July 31, 2012 by ConTextos

TEACHING IS ACTION WORK!

How do you determine if a teacher is doing a good job?

In ConTextos, we often remind our teachers that the teachers’ job isn’t to teach, but to ensure that a child learns. The difference goes far beyond semantics, with implications about culture and responsibility in the classroom.

And this dilemma is coursing through educational systems throughout the world. In Sunday’s New York Times, Al Baker wrote about the evolution of teacher training and assessment in US public schools. Read the full article To Earn Classroom Certification, More Teaching, Less Testing.

“Teaching is action work,” quoted Ms. Darling-Hammond in the Times’ article. “You have to make a lot of things happen in a classroom with a lot of kids, effectively. You cannot just have book learning. It is not enough to pass a paper-and-pencil test, or even to have taken a bunch of classes in an education program. You have to be able to demonstrate whether you can actually teach.”