Thoughts after reading "Building a Better Teacher"

Aside from having the right amount of knowledge and skills, what else do good teachers need to increase their chances of succeess in teaching? Read on. I promise you that the answer could not be found in the school situation.

Elizabeth Green's article titled "Building a Better Teacher" was published in The NY Times on 2 March 2010. Part of the story is about Doug Lemov, an American educational trouble shooter who works as consultant for schools that wish to improve the quality of education they offer. Green reported that Lemov found that abilities to command attention and to give clear and precise direction reside in the core of effective teaching. Another part of the story is about a group of educational researchers that piled up more evidence for the commonsense belief that effective teaching requires competence (i.e., sufficient knowledge, training, quick mind and sound judgment) to teach the subject . It seems futile thus to impeach any of the abovementioned elements of good teaching, for after all, these are some of the things that educators and great thinkers value as far back as the time before the pre-socratics were born.

But will the said elements of good teaching suffice to ensure a significantly improved performance in school? The answer is no, for we all know that even the best teacher, regardless of the amount of scholarly and professional qualities he/she possesses, could still fail to teach his/her students. It seems to me thus that Lemov and that team of researchers, Green including, are too absorbed with facts about formal teaching that they have unintentionally neglected the major role that other factors outside the school situation play in the advancement, stagnation, or retardation of learning. I think I'll have more to say about this if my time will permit me. For now I just want to say a few words about success and failure in teaching, a topic that is often ignored in debates on the principles of accountability and difference in schooling.


The New Child Left Behind Law upholds the accountability principle. To raise the issue whether all the teachers and schools in the US wholeheartedly accept what their law requires is to raise a moot question. But then again, the resulting situation, it seems to me, does not do justice to many good teachers. And even if America could produce thousands of well-meaning educationists like Lemov, the injustice will stay. Embedded in a situation that's far more complicated than what a foreign educational analyst may think, teachers in the US has to face an anxiety-causing challenge that may be reduced into a threat: you-better-teach-well-or-else-you-could-just-perish. Aside from being fired, the threat, which is a clear and ever present danger for those who are teaching shabbily, includes being passed over for promotion, and not getting a salary raise. In addition, the school is not exempted from the claws of law as its funding may be withheld or it may eventually be closed down altogether. I should like to focus now on the narrowness of and injustice that accountability principle brings. This does not require a lengthy discussion.

Poor school performance means poor teaching: A fallacy

Good teaching, when saddled with factors external to teaching, would guarantee neither good nor average performance. Death in the family, divorce, child abuse, and undetected learning disabilities could be the unseen and real culprits in the "crime" that is poor performance. Failure in school thus could happen even if the teacher is a good teacher. Since this is quite obvious, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) makes a curious case as it continues to govern, with the problematic accountability principle at the center, the form of life of schools that receive federal funding. It does not take a teacher to spot and state the precise problem of NCLB. The law is now a part of the framework that is used to decide whether a schoolteacher is worth the pay s/he gets from a school that enjoys federal funding.

Ok, specifically, the accountability principle suggests that poor academic performance of the students in the standards-based test means poor teaching. Clearly, the blame is laid on the teacher, and eventually on the school, if the students could not pass the test. In the event that the teacher fails to shape up quickly, there's the NCLB law to take care of the teacher who shall be deemed unfit to teach. There is a real problem here for the law operates on a principle that is too narrow in meaning. For, again, even good or excellent teachers may end up being punished when they fail to teach their students. Forget about the incompetent and irredeemable ones; indeed, they ought to be fired. But the good ones deserve a just treatment, which can only be guaranteed by a just principle and just law. I think it's not a bad idea to consider now some more basic matters.

Teaching and learning: Not causally or logically connected

Why should we not be quick to blame the teachers when some students perform poorly in standards-based tests? The problem that I've just discussed is very much related to my answer to this question. Teaching and learning are neither causally nor logically connected. Meaning, we can't say, without committing a fallacy, that if there's learning, there must have been a case of teaching, or if there's teaching, learning will necessarily follow. There's no need to harp on this. Learning is possible even without the prior occurrence of teaching, and similarly teaching could be done without necessarily securing what it aims to achieve, which is to effect learning.

The principle of accountability in the context of NCLB, however, has turned a blind eye on the lack of inextricable connection between teaching and learning. It's assumption, which is unjust, is that poor performance is to be blamed on the teachers, because it presupposes that good teaching guarantees good performance. And again this is a fallacy because failure to learn could still ensue even if the teacher is a hell of a good teacher.

Coach Freddie Roach is a good teacher to Manny Pacquiao because, obviously, he has managed to transform Paquaio into a world class athlete. But Roach won't cease to be a good teacher should he fail anew to establish the required psychological contact between him and the deeply troubled Mike Tyson in the event that they'll both prepare again for a new fight.

Another elementary point is that teaching is just a try verb. I have read this many times in some highly analytic works of sharp-minded educationists whose names, I'm sorry, had already escaped me. Teaching is very much like hunting in that both verbs denote attempt actions. When a hunter says he is hunting, it does not follow that he has caught whatever he's hunting. So we could say about teaching, as when a teacher says he/she is teaching, it doesn't follow that he/she has succeeded in effecting learning on his/her students. But how about the good hunter and the good teacher? Would it be possible for a good hunter to fail to bring home a catch for reasons that are beyond his/her control? The answer is obvious and it applies to the same question about the good teacher. Being a good teacher doesn't mean that you'll always succeed in what you're doing.

