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Letter to NYT Magazine To the Editor: You would never know from “Can Good Teaching Be Learned?” (March 7, 2010) how far the field of education has advanced from the warmed-over behaviorism represented by Lemov’s “49 techniques.” His goal is to make students stay on task – whatever the task happens to be – and “follow instructions.” Quite apart from the general concern one might have about such reductive recipes, this article offers a good example of what so many school reformers (and journalists) get wrong: They assume that “good teaching” consists of disgorging information to students. The only challenge, then, is to become more skillful at “getting and holding the floor,” making kids do whatever they’re told, and avoid “veer[ing] away from the lesson plans.” The nightmare scenario from this perspective is one where “the kids are running the classroom.” Notice that this kind of instruction does nothing to help children think critically, understand ideas, or (heaven knows) become excited about learning. Notice, too, that it’s an approach mostly applied to poor kids of color. As Jonathan Kozol has observed, “Children of the suburbs learn to interrogate reality,” while “inner-city kids are trained for nonreflective acquiescence.” What we’re being asked to celebrate here are 49 techniques for enforcing that acquiescence. So why is Lemov’s recipe described in breathless terms and billed as a better way to educate? Because success these days – everywhere, but particularly in the inner city – has nothing to do with thinking and everything to do with high scores on fill-in-the-bubble tests. As long as the objective is to pump up those scores, techniques for tightly controlling children will continue to seem impressive. -- Alfie Kohn |
www.alfiekohn.org -- Alfie Kohn |
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