“Good” VS. “Effective”
Is there a difference between a “good” teacher and an “effective” teacher? The LA Times recently covered an english teacher who made a significant impact on a tough group of students in one year. The story is worth reading, but here are a few quotations that struck a chord with me.
This 35 year teacher veteran coming from a prestigious prep school into a tough urban school is described in the following situation:
“Holmes had nothing unusual planned (for a lesson where a student asked to be excused for what she thought was a good reason). He considers every lesson, every minute of class time, to be important, and, at age 66, he often stays up past midnight preparing for the next day’s lessons.”
No one can say that being an effective teacher is easy. No one can say that effectiveness can be routine. No one can be effective in the classroom without a great deal of dedication, passion, conviction, knowledge, and skill.
The article goes on to describe various attributes of this teacher in his last year of classroom instruction and also reports on a number of anecdotes. The article goes on to end with this statement describing his last class teaching:
“There are no fireworks, no speeches, no round of applause. Just this: As he walks out the door and heads to the parking lot, Phil Holmes knows that today he delivered a good lesson. He didn’t waste a second. He made the students think.”
Now I know some would take up issue with the word “delivered” and take the philosophical viewpoint that instruction should not be “delivered” but rather experienced and socially constructed, but those same folks would often sacrifice “effectiveness” for poorly implemented cooperative learning, differentiated learning, on-line learning, project-based learning, technology-mediated learning, social learning, problem-based learning… The list goes on. All of these pedagogical structures have merit. But, the bottom line is measurable results that validate effectiveness as a teacher. Here is a teacher that perhaps takes an unpopular approach to teaching. The article does not even mention all of the technology-based tools that he uses to reach a digital generation. I suspect that he uses few to none. But, he gets results… excellent results. Students care about him and appreciate his skillfulness in the classroom.
How do you define effectiveness? Is technology really a required prerequisite? Or, should we let effectiveness and results speak for what should be required?
