Effective Teacher vs. Effective Teaching

I was once again inspired to blog after reading Tim Shanahan’s (www.shanahanonliteracy.com) recent blog post, Why I’m Not Impressed with Effective Teachers.  He has a way of grabbing the reader and then selling the related point. I have always thought that I was a good teacher, but Shanahan has made me rethink that.  It is not that I am a good TEACHER, it’s that through a lot of personal dedication to my craft, high quality professional learning opportunities, and working with other dedicated teachers that I was good at TEACHING.

For decades we have heard that great teachers help create great students. In fact, we have been told that research shows that an inspiring and informed teacher is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement, so it is critical to pay close attention to how we train and support both new and experienced educators.  This is all true, but its really not the TEACHER as Tim Shanahan states, it's the TEACHING.

If it were really the teacher that was the most important factor, then issues faced in education and the achievement gap would be easily solved by attracting smarter, nicer, just plain better people to the position.  It would also mean that those teachers who have been in the profession longer would be better than those new to the profession. Obviously, this is not the case.

Someone can’t be taught to be a good teacher, but they can learn the practices of good teaching. For example, effective teaching employs instructional time more wisely.  It is teaching that gets started right away—no 30-minute circle times, no large portions of class time devoted to getting a head start on the homework—and such teaching keeps kids productively engaged throughout the day.

Observational studies have long showed that effective teaching avoids long wait times by the kids; avoids disruptions; encourages more interaction per instructional minute; follows a sound curriculum intelligently; gets a lot more reading into a lesson; explains things better; notices when kids aren’t getting it and does something about it.

The truth of the matter is… the research is very clear on what good teaching really is.  If a teacher chooses NOT to employ those practices that we identify as good teaching, then it's malpractice on the teacher’s part or up to the school and or district to provide opportunities for that teacher to understand and implement those practices.   If a school or district chooses NOT to provide those opportunities to the teachers who need it, then its malpractice on their part as well.

Good teachers are not born that way- they are made.