The delightful irony of refuting an article that painstakingly makes the case that the conventional wisdom is wrong by curtly repeating the conventional wisdom.
SAT scores are mentioned exactly once in the article (well, twice, but in reference to the same finding), I have copy-pasted it for your convenience:
> When she applied the ["Grit Scale"] to incoming West Point cadets, she found that those who scored higher were less likely to drop out of the school's notoriously brutal summer boot camp known as "Beast Barracks." West Point's own measure—an index that includes SAT scores, class rank, leadership and physical aptitude—wasn't able to predict retention.
Back in high school, our journalism teacher was legendary for his scathing, but usually humorous criticism. And yet the Friday after we published the newspaper, critique day, was one of the most-eagerly anticipated days, as he would alternate between complementing people and then ripping others apart for not just things like punctuation and sentence structure, but higher-level failures such as failing to interview key people and providing fair coverage. A lot of students cried and even though he's still a teacher today, I can't imagine that the discipline and excellence he demanded would go over well today.
But it worked, the newspaper and yearbook were consistently the best in the country. It wasn't just a niche club, they were actually credit classes that filled up. It was actually cool* to be on staff, despite how seriously it was taken (though thinking back, my main contribution was installing NES emulators on all the machines, so it couldn't have been that serious)...
Edit: to clarify, I can't recall if he "ripped" into people for spelling errors/grammatical mistakes, though he'd point them out in a funny way and move on. But boy, if you did something like a professional breach...such as interview your same best friend for an article that you did last month, he might go off on it. Sloppy writing (burying the lede) was also jumped on, but in a constructive way. But that kind of constructive criticism...singling someone out in class...I didn't see it much out of high school.
I think there must be a psychological equivalent to the feeling that your kids' sports teams "play to their opponents."
I would not be surprised for research to demonstrate that children perform to the expectations given them, particularly when those expectations are clear and consistent. In fact, most people thrive in environments where they understand the rules, rewards, penalties, and where those structures are evenly and consistently enforced.
My strictest, and most beneficial, professor was so hard on my writing that, when I finally produced something up to his expectations, his feedback comment casually wondered whether I had plagiarized it.
It's cliche because there's some merit: he wasn't our friend, but had an incredibly positive effect on our abilities in the subject.
I've no strong opinion whether public shaming is good or bad with spelling errors. Maybe the hypersensitivity we've culturally adopted to the emotional state of children biases our perception of the impact of such things.
There is a good documentary about schools that defy the odds in traditionally bad areas of inner cities called "Waiting for Superman"[0] one of the things they talk about is having consistently high expectations for _every_ student.
My former High School produces a newspaper, which is distributed to a location that I visit often. I enjoy reading it, oddly enough, in part because there are a variety of issues with the writing that I like getting worked up about.
While he was rather strict/demanding, too, the article also hints to one of the more important causes of his success: "He rejected the common practice of ranking students from first to last and instead frequently told his students to press themselves as hard as possible in their assignments." In educational science the former is called social reference standard and the latter individual reference standard. While sadly the former is still in use more often, longitudinal studies have shown a strong positive effect on achievement for individual reference standards (I only have a German source right now: Rheinberg & Krug, 1999). The reason seems to be that students seem to attribute ratings with social reference to stable attributes like talent ("I'm just not good at math"), whereas individual benchmarks are more often interepreted as a result of (lack of) effort. Interestingly the socially disadvantaged have shown the strongest results with individual reference standards, just as in the case of Jaime Escalante.
They should make a follow-up movie about how the teachers' union drove Escalante out and destroyed the program:
"Over the next few years Escalante's calculus program continued to grow but not without its own price. Tensions that surfaced when his career began at Garfield escalated. In his final years at Garfield, Escalante received threats and hate mail from various individuals.[8] By 1990, he had lost the math department chairmanship. At this point Escalante's math enrichment program had grown to 400+ students. His class sizes had increased to over 50 students in some cases. This was far beyond the 35 student limit set by the teachers' union, which in turn increased criticism of Escalante's work. In 1991, the number of Garfield students taking advanced placement examinations in math and other subjects jumped to 570. That same year, citing faculty politics and petty jealousies,[citation needed] Escalante and Jiménez left Garfield. Escalante found new employment at Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento, California. At the height of Escalante's influence, Garfield graduates were entering the University of Southern California in such great numbers that they outnumbered all the other high schools in the working-class East Los Angeles region combined.[9] Even students who failed the AP went on to become star students at California State-Los Angeles in large numbers.[8]
Angelo Villavicencio took the reins of the program after their departure and taught the remaining 107 A.P. students in two classes for the next year. 67 of Villavicencio's students went on to take the A.P. exam and 47 passed. Villavicencio's request for a third class due to class size was denied and the following spring he followed Escalante and quit Garfield. The math program's decline at Garfield became apparent following the departure of Escalante and other teachers associated with its inception and development. In just a few years, the number of A.P. calculus students at Garfield who passed their exams dropped by more than 80 percent. In 1996, Villavicencio contacted Garfield's new principal, Tony Garcia, and offered to come back to help revive the dying calculus program. His offer was rejected.[8]"
I haven't read the article but from personal experience I know this is not correct. Tough teachers without inclination and ability to better the student only makes them worse. As put in by one of the best teachers I had 'A teacher's job is to make student interested in the subject'. Whatever approach makes the student reach to this, would be right.
you are using two different "types of teachers" to judge his argument and construct your argument.
A teacher without inclination and ability to better the students would perform bad even with your approach, which is "whatever approach to make student interested".