Here are some specific examples. We can expect that a good teacher of music will fail in his/her attempt to teach music to non-musical students. (No music teacher had ever succeeded in teaching music to me because I just don't have any of which in my body, believe me.). The same goes for a good philosophy teacher who, I suppose, because he is good, would be sane enough to see why he/she cannot succeed in teaching philosophy to non-philosophical students.

So we could say about good teachers of reading and mathematics. Students who are not endowed with the mental capacity to read or do arithmetic cannot be expected to learn what they are not capable of learning. So why blame the teachers if such students fail in the standards-based test? Maybe the students need a different curriculum.

Well, even poor teaching in school may not necessarily mean poor performance in the standards-based test. Except for students with severe disorder or learning disabilities, any regular student, given the right support and education in the home environment, could pass any standards-based test even if the student flies beneath the wings of the dumbest schoolteacher.

Since I'm about to fizzle out, I'll be closing this talk now.

Summary and implications: Philippine context

Being able to command attention, issue clear and precise instruction, and having the required knowledge and teaching competence are all necessary, but not sufficient, conditions of good teaching. Of course, every teacher education institution should seek to improve the quality of teaching to ensure high achievement. It appears thus that the prescription is nothing controversial. So, should we heed the prescription here in the Philippines?

The elements of good teaching in the article of Green are nothing like fresh discoveries. At best, they are the objects of possible revitalization program of any nation that seeks to achieve dramatic improvement in school performance. It must be noted that the improvement contemplated in the NCLB law could only be measured by looking into the results of a standards-based test, WHICH IS AN INSTRUMENT THAT WE DON'T HAVE HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES. Then, we make one for our students here in the Philippines, we'd probably say in response to the caveat. But it's not that easy. Note that the standards-based tests in the US vary in content and standards from one state to another. Should we adopt the same approach in the Philippines? To wit, is it appropriate to allow every region in the country to develop its own standards-based test? Or should we administer only one standards-based test to all our students? That is to say, whether or not the students are from the Metro Manila, hinterlands of Mindanao, or the remotest government forsaken barrio schools in the country, the students will take the same standards-based test.

Whether the Philippines should use only one standards-based test for all schoolchildren is an issue that remains to be resolved. The absence of such kind of test for subjects like reading, writing, and math makes it difficult whether the Filipino teacher is doing a good job or not. But suppose we decide to follow again the footsteps of the US. Must we say, too, that poor performance means poor teaching? We must; this is an inevitable consequence. But then again, the entailment is fallacious and it's not going to do justice to some good teachers who might fail to teach their students for some unknown reasons or reasons that lie outside the scope of teacher's influence or control. Some of examples of which, again, are undetected learning disabilities or undiagnosed developmental disorders, especially in the remotest and most ill-equipped public schools, poverty, child abuse, death/sickness in the family, behavioral disorders, etc. Here in the Philippines, we have a long list of possibilities that could mess up the job of a good teacher.

Conclusion, suggestions, etc.

The elements of good teaching according to Lemov and other educational researchers count as prerequisites of effective learning, but their mere presence will not suffice to cause learning. It simply does not follow that if you have all of these abilities and equipment, you'll never ever fail to teach your student/s. With the logical disconnect between teaching and learning, we have no other choice but to accept that failure to learn and to teach are a natural part of formal education. I do not mean to say though that failed teaching is nothing that should bother us teachers in any given teaching-learning situation. But that is another story.

Apparently, Lemov and the other educational researchers in the article of Green confine themselves to the business of formal education. I think we, in the Philippines, should also be concerned with an educational problem that goes beyond the sphere of school teaching.

What should our nation do to provide high quality education to its young people?

And is there anything that the colleges of education or teacher education institutions could do to provide a viable solution to the foregoing problem?

I'm already exhausted, so my answer to these questions shall be short for now.

To provide high quality education to our young people, parental values and home education should be consistent with the core values of the school. This is to say that if we expect students to study, learn, do critical thinking, write clearly, work creatively, and so on, in school, the same sort of things must be valued in the home environment. The parents should likewise display the values--usually intellectual--that are being taught in school. Parents, regardless of the level of their educational attainment, should consistently show that reading, reasoned thinking, use of clear and precise language, and so on are important. There are many ways of doing this even if the parents are unschooled.

Now, what can the Philippine colleges of education or the TEIs do to bridge the gap, assuming a huge break exists, between home experience and school activities?

We cannot hope to create consistency or bridge the presupposed gap between parental and home education and formal education within a few months.

A relevant education subject for a General Education subject

A good approach is to develop an education subject that shall be offered as a general education subject in all tertiary institutions. Under the assumption that most of the college students will inevitably become home teachers of their own children someday, all of them, regardless of their specialization, should be required to take and pass a well developed education subject before they can get their diploma. The subject will teach educational theories and practices. The students will learn how to effectively supervise and facilitate the learning of children from age zero up to pre-tertiary age in the home environment.

In the UP, however, we have a special situation because of the RGEP. Nevertheless, I think it's not a bad idea to meet with FLCD people so that we could start developing a course that EDUC and CHE could offer under the UP RGEP.

I know that I need to add details into the later part of this post to answer right away some important questions. Perhaps, some of my claims need serious revision. But then again I'm already tired, and I shall have my coffee now. The details will be supplied later when I have the time.

Dont' hesitate to click on "COMMENTS" below if you want to send your comments or questions. Thanks for reading this post up to this point.

Other reactions/s on Building an Better Teacher:

1. "Sorta building a better teacher, maybe"