Evaluating a teacher demands nuance, not numbers.
The Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter, Don Henry, has a
song with a refrain that says, “Ever since the beginning to keep the world
spinning, it takes all kinds of kinds.” I think the same is true when we look
at the teaching profession.
As a student in elementary school, secondary school, college
and graduate school, I have had a few great teachers, many good teachers, and a
poor teacher or two. I remember my third grade teacher, Ms. Miyamoto. Ms.
Miyamoto was from Hawaii. She taught us to dance the Hula, how to prepare and
eat poi, and other basics of Hawaiian language and culture. I remember mostly
how she was unfailingly kind. For an 8 year-old-boy in 1955, her classroom was
a valuable lesson in diversity and respect for other cultures. Ms. Miyamoto was
a new teacher and she had her challenges with what we now call “classroom management.”
I am not sure how she would be rated as a teacher today, but for me she was a
good teacher indeed.
In sixth grade I had Mrs. Stout. I can say without
equivocation that Mrs. Stout was a great teacher. I don’t know how she did it,
but Mrs. Stout made every child in the classroom, including the class clown
(moi), believe that they were intelligent and destined for great success. The one
thing I remember that Mrs. Stout taught us was how to outline. She said we
would need it in high school and college. She always assumed we were going to
college, even in this working class suburban neighborhood in 1958 where
college was far from a bygone conclusion. She made us all feel good about our
potential.
In eighth grade history, I had Mr. Laidacker. I doubt that
Mr. Laidacker was any administrator’s idea of a great teacher, but he was for
me. Mr. Laidacker was strict (some said mean), aloof and totally involved with
himself. He ignored the 8th grade curriculum (American History) and
spent nearly the entire year teaching about his passion, The Civil War. And I
mean passion. Mr. Laidacker knew more about the Civil War than Abraham Lincoln.
And he could tell stories about the war that lit up the mind of at least one 13
year-old in that class. I can still remember in detail the report I did for him
on Civil War medicine. Mr. Laidacker was not liked by most of the students in
the school, but he is one major reason I became a history teacher. That passion
was infectious for me.
I am sure that anyone reading this can name teachers who had
similar ompact on them. The point is that teachers who were good for us, as
individuals, may not have been good for other kids. But it takes all kinds of
kinds in this world and all kinds of teachers to educate a child. Because of
this evaluating a teacher demands nuance, not numbers.
The current mania for weeding out “bad teachers” and
evaluating teacher effectiveness through student standardized test scores is
wrong headed in the extreme. Teaching is one part art, one part science, and
one part mystery. One child’s favorite teacher may be the wrong teacher for
another child. Evaluating a teacher is a complex process, that certainly
includes evidence of student learning, but it also includes many, many more
things. This evaluation cannot be reduced to a number on a standardized test or
on a rubric. This type of reductionism does a disservice to the complexity of
the enterprise.
The evaluation of a teacher requires a knowledge of and
sensitivity to this complexity. That is why I consider teacher evaluation to
itself be part science, part art, and part mystery. The science is the easy
part. Was the lesson well-planned? Were the students engaged? Did the teacher
answer questions thoughtfully? Was the objective achieved? Did the students
learn?
The art is more difficult. Was the lesson made relevant? Was
it differentiated appropriately? Did children feel safe taking risks in this
classroom? Did small groups function well? Were routine matters handled
briskly? How effectively were problems handled? What is being learned in this
classroom beyond the subject of the instruction?
The mystery is even more difficult. Did magic happen in this
class? Did students feel cared for in this classroom? Was there an atmosphere
of mutual respect? Does the teacher’s passion come through? What students might
be inspired by this teacher? Was the joy of leaning evident?
I like to think of the act of evaluating a teacher as
informed impressionism. Just as the impressionist painter, Claude Monet, used
thousands of brush strokes to form the whole of a painting of a garden, so the
skilled evaluator looks through multiple lenses to gain an impression of the
whole of a teacher. This evaluation should be informed by student learning data,
but that data is only one part of multi-faceted picture. It must also be
informed by multiple observations of teachers working with children and working
with colleagues. It is the product of the review of lesson plans, but also the product of
conversations with the teacher that probe decision making and the ability to
improve through reflection.
In other words, teacher evaluation is not easy and it requires considerable
resources in personnel, time and money. The current calls for judging the
complex act of teaching through reductionist and faulty value added models and theoretical
rubrics are an insult to the complexity of the profession. If we are really
serious about understanding and improving the evaluation of teachers, then let’s
get serious about just how difficult that task is.
No comments:
Post a Comment