I think to read the article in article's spirit, he is talking only about teachers interested and able to "teach". The article's definition of teacher is someone who can teach (make students better) and not someone who is appointed by school and is not interested in students.
Considering this, the question OP is trying to address is : among the various approaches which is the best approach to teach.
I would say, an article containing analysis on data is more informative to me than just making a statement, whatever approach is right.
The implications in this article that strict = effective are flat-out stupid. A teacher does not have to be hardass to encourage children to have high expectations and to be OK with failure.
I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and creativity in subject-matter. The best way to do this, in my view, is mutual respect.
The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.
Praise doesn't make you a bad learner, learning in environments that encourage low expectations and stock answers to every situations probably will. Strictness might correlate with high expectations, but it sure as hell isn't the best way of going about it.
That said, I agree with a number of points in the article (some are implied from the provided data):
- Students with higher expectations perform closer to their potential (whether internal or external expectations, though other research suggests that internal motivation is far more important than external).
- There is possibly a formative stage of development where children's expectations are adjusted to their environment. Being surrounded by high expectations will correlate with high expectations with the learners.
- People who aren't afraid to fail will achieve more than those who are.
- Students who are in environments that emphasise strict route learning perform better on tests and memory exercises (spelling bees) than those who don't.
None of that really goes beyond common sense.
I'd really love for education to move beyond success = memorisation and into success = adaptability and understanding. The world rewards autodidacts because a lot of us worked this out on our own.
Absolutely agree. Especially crucial in earlier years (with younger children), when it leads not only to a better learning environment but also helps to form a solid mindset.
> I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and creativity in subject-matter
Yes. The question is how do you encourage curiosity and creativity in kids? No, we are not talking about adults. I see this humble request as something similar to what JFK asked when he said America should send a man to the moon. If you have the opportunity, read about the changes all levels of education in the United States had to go through to meet the demands of that "simple" challenge. When you're done come back let's compare to now
> The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.
I'm Ghanaian. Educated in Ghana and lived all my life in Ghana. I've had several teachers like Mr. K along the way at almost all levels. I hated my primary and junior high school English Language teacher for "good" reasons. (Especially when he commanded, yes commanded, that English is the only language permitted to be spoken on campus.) I'd say worse things about him to my parents. But my dad liked him because his homework assignments kept me busy all the time. I knew I was a smart kid but the score I had for his tests said something else about me and I wasn't ready to accept that. No! So you know what, I worked harder and harder for what I knew was mine. Progress follows hardwork.
Now, every time I have the prized opportunity of shaking that man's hand I do so with a beaming face and a sort of pride that says to him: "I can't thank you enough for coming into my life." He's proud of his students and we're proud of him too. I speak and (perhaps) write good English because he piqued my interest and taught me to strive because I can always get better.
> None of that really goes beyond common sense
Beats my imagination that we always have to be reminded about commonsense. I was told economics is plain commonsense. But there's a Nobel prize for it, right? Maybe commonsense put itself too much in our face we linger for what's rare. And that "the solution is not the obvious solution" mantra (a.k.a bullshit) might not be true after all.
Sorry, no, that number was completely pulled out of my ass as a slightly more interesting way of saying that failed attempts to use that phrase are distressingly common. "Peaked my interest" and "peeked my interest" both get millions of hits on Google search. My impression is it's one of the most common English errors you see that doesn't involve pronoun trouble.
> Yes. The question is how do you encourage curiosity and creativity in kids?
I'm working on this now, and should be ready to talk more openly soon. More useful data than test scores can be measured in classroom, and I'm currently experimenting with ways of visualising mood and personalities in classrooms. It makes it much easier for teachers to know how much energy/encouragement they need to provide (or calm the class down, if necessary). It's exciting stuff and it's starting to come together nicely.
> "I can't thank you enough for coming into my life." He's proud of his students and we're proud of him too.
I've had two teachers like this personally, one was a bit gruff and was more on the 'strict' side of the continuum. He brought history to life for thousands of students at my school. The other was so passionate about teaching that he would bounce around the class like a big kid when he taught.
The things they had in common was passion and a willingness to demonstrate how hard they would work for their students. I would say that your teacher would also have displayed these qualities.
> If you agree, can we just return to common sense?
My point was that the article tried to twist observations that are more or less common sense to further an argument that harsh teachers are effective. There's not always a lot of value in simply stating common sense. Finding ways to apply it is a different thing.
On a side note, I've only brushed the surface of economics (particularly from a psychology point of view) and I've found it anything but common sense, or even logical for that matter.
> The implications in this article that strict = effective are flat-out stupid.
Perhaps you're right. But what about honest = effective. How often do teachers change a grade because parents call in, or because the student complains? Too often. Whether it's from parents or the institution, there are a lot of outside factors that pressure teachers to give good grades even when they are not deserved.
No matter which way you put it, getting a bad grade always hurts, especially when good grades are being given in other classes. I think that's one of the reasons that teachers who are "tougher" are looked down upon. People think they're mean, but sometimes they're just being honest and want you to succeed so much that they wouldn't dare give you a grade that doesn't reflect your actual progress. For the same reason, teachers don't want to have this label, so they resort to being "easier" and less honest.
This certainly happens at the high school and middle school level, but recent news has looked at grading practices at Harvard. There was a grader who admitted to giving out As that were undeserved, and although I couldn't find that article this one talks about how A is the most frequently given grade at Harvard (while A- is the median) [1].
'Honestly' grading a kid is tricky, especially because, as you mentioned, a teacher's ethics (or lack thereof) may skew things. I'm not sure if it's the exact word I would use but I agree with the principle that metrics should reflect the student's actual state. 'Consistency' is perhaps what I would go with.
