Key Concepts Key Concepts♦ Great teachers do not use sarcasm, yell at kids, or argue with students in front of their peers.
♦ Educators can always learn from observing what great teachers do. Eliminating inappropriate choices does not help as much as identifying good ideas used by successful educators.
♦ All that is truly needed to improve education is for all teachers to be like our very best teachers.
♦ Who we are as teachers and what we do as teachers are more important than what we know. Teachers must self-reflect on who they are and what they must do in order to improve their practice.
♦ There are really only two ways to improve any school: get better teachers and improve the teachers already there.
♦ No program inherently leads to school improvement. It is the people who implement sound programs who determine the success of the school. Programs are never the solution and they are never the problem.
♦ What matters most is not what teachers do (including “programs” such as whole language, assertive discipline, or open classrooms), but how appropriately and effectively they do it.
Discussion Questions1. What is the most important idea communicated in these two chapters? How would you implement this idea in your classroom?
2. Why should we look at what great teachers do?
3. In what ways is looking at ineffective teachers pointless? On the other hand, why must we also study less effective teachers and schools when determining what constitutes great teachers and schools?
4. What is it that determines—in the eyes of parents and students—whether or not a school is great?
5. Are open classrooms, back to basics, whole language, and assertive discipline programs inherently good or bad? Explain.
6. When considering whether or not to adopt a school program change, what should stand as the primary criterion?
7. In the phrase “poor lecturer’s classroom,” which of these three words captures the problem? How is this single example illustrative of the “people versus programs” concept?
Journal PromptThink of a program that has been implemented in recent years at your school or a school with which you are familiar. Which teachers adapted to the change of programs, embracing the new idea and making it work? Did any teachers resist the change? Was the program ultimately deemed a success? What determined whether or not it was successful?
Group ActivitiesIn small groups of three to five, ask participants to consider the following two points: (1) Some teachers have twenty years of teaching experience; others who have taught for twenty years have one year of experience that they have repeated twenty times. (2) Students want to know how much you care before they care how much you know. On page 5 of the text, there is a description of a teacher who taught the same grade effectively for thirty-eight years. Have participants use the scenarios above and discuss how they apply to this particular teacher. Have groups create a list with three categories: what she knew as a teacher, who she was as a teacher, and what she did as a teacher. Based on the description of this effective veteran teacher, ask participants to brainstorm possible outcomes within each category that would likely have applied to her and her knowledge, passion, and practices as an educator. Participants should be prepared to share these lists with the entire group.
Beginning on page 8 of the text, three “programs” are described that are deemed neither a problem nor a solution: open classrooms, assertive discipline, and lecturing. Participants should be divided into three groups. Ask each group to review one section of the text (“How Open Classrooms Got Started,” “Assertive Discipline—the Problem or the Solution,” and “The Poor Lecturer’s Classroom”). Each group should then create and present a skit to the entire group showing how the program in question can be both an effective and an ineffective strategy in teaching.
ApplicationIn his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t, Jim Collins1 maintains that good is actually the enemy of great. That is, the reason there are so few great companies is that so many people are willing to settle for good companies. He extends the examples to schools, indicating that the reason we have so few great schools is primarily that we have good schools. Whitaker’s text, too, speaks to the shade of difference between good and great teachers, stating that most teachers do about as well as they know how. Maintaining anonymity, identify two teachers who are settling for good and two teachers who always strive for greatness. What is the obvious difference between the two pairs? Write your insights and reflect on what the great teachers are doing differently from those classified as merely “good.” Share these observations at the next session.
1 Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap … and others don’t. New York, NY: HarperCollins.