We had a presenter visit our school today who made the comment that he never expected that his book would sell as well as it did when he wrote it. Honestly, based on his presentation, I'm in agreement with him. My guess is that people responded to his heart-warming anecdotal (if unrealistic) stories about his approaches to grading and student evaluation. Otherwise, many of his notions were truly out-of-touch with the realities of classroom teaching today. In fact, his ideas seemed to be straight out of conferences that I attended almost two decades ago.
To be clear, there were ideas that had merit, and I could see teachers with particular teaching styles adapt them and encounter some mild success with them. There were others, however, that were absolute garbage based on the worst tropes that surround teaching--not to mention being utterly impractical. What was left was repackaged branding of "standards-based learning" which has its merits but did not provide methods of how to implement it meaningful ways other than "we're skipping over the 9-12 grades."
I wish our presenter well, and I'm glad for him that his book and marketing have met with success. I hope that his good ideas inspire receptive teachers to action. I equally hope that no one is ever forced to follow his suggestions.
I was reminded that I haven't, for all of the daily blogs that I have written, given much in the way of practical advice for the mystical practice of combining art and science into educational theory. The fact is that I know that my book wouldn't sell. Rather than uplifting stories about reaching the impossible student, my book would begin with something like: "If you believe that this book will solve the problems with our educational system, or even your difficulties as a teacher, finish reading this sentence, slowly close this book, and put it gently back where you found it, trying to forget that there is no perfect way to educate human beings." Now, I do believe that I have insights to share, but I can hardly get my colleagues to listen to me for five minutes without them rolling their eyes and talking to their neighbor about a different topic entirely.
For that matter, I've been recently reminded that most people don't make it to the end of these daily posts.
To be clear, there were ideas that had merit, and I could see teachers with particular teaching styles adapt them and encounter some mild success with them. There were others, however, that were absolute garbage based on the worst tropes that surround teaching--not to mention being utterly impractical. What was left was repackaged branding of "standards-based learning" which has its merits but did not provide methods of how to implement it meaningful ways other than "we're skipping over the 9-12 grades."
I wish our presenter well, and I'm glad for him that his book and marketing have met with success. I hope that his good ideas inspire receptive teachers to action. I equally hope that no one is ever forced to follow his suggestions.
I was reminded that I haven't, for all of the daily blogs that I have written, given much in the way of practical advice for the mystical practice of combining art and science into educational theory. The fact is that I know that my book wouldn't sell. Rather than uplifting stories about reaching the impossible student, my book would begin with something like: "If you believe that this book will solve the problems with our educational system, or even your difficulties as a teacher, finish reading this sentence, slowly close this book, and put it gently back where you found it, trying to forget that there is no perfect way to educate human beings." Now, I do believe that I have insights to share, but I can hardly get my colleagues to listen to me for five minutes without them rolling their eyes and talking to their neighbor about a different topic entirely.
For that matter, I've been recently reminded that most people don't make it to the end of these daily posts.
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