Also, I see a difference between being a hard marker and being a harsh teacher. I don't really have a problem with the former, the article here talks mostly about the latter. My problem is with anyone who promotes 'strictness/harshness' in classrooms.
Can't agree enough that there are problems with the system in general, and a society that wants everyone to succeed while also placing so much emphasis on getting people to fit bell curves. I'm working on getting new data out of classrooms right now: quantified engagement, mood, desired learning conditions, preferred methods of content delivery etc.
I think that the main root of the problems we have is a desire for things to be 'right' or 'wrong'. It kills curiosity, engagement and creativity and in no way reflects the real world.
Well yeah. This is the Wall Street Journal we're talking about. Even without them publishing an article, given my knowledge of their ideology, I can predict that they will almost always favor strictly-applied negative reinforcement as a chief motivating force for managing people. It's just one of the defining beliefs of their worldview: people are pigs in clothing who must be tamed by the system through force.
I see these articles, and what troubles me is that they assert schools are a certain way without backing it up. People love to complain how spoiled kids are these days, but how much truth are in those claims? My education was certainly like the article's Mr. K, but my schools were chronically low performing.
Specifcally,
-Are schools really eschewing rote memorization?
-Are schools really less "strict" than before? Does a teacher really have less control of their classroom than today?
-Are helicopter parents really more of thing today than in the past?
-Are kids really not being taught they can fail a class?
I've yet to see any evidence cited for the above assertions, but I do hear them constantly being repeated.
Sure criticizing a below average performance tends to correlate with a better performance next time, and praise of above average performances tends to correlate with the next performance being worse. That's because the comparisons are to an average.
And he found that all of them "deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them and drive them to higher levels of performance."
The article ignores selection bias from the get go. Participants in most high school activities [in the US] tend to be self-selected. In the string section of an orchestra, they are not only self selected but also thoroughly weeded out by the institution; there are no novices or dabblers.
It's impressive to me how she takes all this unrelated research and weaves it into "tough teachers" (tho that's possibly the fault of her editor).
It seems like the actually determining feature was that,
> "The core belief of these teachers was, 'Every student in my room is underperforming based on their potential, and it's my job to do something about it—and I can do something about it,'"
One of the most concise descriptions of good teachers I've seen actually came from pg in his "rarely asked questions" list. http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html
(1) They had high standards. (2) They liked us. (3) They were interested in the subject.
I've been unable to express what makes a good teacher more concretely than that.
Tough or not, Good teachers are good at the following:
- Get the students genuinely interested in listening to the teacher. This is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will most likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student might over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and learning. Inspiration and motivation are the key.
- Make each student feel that the teacher is talking to them . Yes, sort of personalized. I remember a professor in college and every time he spoke, I could relate to it and really loved listening to him because it felt like he was only talking to me. Guess what, I excelled in that class.
- Encourage students to talk, ask questions, debate whatever.Related to #1 point.
- Actually take an interest in students if possible. For a small class size, this is not very difficult. Get to know your students as much as possible outside. Lot of students do bad in class not because they are stupid but because they might have other factors in their personal life impacting their performance. Find out if possible and figure out a way to work around that. Remember, everyone is different. Every student is different.
- Last but not the least, be interested in teaching. Yes, did I need to say that ? If you really love to teach, you will find out ways to get your students to do well.
If you are good at most of the above, one could care less if you are tough or soft or whatever.
> - Get the students genuinely interested in listening to the teacher. This is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will most likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student might over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and learning. Inspiration and motivation are the key.
This assumes that the secret to the student's success is the teacher, not the student him/herself. The article's view of the teacher's role is to push/inspire the student into putting in the required effort to learn things on their own (mostly by reading books, doing exercises and thinking independently). Students shouldn't get their knowledge from teachers, but from books (I think it's dangerous to establish teachers as gatekeepers of knowledge and as authority figures).
"Sure, our teacher was tough - but look at how many students came back to his funeral!"
Of course the ones that showed up for the concert liked him - the ones that wanted to piss on his grave were, I'd guess, off doing that. Confirmation bias much, WSJ?
"Rote learning, long discredited, is now recognized as one reason that children whose families come from India (where memorization is still prized) are creaming their peers in the National Spelling Bee Championship."
Clearly, What America Needs is spelling bee champions.
Full credit to them: I am not going to disparage anyone for doing something well. Yet when I think of work that the nation and world really need done, spelling recondite words doesn't make the list.
It's probably my personal leanings from growing up in an immigrant family, but I think the article is spot-on. American educational philosophy is a total disaster. American teachers are simply not in control of their classrooms. Kids need structure, they need discipline, and they need order. It's a prerequisite for learning.
I had a teacher like this in high school for math. He taught algebra, geometry and calculus. He also ran the math team. ( He used to teach at Kenwood Academy in the Chicago public schools where I graduated in 1987 but now he is at New Trier. http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/person.aspx?id=4450 ). He was a strict, no-nonsense, here is the homework, here is the test, here is your grade, "oh, you didn't understand that, too bad, we're moving on" kind of guy. Was he successful? That depends on how you define it. There is a lot of survivor ship bias. Most kids would have some exposure to him for algebra and geometry and so when calculus was an option kids would think "hmmm, do I want to go through this with this guy?" Those who said yes did well. ( I think students scored either 4 or 5 on the test, 3s were rare and lower was almost unheard of ) The thing is that many very bright, capable kids who were interested in math said no to calculus because of him. I certainly never felt like I learned more from him than any other teacher I had who tried to get everyone to learn the material.
