Mathews - Teachers as Olympians

There's great merit in this notion, from Michael Goldstein and MATCH through Jay Mathews. Don't train teachers like doctors, theory first and then practice, train them like craftsmen and athletes, practice first and then theory, if they make the cut. Ice skaters don't read about physics and kinesiology before ever putting on their blades, maybe teachers should get to know kids before trying to incorporate Piaget and Vygotsky into their practice.

I was originally drawn to teaching from the experiences I had working at academic summer camps and tutoring in the Chicago schools during college. Not only did it help me build a sense of how kids learn and why they fail to "get it," as they discuss in the article, but it let me taste the nectar of having made a difference. Kid comes in confused and leaves with the concept down. I made that happen. TFA's "Institute" boot camp is great for developing a sense of lesson design, but there just isn't time in six weeks to get to know kids.

I also love the idea of specific, direct feedback on "teacher talk," our language and style of presentation and instruction, our "form." The norm seems to be to let teachers develop that on their own, but that only works when it works, there seem to be few alternatives or systems for remediation. In my master's program I've been forced to videotape myself and then analyze it ad nauseam. It's an absolutely merciless form of professional development but more powerful than anything else I've read, observed or done. It forced me to get down and consider the absolute minutia of language, pacing, tone, eye contact, body language, and physical movement around the classroom, ---vital issues of my practice that I'd never really even thought about.

Interestingly, the comments on this article, even from teachers, seem to focus incessantly on the MATCH teacher's hours. Shouldn't our first year, in a new profession chock-full of challenging and urgent work, be grueling and exhausting? What would it say about the job if your first year trying you only needed fifteen minutes before and after school to get ready? The problem with teaching isn't that the first year is so hard, the problem is that the third, fourth and fifth are often just as bad.