Michelle Rhee has worked valiantly to improve the District of Columbia’s school system, but her latest decision to drop support of the most rigorous teacher training, National Board Certification, and instead support “The Skillful Teacher” program shows that she is choosing formula over reflection.
According to a January 5 article in The Washington Post, Rhee plans to further weed out weak D.C. teachers and subject the remaining to “professional growth” based on “The Skillful Teacher” model created in 1987 by Jon Saphier and Robert Gower.
1987 was my first year of high school teaching in Fairfax County, and my school was one of the “pilots” for the merit pay program based on “The Skillful Teacher” standards. Since that time, “The Skillful Teacher” manual has gone through six editions, most recently in 2008. It’s fairly safe to assume the basic model has not changed drastically.
And that model became a joke during the several years we were all forced to learn it. “Have you dipsticked today?” was a frequent jibe in the teachers’ lounges, where we were amazed that ascertaining student comprehension had become the training term “dipstick.” Any good teacher knows that student understanding is all-important, every day of the week.
I attained the highest level in “The Skillful Teacher” hierarchy even though the lessons taught me little (beyond the concept of “wait time”–giving students a longer time to answer a question–which is a good idea.) When merit pay was abandoned early in the 1990s, I thought “Skillful Teacher” was dead.
Yet now it’s being resurrected by Chancellor Rhee, even as she abandons support for National Board Certification. It’s true that the National Board model is not practical for system-wide dissemination; it requires hundreds of hours of reflection and student observation instead of only six “Skillful teacher” workshops.
But it remains the only teaching professional development model I have ever admired. I was the first Fairfax high school teacher certified in “Adolescent and Young Adult English Language Arts” in 1999, and helped facilitate the county’s first support groups for teachers completing their certification, so I am familiar with its tenets.
Unlike “Skillful Teacher,” the terminology involved in Board Certification is not silly and is based on realistic classroom expectations. It recognizes that teaching involves failure as well as success, and asks that teachers evolve and learn from mistakes. For every lesson we do, the certification process asks us to analyze how what we do impacts student achievement, and how we would do it differently next time.
Unlike “Skillful Teacher,” every hour I spent working to achieve my goal was valuable. I learned something from and respected the process, and encouraged colleagues to “go for it,” despite the daunting number of hours required. Board Certification, unlike “Skillful Teacher,” recognizes that no simple formula creates good teaching.
Teachers in D.C. deserve better than a resuscitated old model that failed in Fairfax County more than 15 years ago and was at the time considered formulaic. Professional development is a good idea, but only if it is based on a model that respects the complicated and evolving nature of the teaching process.
What Kids Are Reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre, data from libraries, and data from booksellers. Information on the books below came from the list of Amazon.com childrens’ books and are listed in order of popularity.
Books on Good and Bad Teachers
1. Benny and the No-Good Teacher by Zach (Ages 9-12)
2. Billy and the Bad Teacher by Andrew Clements and Elivia Savadier (Ages 4-8)
3. The Teacher’s Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts by Richard Peck (Ages 9-12)
4. Jake Drake, Teacher’s Pet Andrew Clements and Janet Pedersen (Ages 9-12)
5. Teacher, the Children are Here by Dianne Appleman and Johanna McClear (Baby-Preschool)
6. My Teacher is an Alien by Bruce Coville and Mike Wimmer (Ages 9-12)
7. What Teachers Can’t Do by Douglas Wood and Doug Cushman (Ages 4-8)
8. Help! I’m Trapped in My Teacher’s Body by Todd Strasser (Ages 9-12)
9. Mo’s Mischief: Teacher’s Pet by Hongying Yang (Ages 9-12)
10. The Day Our Teacher Went Batty by Gervase Phinn and Chris Mould (Ages 9-12)