Maybe a better comparison would be algebra and geometry since he taught those classes but other teachers did as well. Did his students perform any better than the students of other teachers? I would say not although I don't have the data to back it up. I had another teacher for algebra and then him for geometry and when I was in his geometry class with other students that had him for algebra I felt we were even. I never felt like the kids who had him for algebra were way ahead of me when it came to doing the algebra that came up in geometry.
One thing that's true of the Mr K's out there is that they define their success entirely in terms of the success of _all_ their students. While a help-you-get-creative teacher will allow you fail because you "want" to (who really does?), a teacher who delivers tough love would make sure you succeed. In this permissive era where parents allow their kids to while away time in front of televisions and computer doing basically nothing, it's only great if teachers could act _in loco parentis_ and instruct not only in science and math but also in discipline and self-control
Especially true for Africans and African Americans. But that represents a smaller percentage. When majority of Snapchat users are early teenagers then parents are really monitoring outside interactions and social lives.
I think that it depends on what exactly are you tough about. You can have teacher that is strict and tough and happen to insist on less important things.
Made up example would be math teacher assigning two hours a day of exercises and worksheets on simple equations, while other teachers already moved on and successfully teach "difficult" equations.
Made up over the top example would be teacher that checks your notebook every other day whether it is nice, organized and colored. He would assign three hours of work of cutting and pasting and coloring and what not every day and make you rework historical diorama five times.
However, that teacher could still miss that you have no idea what happened during historical period he is teaching and do not remember single name or date.
I agree with some points in that article. I remember that overly nice teachers aiming primary for fun often taught us very little. It was pleasant, but we have been behind. However, I believe you can have high expectations without being jerk about it.
But:
0.) Practice is not the same as rote learning especially in math above third grade. Practice in math means that you have to solve many different exercises and occasionally having to come up with solutions by yourself. Practice in math means that you are occasionally faced with exercises you have not seen before and you have to logic-think your way out of that.
Rote learning is quite opposite of that. Drilling essentially the same exercises over and over is opposite of that too.
Incidentally, those international tests try to confront students with unfamiliar situations and measure how they perform there.
1.) Why is everybody so obsessed with multiplication tables? It is something 6-7 years old have to learn. I just doubt that whatever happened in the first grade is all that much important years later on when you are 16 years old (age those international tests are done).
Even if you had worst first grade teacher in the world that did not taught you how much 2+2 is, teacher in fourth grade was supposed to force you to learn that. How come it did not happened?
2.) Is it possible that while super tough teacher in the beginning could be great for talented committed students, but not really match for average one? Only student with huge commitment and talent would persist and all others would gave up.
I was such average kid in music, hated that and stopped playing as soon as I could. It is quite possible that if I would find at least something enjoyable on lessons, I would learn more.
Of course, it does not really matter whether I play music today. But, it would matter if I would learn to hate math or computers the same way as I hated music practice.
That's dramatically over-simplifying. Praising kids for inherent qualities, or for achievements, can kill self-esteem/achievement. Praising kids for effort seems to work quite well.
This is a Malcolm Gladwell-esque article/book in the worst sense; a mismatch of famous studies (I believe I've read about all of them before; many have shown up in HN) that are used or abused to drive a narrative or idea of something that sounds plausible. Too long to comment on all the mistakes she's making.
"a teacher who basically tortured us through adolescence"
This "torture" idea came up in my mind just reading the title. Having a professor that is being harsh only objectively may be good in a limited sense, but in my experience this is just rare (and I had "the joy" of being educated by a good lot of harsh teachers). Being harsh objectively is the only kind that is supposedly beneficial, and it is "supposedly" because its efficiency is just very dependent on the subject's susceptibility. This is rare because it requires a lot of discipline on the teacher's part. Most often than not, around an harsh attitude the reason is pushed aside to make room for ever-dominating emotive behavior. On the teacher's side this leads to an unconstrained way of pulling the strings, and on the pupil's side - to cede and degenerate into fear, close-mindedness, and self disrespect, among many others. Don't get me wrong, the primary results will be there. The teaching's goal will be reached, if we're to ignore the costs (and we often do). I just guess the difficulty of summing it all up or realistically considering the entire thing on its true value as a parent or policy-maker if one hasn't been subjected to it and its effects.
"My old teacher Mr. K seldom praised us. His highest compliment was «not bad.» It turns out he was onto something." "the belief, the faith really, in students' ability to do better."
That of course is valid only if the amount of disparage in pupil's overall social interaction is minor, otherwise there wouldn't be enough confidence to build up in the first place. The writer praises her teacher for his results and concludes that the means must have been justified. I don't. What I see is the most rudimentary automatic negative-reaction based system. Any deviation from the expected parameters causes a literally negative reaction from the ruler that enforces the entire process. A most rudimentary form of teaching. It doesn't need any calibration to student's profile, it doesn't require much refinement of pedagogics as the task of getting back (somehow) in the normal parameters falls mostly on the student, and it definitely relieves the teacher of any kind of stress for the locus of control that is the pupil performance not being in his direct reach. (Actually, a harsh teacher gets rid of his stress in the lessons.) As a researched material this article presents itself, I'm disappointed of the conclusion. I expected efficiency without getting back to the old and brute ways.
The state of the education may not be rosy, but getting into "harsh" seems a bit extreme to me. Instead of "harsh" I would call for "serious". You only need teachers to show you the way and the limits. It's you and only you that should be harsh on yourself, no one else.
I find the arguments here are kind of missing the point. Replace the word teacher with the manager, and student with employee and how many of you would continue to agree with the premise of the article? How many of you would continue to agree with the article, if your manager was the one with "strict discipline" and "unyielding demmands"?
