Elementary Teachers as Our Brightest and Best

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

From another list.  Part of a message from Cloyd Hastings, in 
response to some teacher bashing.


> From: "Hastings, Cloyd" <hastingsc@cfbisd.edu>
>
>
> Originally I was a secondary teacher with a subject area master's 
> degree (not an MS in Education either).  I attended college in the 
> late sixties and early seventies and did indeed feel that those of 
> us trained as secondary teachers were intellectually superior to 
> elementary education majors.  Of course, this was feed by the 
> professors from my major area of subject.
>
> However, fourteen years as an elementary principal taught me a great 
> deal of respect for not only the various skills we ask elementary 
> teachers to possess, but to also to appreciate and to recognize that 
> most of them are easily as intelligent as I once thought myself to 
> be.  In my opinion, and in the opinion of many educators, elementary 
> teachers as a whole are vastly superior teachers compared to the 
> average secondary teacher and hugely better than nearly every 
> college professor.  I have received extensive training in classroom 
> observation techniques to include rater reliability.  I have 
> formally appraised both elementary and high school teachers.  My 
> opinion does have direct observable experience to support it.
>
> The classic problem is that too many people, both outside and inside 
> education, believe that more subject knowledge makes one a better 
> teacher.  While there is certainly some correlate between subject 
> knowledge and good teaching, it is in no way a linear correlation in 
> which more subject knowledge predicts better teaching.
>
> It is my experience that many high school teachers hide much 
> insecurity in their teaching ability behind the mask of subject 
> knowledge. This masking of their insecurity too often causes them to 
> reject staff development opportunities designed to improve the art 
> of teaching.  At their core they know that they are neither 
> effective nor efficient in communicating their knowledge with the 
> array of students that enter their classroom.  Too many of them are 
> social Darwinists believing it is their task to only "teach" to the 
> brightest and best--defined as those students who can demonstrate 
> increased knowledge of the subject matter when presented in the 
> fashion the teacher delivers instruction, generally through lecture.
>
> Most elementary teachers recognize that teaching/learning is an 
> exchange process in which every student in their classroom is 
> expected to have a general level of mastery of the knowledge and 
> concepts discussed.  Most elementary teachers know that this process 
> is more of an individualized experience than a mass 
> application.  Therefore, it is the teacher's responsibility to 
> address the various needs of her students and to adopt and adapt 
> various instructional techniques in order to meet the diverse 
> learning styles of the students in their care.  Elementary teachers, 
> as a whole, operate with a no child left behind attitude well before 
> NCLB was ever conceived.
>
> While it is true that student load size counts (a high school 
> English teacher may have a 150 or more students throughout the day, 
> while an elementary teacher tends to have the same 22 students all 
> day), it is not impossible for secondary teachers to learn more 
> about the individual students in their classrooms and then adapt 
> their instruction based upon this knowledge.  When most of us look 
> back upon our own education, we remember best and with greater 
> fondness the teachers who knew and motivated us at the individual 
> level.  Personally, my three most influential teachers were one 
> middle school reading teacher, one high school English teacher and 
> one college history professor.  Each of these teachers was highly 
> knowledgeable in their given discipline, but what made them 
> influential was their personal intervention in my life.  Yes, I 
> learned more content from them than other teachers, but I did so 
> because of their encouragement and personal belief in me.
>
> The smartest person I have ever known was a friend in college who 
> was a math major.  His genius has made him a wealthy man because he 
> has started and owns highly successful businesses based upon his 
> conceptual knowledge of math that he has uniquely applied to meet 
> real world needs.  However, when he came to me to assist him in 
> passing English and history, he told me that he thought I was the 
> bright one.  My point is that how we define intelligence and then 
> label others as intelligent is far more subjective and relative than 
> some want to believe.  For my money, elementary teachers who have 
> the emotional intelligence to reach out and change students' life 
> and learning every day are among this nation's very brightest and best.
>
> "Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything."
>
> --<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe>Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
>
>  Cloyd Hastings, Ed.D.
>
> Director of Assessment & Accountability
> Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD