantly better than those achieved with instruction that is primarily lecture-based followed by individual seatwork. It also generates much less paper to be graded, and what is generated (which can be individually or group prepared) is of higher quality.
Less overall time to plan a lesson, less time spent grading the products, and better products to be graded–what’s not to love? <3
When teachers acquaint themselves with the knowledge base, either through their own reading and professional learning or through high-quality staff development provided by their districts, they are better equipped to identify those strategies that get much more "bang for the buck," instructionally speaking.