Also this article reveres rote learning in a way that I disagree with and I think many of you would disagree with in a context closer to home. How many of you would like to see CS 101 classes be dominated by memorization of semicolon placement in C++?
In my eyes this kind of vision, that old teaching style is better than new style, derives from old people more out of a sentimental desire than out of real results. Modern teaching methods are very likely much more successful than older one's, because in such kind of details humanity generally is able to improve well (can't provide statistics, though).
People are not completely wrong, though, when they say that the old paradigm was more efficiently executed than the new one. The reason might not be that it is more efficient in general though, but simply that we did it for thousands of years, while the new approach is only done for a few centuries. It's very likely that we go too far and need to add more discipline, but that is part of the stuff science can do and will do in a few centuries anyway.
The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to progress is forward not backwards. The idea can not be to see that a new paradigm applied for 3-5 generations of teachers is less efficient then the old one that was applied for hundreds or thousands of generations and then just go backwards. The idea should be to improve upon what we do now. Yes, teachers of now need to learn again to be more demanding and they should regain the power to do so with the necessary force. But explanation, praise and convincing need to stay in the game! At least for myself I can say that I learned much more in the last 2 years then in all 13 years of school, because learning on the internet works based on motivation, detailed explanations and rewarding, "gamey" technology and not on old people in front of the class who tell me what an idiot I am.
>The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to progress is forward not backwards.
I couldn't disagree more, forward only implies new, which isn't necessarily better.
The old paradigm of teaching, I find, was built on a lack of rules; evolving naturally from the one-on-one home upbringing, to apprenticeships and into the modern classroom. (Feel free to add jumps.)
Obviously it had flaws, as with a despotic ruler the students were at the mercy if his/her whims, but from what we're seeing today that hasn't been mitigated in the least. Despite serious efforts (teacher evaluations, PISA testing, etc.)
Instead, because teachers are being scrutinized down to the atom and the school system is monopolizing education, we have children who aren't taught to respect their teachers, and parents who aren't taking appropriate action to it because teaching is being brought out of their area of responsibility.
How can we hope to best human nature at teaching when human nature is something we've barely scratched the surface of? Is it really right to bet our children's future on a live experiment in human understanding? Yes, of course we have to attempt to improve, and obviously there is and always has been room for improvement, but the teachers weren't the enemy in that regard. They were generally doing what they could every day to make kids learn.
Now, instead of teachers, we have politicians trying to secure the upcoming election by ripping apart the status quo so they are able to use fancy sentences and faulty statistics in the media.
I love your straight disagreement and have to agree with most of your arguments. Your first line is not complete, though. You said forward doesn't imply better, which is true. Forward can even mean worse. But we already know that backwards never gets better, because it was already shitty the last time. We must make new experiences to find the path towards better.
Also very important to note: being strict works only when the teacher is actually competent. I've had high school teachers whose understanding of math was basically the textbook + epsilon. They were strict in order to keep the class under control, but they did not inspire me to do my best at mathematics.
Nice how he took Dweck's research and summarily dismissed one of its core results: that it's praising intelligence that's counterproductive, and that praising effort works. It's even in the quote, but apparently he didn't notice the word "intelligence".
73 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadSAT scores are mentioned exactly once in the article (well, twice, but in reference to the same finding), I have copy-pasted it for your convenience:
> When she applied the ["Grit Scale"] to incoming West Point cadets, she found that those who scored higher were less likely to drop out of the school's notoriously brutal summer boot camp known as "Beast Barracks." West Point's own measure—an index that includes SAT scores, class rank, leadership and physical aptitude—wasn't able to predict retention.
But it worked, the newspaper and yearbook were consistently the best in the country. It wasn't just a niche club, they were actually credit classes that filled up. It was actually cool* to be on staff, despite how seriously it was taken (though thinking back, my main contribution was installing NES emulators on all the machines, so it couldn't have been that serious)...
Edit: to clarify, I can't recall if he "ripped" into people for spelling errors/grammatical mistakes, though he'd point them out in a funny way and move on. But boy, if you did something like a professional breach...such as interview your same best friend for an article that you did last month, he might go off on it. Sloppy writing (burying the lede) was also jumped on, but in a constructive way. But that kind of constructive criticism...singling someone out in class...I didn't see it much out of high school.
I would not be surprised for research to demonstrate that children perform to the expectations given them, particularly when those expectations are clear and consistent. In fact, most people thrive in environments where they understand the rules, rewards, penalties, and where those structures are evenly and consistently enforced.
Correcting mistakes is one thing but insulting people making errors is probably harmful not helpful.
It's cliche because there's some merit: he wasn't our friend, but had an incredibly positive effect on our abilities in the subject.
I've no strong opinion whether public shaming is good or bad with spelling errors. Maybe the hypersensitivity we've culturally adopted to the emotional state of children biases our perception of the impact of such things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_%22Superman%22
Teachers are not successful because they are strict (it's not directly causative): they are successful because they are in command of the classroom.
You can gain better command of a classroom through fear of abuse, yes, but this is not a method we should aspire to.
> Now I'm not calling for abuse; I'd be the first to complain if a teacher called my kids names
No, the article explicitly creates a separation.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante
"In 1987, 27 percent of all Mexican Americans who scored 3 or higher on the calculus AP exam were students at Garfield High"
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
While he was rather strict/demanding, too, the article also hints to one of the more important causes of his success: "He rejected the common practice of ranking students from first to last and instead frequently told his students to press themselves as hard as possible in their assignments." In educational science the former is called social reference standard and the latter individual reference standard. While sadly the former is still in use more often, longitudinal studies have shown a strong positive effect on achievement for individual reference standards (I only have a German source right now: Rheinberg & Krug, 1999). The reason seems to be that students seem to attribute ratings with social reference to stable attributes like talent ("I'm just not good at math"), whereas individual benchmarks are more often interepreted as a result of (lack of) effort. Interestingly the socially disadvantaged have shown the strongest results with individual reference standards, just as in the case of Jaime Escalante.
