Tee-Ball for Teachers
The nine lessons delivered in front of the watchful eyes of veteran teachers are history, and now is the time to reflect on the usefulness of the experience. While the experiment was not completely devoid of merit, I believe that it falls hopelessly short of preparing teachers for the classrooms they will be leading in a manner of weeks.
I don't want to dwell on this point, but there were obviously fewer students in our section than there will be in a real classroom. This can't be helped. But here's a useful change that can be made- encourage "students" to act as though they were real adolescents. Real students will not sit quietly while bad lessons are being thrown in their direction. Real students will not stay awake if the lessons are not exciting, or if the teacher is not a master of the classroom. Real students are not so forgiving when you lose your train of thought during a lesson. If this experiment was aiming for realism, then it comes up miles short of the finish line.
To make an analogy: the "MTCers as students" teaching is to real classroom teaching as hitting from a softball tee is to stepping in against Roger Clemens. Not anyone can deliver a lesson to a panel of receptive peers, but then again, not everyone can hit a ball off a tee. Most people, though, can write a lesson plan and deliver it in front of a respectful audience. Far fewer people can step into a room of rowdy high schoolers and deliver the same lesson. If you can keep students awake, maintain discipline, and still get students to learn your lesson, it's the teaching equivalent of getting a base hit against the Rocket. I'm afraid that the nine lessons we delivered have not provided any real batting practice.
We have not spent the past two weeks getting ready to teach students. We have been practicing how to pass an evaluation. This is unfortunate. Instead of learning how to become effective math or English teachers, we instead are learning how to look good in front of the camera. We focus on the newest hip-teacher tool, the six-step lesson plan, though as one of my MTC colleagues put it, "they used something different ten years ago, and they'll be teaching another technique in five years." Getting through to students is timeless, and though we touch on it in our lesson plans, we do not focus on that OBJECTIVE nearly enough.
Student teaching, for me at least, was a lot more useful experience. We dealt with a class of real students, none of whom cared how many steps we had in our lesson plan. All they cared about was whether we were bringing it: and "it" includes much more than a lesson. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT, THESE STUDENTS WILL EAT YOUR LUNCH. We've heard this rhetoric before, but I don't think all of us truly understand the harsh reality of the statement. You will not be delivering your lessons to your friendly MTC peers, but to people who largely don't care about what you have to say, and aren't going to fake it for you. What are you going to do when they start snoring? What will you do when they talk and ignore your pleas to stop? Are you ready to dish out consequences in the real-world? In a few short weeks, we will find out.
I do not want to criticize the lessons in front of the veteran teachers without proposing any solution. I believe, and I know some (not all) of my colleague agree, that MTC "students" should test the classroom management skills of the teacher. I don't believe it should only be about content delivery, that we should have to just jump through our twenty hoops and be praised by our handlers. Instead, let your peers test your ability to maintain law and order in the classroom. If Evan is talking, tell him in no uncertain terms to be quiet. If Lily's throwing erasers, tell her she's staying after to clean them up. Practice discipline and classroom management, because as a first year teacher, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE TESTED! There's no substitute for a real classroom of high schoolers, but that doesn't mean we should not try to replicate such an environment. When you are getting ready to face a 90 MPH fastball, you better practice against live pitching, not just hitting off a tee. In the future, I hope we can come up with a more realistic scenario to get first-years ready, one that involves more than just delivering lesson plans in front of a friendly audience.
I don't want to dwell on this point, but there were obviously fewer students in our section than there will be in a real classroom. This can't be helped. But here's a useful change that can be made- encourage "students" to act as though they were real adolescents. Real students will not sit quietly while bad lessons are being thrown in their direction. Real students will not stay awake if the lessons are not exciting, or if the teacher is not a master of the classroom. Real students are not so forgiving when you lose your train of thought during a lesson. If this experiment was aiming for realism, then it comes up miles short of the finish line.
To make an analogy: the "MTCers as students" teaching is to real classroom teaching as hitting from a softball tee is to stepping in against Roger Clemens. Not anyone can deliver a lesson to a panel of receptive peers, but then again, not everyone can hit a ball off a tee. Most people, though, can write a lesson plan and deliver it in front of a respectful audience. Far fewer people can step into a room of rowdy high schoolers and deliver the same lesson. If you can keep students awake, maintain discipline, and still get students to learn your lesson, it's the teaching equivalent of getting a base hit against the Rocket. I'm afraid that the nine lessons we delivered have not provided any real batting practice.
We have not spent the past two weeks getting ready to teach students. We have been practicing how to pass an evaluation. This is unfortunate. Instead of learning how to become effective math or English teachers, we instead are learning how to look good in front of the camera. We focus on the newest hip-teacher tool, the six-step lesson plan, though as one of my MTC colleagues put it, "they used something different ten years ago, and they'll be teaching another technique in five years." Getting through to students is timeless, and though we touch on it in our lesson plans, we do not focus on that OBJECTIVE nearly enough.
Student teaching, for me at least, was a lot more useful experience. We dealt with a class of real students, none of whom cared how many steps we had in our lesson plan. All they cared about was whether we were bringing it: and "it" includes much more than a lesson. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT, THESE STUDENTS WILL EAT YOUR LUNCH. We've heard this rhetoric before, but I don't think all of us truly understand the harsh reality of the statement. You will not be delivering your lessons to your friendly MTC peers, but to people who largely don't care about what you have to say, and aren't going to fake it for you. What are you going to do when they start snoring? What will you do when they talk and ignore your pleas to stop? Are you ready to dish out consequences in the real-world? In a few short weeks, we will find out.
I do not want to criticize the lessons in front of the veteran teachers without proposing any solution. I believe, and I know some (not all) of my colleague agree, that MTC "students" should test the classroom management skills of the teacher. I don't believe it should only be about content delivery, that we should have to just jump through our twenty hoops and be praised by our handlers. Instead, let your peers test your ability to maintain law and order in the classroom. If Evan is talking, tell him in no uncertain terms to be quiet. If Lily's throwing erasers, tell her she's staying after to clean them up. Practice discipline and classroom management, because as a first year teacher, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE TESTED! There's no substitute for a real classroom of high schoolers, but that doesn't mean we should not try to replicate such an environment. When you are getting ready to face a 90 MPH fastball, you better practice against live pitching, not just hitting off a tee. In the future, I hope we can come up with a more realistic scenario to get first-years ready, one that involves more than just delivering lesson plans in front of a friendly audience.
posted by Joel Hebert at 4:27 PM
1 Comments:
That is something I've thought about, and we've kicked the idea around for the past two years. However, the concern is twofold: 1) MTC'ers don't know how the kids will act. 2) How do we set limits?
What are your thoughts?
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