If you spend your pleasure reading time wading around in education policy and practice literature, and hours online cruising Ed Blog World, it鈥檚 easy to lose sight of what the rest of the country thinks about public schools, teachers and what constitutes a quality education.
A quick glance at the comments on any mainstream piece about education confirms this: lots of well-meaning people can鈥檛 understand what has happened to public education in the past dozen years, but that doesn鈥檛 stop them from speaking their minds. It鈥檚 very rare to read a thoughtful, nuanced back-and-forth about standardized test data, charter schools or teacher tenure.
What you get, often, is a list of Things People Say, about education: Kids today--so disrespectful! And their idiot parents are to blame. Especially in ___________ (city where commenter does not live). Everything has been dumbed down. Teachers are underworked / overpaid. Bring back the paddle! Or prayer. Or cursive writing.
Still. It鈥檚 important for educators to read widely, about common issues--with a kind of radar for books and articles written for general audiences that contain important nuggets of wisdom, related to schools and learning. Why? Because general audiences aren鈥檛 reading your favorite teacher blogs or books on the Common Core. Education takes place in the middle--between research-based expertise and unexamined habit.
The only way to break out of the echo chamber of Things Educators Say (and get persnickety over) is to get a fresh perspective, one that comes from outside School World. Sometimes, of course, this will drive you a little crazy.
For example, here鈥檚 a piece about the hip 鈥渟cience鈥� of making
Topic: why economists should be turning cartwheels over another paper that says VAM 鈥溾�榓ccurately captures teachers鈥� impacts on students鈥� academic achievement.鈥� The implication being, school administrators can legitimately use value-added scores to hire, fire and otherwise evaluate teacher performance. 鈥�
Much of the piece is a detailed explanation of contentious issues in yet another statistical analysis. Stuff that makes economists excited, no doubt. But beyond the ken of your average parent or, yes, legislator, who absorb only the 鈥�legitimately use value-added scores to hire and fire鈥� part.
Here鈥檚 what I don鈥檛 get. When did economists become the folks we turn to for social-political advice? When did we start trusting numbers generated by remote students taking tests more than our own observations? And what economist would base an evaluation of his own child鈥檚 all-important first grade teacher on test scores?
On the other hand, a fellow music teacher handed me . He just completed the best year of his career, he said, one where he stopped trying to control every aspect of student behavior and followed four simple rules outlined in the article, a brief pop-psychology feature piece:
Have you ever accomplished your best work because someone nagged you? I didn't think so. Here's what to do: Stop Bribing Make Them Feel Something Emphasize Progress Start A Cult -- (With A Story) Good thinking starts with strong feelings.
This feature also mentions that the ideas are backed by scientific research. It鈥檚 all about the science, it seems--a cheap way to make something feel legitimate.
I liked the TIME piece, however--a lot. It rang MY teacher chimes, and I wasn鈥檛 surprised that a young teacher who tried to build a strong, story-focused community of kids (鈥渆verybody鈥檚 welcome in the band room"--that鈥檚 a good refrain to start with), stressing positive emotion, collaboration and incremental progress, was finding great rewards with a group of teenaged musicians.
He was kind of sheepish--TIME magazine?--but remarked that none of his graduate class assignments offered short, accessible bits of advice on building a classroom community.
What kinds of summer reading are most helpful for teachers?