"Over the next few years Escalante's calculus program continued to grow but not without its own price. Tensions that surfaced when his career began at Garfield escalated. In his final years at Garfield, Escalante received threats and hate mail from various individuals.[8] By 1990, he had lost the math department chairmanship. At this point Escalante's math enrichment program had grown to 400+ students. His class sizes had increased to over 50 students in some cases. This was far beyond the 35 student limit set by the teachers' union, which in turn increased criticism of Escalante's work. In 1991, the number of Garfield students taking advanced placement examinations in math and other subjects jumped to 570. That same year, citing faculty politics and petty jealousies,[citation needed] Escalante and Jiménez left Garfield. Escalante found new employment at Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento, California. At the height of Escalante's influence, Garfield graduates were entering the University of Southern California in such great numbers that they outnumbered all the other high schools in the working-class East Los Angeles region combined.[9] Even students who failed the AP went on to become star students at California State-Los Angeles in large numbers.[8]
Angelo Villavicencio took the reins of the program after their departure and taught the remaining 107 A.P. students in two classes for the next year. 67 of Villavicencio's students went on to take the A.P. exam and 47 passed. Villavicencio's request for a third class due to class size was denied and the following spring he followed Escalante and quit Garfield. The math program's decline at Garfield became apparent following the departure of Escalante and other teachers associated with its inception and development. In just a few years, the number of A.P. calculus students at Garfield who passed their exams dropped by more than 80 percent. In 1996, Villavicencio contacted Garfield's new principal, Tony Garcia, and offered to come back to help revive the dying calculus program. His offer was rejected.[8]"
A teacher without inclination and ability to better the students would perform bad even with your approach, which is "whatever approach to make student interested".
I think to read the article in article's spirit, he is talking only about teachers interested and able to "teach". The article's definition of teacher is someone who can teach (make students better) and not someone who is appointed by school and is not interested in students.
Considering this, the question OP is trying to address is : among the various approaches which is the best approach to teach.
I would say, an article containing analysis on data is more informative to me than just making a statement, whatever approach is right.
I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and creativity in subject-matter. The best way to do this, in my view, is mutual respect.
The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.
Praise doesn't make you a bad learner, learning in environments that encourage low expectations and stock answers to every situations probably will. Strictness might correlate with high expectations, but it sure as hell isn't the best way of going about it.
That said, I agree with a number of points in the article (some are implied from the provided data):
- Students with higher expectations perform closer to their potential (whether internal or external expectations, though other research suggests that internal motivation is far more important than external).
- There is possibly a formative stage of development where children's expectations are adjusted to their environment. Being surrounded by high expectations will correlate with high expectations with the learners.
- People who aren't afraid to fail will achieve more than those who are.
- Students who are in environments that emphasise strict route learning perform better on tests and memory exercises (spelling bees) than those who don't.
None of that really goes beyond common sense.
I'd really love for education to move beyond success = memorisation and into success = adaptability and understanding. The world rewards autodidacts because a lot of us worked this out on our own.
Yes. The question is how do you encourage curiosity and creativity in kids? No, we are not talking about adults. I see this humble request as something similar to what JFK asked when he said America should send a man to the moon. If you have the opportunity, read about the changes all levels of education in the United States had to go through to meet the demands of that "simple" challenge. When you're done come back let's compare to now
> The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.
I'm Ghanaian. Educated in Ghana and lived all my life in Ghana. I've had several teachers like Mr. K along the way at almost all levels. I hated my primary and junior high school English Language teacher for "good" reasons. (Especially when he commanded, yes commanded, that English is the only language permitted to be spoken on campus.) I'd say worse things about him to my parents. But my dad liked him because his homework assignments kept me busy all the time. I knew I was a smart kid but the score I had for his tests said something else about me and I wasn't ready to accept that. No! So you know what, I worked harder and harder for what I knew was mine. Progress follows hardwork.
Now, every time I have the prized opportunity of shaking that man's hand I do so with a beaming face and a sort of pride that says to him: "I can't thank you enough for coming into my life." He's proud of his students and we're proud of him too. I speak and (perhaps) write good English because he piqued my interest and taught me to strive because I can always get better.
> None of that really goes beyond common sense
Beats my imagination that we always have to be reminded about commonsense. I was told economics is plain commonsense. But there's a Nobel prize for it, right? Maybe commonsense put itself too much in our face we linger for what's rare. And that "the solution is not the obvious solution" mantra (a.k.a bullshit) might not be true after all.
If you agree, can we just return to commonsense?
You used "piqued" correctly, that already puts you beyond probably 80% of native-born English speakers in writing. ;)
I'm working on this now, and should be ready to talk more openly soon. More useful data than test scores can be measured in classroom, and I'm currently experimenting with ways of visualising mood and personalities in classrooms. It makes it much easier for teachers to know how much energy/encouragement they need to provide (or calm the class down, if necessary). It's exciting stuff and it's starting to come together nicely.
> "I can't thank you enough for coming into my life." He's proud of his students and we're proud of him too.
I've had two teachers like this personally, one was a bit gruff and was more on the 'strict' side of the continuum. He brought history to life for thousands of students at my school. The other was so passionate about teaching that he would bounce around the class like a big kid when he taught.
The things they had in common was passion and a willingness to demonstrate how hard they would work for their students. I would say that your teacher would also have displayed these qualities.
> If you agree, can we just return to common sense?
My point was that the article tried to twist observations that are more or less common sense to further an argument that harsh teachers are effective. There's not always a lot of value in simply stating common sense. Finding ways to apply it is a different thing.
On a side note, I've only brushed the surface of economics (particularly from a psychology point of view) and I've found it anything but common sense, or even logical for that matter.
Perhaps you're right. But what about honest = effective. How often do teachers change a grade because parents call in, or because the student complains? Too often. Whether it's from parents or the institution, there are a lot of outside factors that pressure teachers to give good grades even when they are not deserved.
No matter which way you put it, getting a bad grade always hurts, especially when good grades are being given in other classes. I think that's one of the reasons that teachers who are "tougher" are looked down upon. People think they're mean, but sometimes they're just being honest and want you to succeed so much that they wouldn't dare give you a grade that doesn't reflect your actual progress. For the same reason, teachers don't want to have this label, so they resort to being "easier" and less honest.
This certainly happens at the high school and middle school level, but recent news has looked at grading practices at Harvard. There was a grader who admitted to giving out As that were undeserved, and although I couldn't find that article this one talks about how A is the most frequently given grade at Harvard (while A- is the median) [1].
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/harvard-grade-infla...
Also, I see a difference between being a hard marker and being a harsh teacher. I don't really have a problem with the former, the article here talks mostly about the latter. My problem is with anyone who promotes 'strictness/harshness' in classrooms.
Can't agree enough that there are problems with the system in general, and a society that wants everyone to succeed while also placing so much emphasis on getting people to fit bell curves. I'm working on getting new data out of classrooms right now: quantified engagement, mood, desired learning conditions, preferred methods of content delivery etc.
I think that the main root of the problems we have is a desire for things to be 'right' or 'wrong'. It kills curiosity, engagement and creativity and in no way reflects the real world.
EDIT: clarity
Specifcally,
-Are schools really eschewing rote memorization?
-Are schools really less "strict" than before? Does a teacher really have less control of their classroom than today?
-Are helicopter parents really more of thing today than in the past?
-Are kids really not being taught they can fail a class?
I've yet to see any evidence cited for the above assertions, but I do hear them constantly being repeated.
In the USA, teachers used to be able to hit students, about 30 years ago. Things have changed quite a bit.
And he found that all of them "deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them and drive them to higher levels of performance."
The article ignores selection bias from the get go. Participants in most high school activities [in the US] tend to be self-selected. In the string section of an orchestra, they are not only self selected but also thoroughly weeded out by the institution; there are no novices or dabblers.
Also known as Regression toward the mean[1]. Talked about a bunch in Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
It seems like the actually determining feature was that,
> "The core belief of these teachers was, 'Every student in my room is underperforming based on their potential, and it's my job to do something about it—and I can do something about it,'"
Punishing people for fucking up - traditionally what we think of as "tough", I think - is just punishing people for regressing to the mean: http://crookedtimber.org/2010/09/28/mean-and-regressive/
(1) They had high standards. (2) They liked us. (3) They were interested in the subject.
I've been unable to express what makes a good teacher more concretely than that.
(1) Something to teach me.
(2) Willingness to teach me.
(3) A serious attitude towards teaching once he decides on that.
It's sad how irresponsible journalists like this make a greater impact on public debate with flimsy articles like these.
- Get the students genuinely interested in listening to the teacher. This is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will most likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student might over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and learning. Inspiration and motivation are the key.
- Make each student feel that the teacher is talking to them . Yes, sort of personalized. I remember a professor in college and every time he spoke, I could relate to it and really loved listening to him because it felt like he was only talking to me. Guess what, I excelled in that class.
- Encourage students to talk, ask questions, debate whatever.Related to #1 point.
- Actually take an interest in students if possible. For a small class size, this is not very difficult. Get to know your students as much as possible outside. Lot of students do bad in class not because they are stupid but because they might have other factors in their personal life impacting their performance. Find out if possible and figure out a way to work around that. Remember, everyone is different. Every student is different.
- Last but not the least, be interested in teaching. Yes, did I need to say that ? If you really love to teach, you will find out ways to get your students to do well.
If you are good at most of the above, one could care less if you are tough or soft or whatever.
This assumes that the secret to the student's success is the teacher, not the student him/herself. The article's view of the teacher's role is to push/inspire the student into putting in the required effort to learn things on their own (mostly by reading books, doing exercises and thinking independently). Students shouldn't get their knowledge from teachers, but from books (I think it's dangerous to establish teachers as gatekeepers of knowledge and as authority figures).
Of course the ones that showed up for the concert liked him - the ones that wanted to piss on his grave were, I'd guess, off doing that. Confirmation bias much, WSJ?
Clearly, What America Needs is spelling bee champions.
Maybe a better comparison would be algebra and geometry since he taught those classes but other teachers did as well. Did his students perform any better than the students of other teachers? I would say not although I don't have the data to back it up. I had another teacher for algebra and then him for geometry and when I was in his geometry class with other students that had him for algebra I felt we were even. I never felt like the kids who had him for algebra were way ahead of me when it came to doing the algebra that came up in geometry.
And also where they prohibit them from outside interactions and tightly monitor their social lives (or lack thereof).
Hardly seems permissive to me.
Made up example would be math teacher assigning two hours a day of exercises and worksheets on simple equations, while other teachers already moved on and successfully teach "difficult" equations.
Made up over the top example would be teacher that checks your notebook every other day whether it is nice, organized and colored. He would assign three hours of work of cutting and pasting and coloring and what not every day and make you rework historical diorama five times.
However, that teacher could still miss that you have no idea what happened during historical period he is teaching and do not remember single name or date.
But:
0.) Practice is not the same as rote learning especially in math above third grade. Practice in math means that you have to solve many different exercises and occasionally having to come up with solutions by yourself. Practice in math means that you are occasionally faced with exercises you have not seen before and you have to logic-think your way out of that.
Rote learning is quite opposite of that. Drilling essentially the same exercises over and over is opposite of that too.
Incidentally, those international tests try to confront students with unfamiliar situations and measure how they perform there.
1.) Why is everybody so obsessed with multiplication tables? It is something 6-7 years old have to learn. I just doubt that whatever happened in the first grade is all that much important years later on when you are 16 years old (age those international tests are done).
Even if you had worst first grade teacher in the world that did not taught you how much 2+2 is, teacher in fourth grade was supposed to force you to learn that. How come it did not happened?
2.) Is it possible that while super tough teacher in the beginning could be great for talented committed students, but not really match for average one? Only student with huge commitment and talent would persist and all others would gave up.
I was such average kid in music, hated that and stopped playing as soon as I could. It is quite possible that if I would find at least something enjoyable on lessons, I would learn more.
Of course, it does not really matter whether I play music today. But, it would matter if I would learn to hate math or computers the same way as I hated music practice.
That's dramatically over-simplifying. Praising kids for inherent qualities, or for achievements, can kill self-esteem/achievement. Praising kids for effort seems to work quite well.
This "torture" idea came up in my mind just reading the title. Having a professor that is being harsh only objectively may be good in a limited sense, but in my experience this is just rare (and I had "the joy" of being educated by a good lot of harsh teachers). Being harsh objectively is the only kind that is supposedly beneficial, and it is "supposedly" because its efficiency is just very dependent on the subject's susceptibility. This is rare because it requires a lot of discipline on the teacher's part. Most often than not, around an harsh attitude the reason is pushed aside to make room for ever-dominating emotive behavior. On the teacher's side this leads to an unconstrained way of pulling the strings, and on the pupil's side - to cede and degenerate into fear, close-mindedness, and self disrespect, among many others. Don't get me wrong, the primary results will be there. The teaching's goal will be reached, if we're to ignore the costs (and we often do). I just guess the difficulty of summing it all up or realistically considering the entire thing on its true value as a parent or policy-maker if one hasn't been subjected to it and its effects.
"My old teacher Mr. K seldom praised us. His highest compliment was «not bad.» It turns out he was onto something." "the belief, the faith really, in students' ability to do better."
That of course is valid only if the amount of disparage in pupil's overall social interaction is minor, otherwise there wouldn't be enough confidence to build up in the first place. The writer praises her teacher for his results and concludes that the means must have been justified. I don't. What I see is the most rudimentary automatic negative-reaction based system. Any deviation from the expected parameters causes a literally negative reaction from the ruler that enforces the entire process. A most rudimentary form of teaching. It doesn't need any calibration to student's profile, it doesn't require much refinement of pedagogics as the task of getting back (somehow) in the normal parameters falls mostly on the student, and it definitely relieves the teacher of any kind of stress for the locus of control that is the pupil performance not being in his direct reach. (Actually, a harsh teacher gets rid of his stress in the lessons.) As a researched material this article presents itself, I'm disappointed of the conclusion. I expected efficiency without getting back to the old and brute ways.
The state of the education may not be rosy, but getting into "harsh" seems a bit extreme to me. Instead of "harsh" I would call for "serious". You only need teachers to show you the way and the limits. It's you and only you that should be harsh on yourself, no one else.
Also this article reveres rote learning in a way that I disagree with and I think many of you would disagree with in a context closer to home. How many of you would like to see CS 101 classes be dominated by memorization of semicolon placement in C++?
Because come on, no other areas see this. Math it hard too, but do math teachers scream on promising students? They usually don't.
Maybe sports are another exception.
People are not completely wrong, though, when they say that the old paradigm was more efficiently executed than the new one. The reason might not be that it is more efficient in general though, but simply that we did it for thousands of years, while the new approach is only done for a few centuries. It's very likely that we go too far and need to add more discipline, but that is part of the stuff science can do and will do in a few centuries anyway.
The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to progress is forward not backwards. The idea can not be to see that a new paradigm applied for 3-5 generations of teachers is less efficient then the old one that was applied for hundreds or thousands of generations and then just go backwards. The idea should be to improve upon what we do now. Yes, teachers of now need to learn again to be more demanding and they should regain the power to do so with the necessary force. But explanation, praise and convincing need to stay in the game! At least for myself I can say that I learned much more in the last 2 years then in all 13 years of school, because learning on the internet works based on motivation, detailed explanations and rewarding, "gamey" technology and not on old people in front of the class who tell me what an idiot I am.
I couldn't disagree more, forward only implies new, which isn't necessarily better.
The old paradigm of teaching, I find, was built on a lack of rules; evolving naturally from the one-on-one home upbringing, to apprenticeships and into the modern classroom. (Feel free to add jumps.)
Obviously it had flaws, as with a despotic ruler the students were at the mercy if his/her whims, but from what we're seeing today that hasn't been mitigated in the least. Despite serious efforts (teacher evaluations, PISA testing, etc.)
Instead, because teachers are being scrutinized down to the atom and the school system is monopolizing education, we have children who aren't taught to respect their teachers, and parents who aren't taking appropriate action to it because teaching is being brought out of their area of responsibility.
How can we hope to best human nature at teaching when human nature is something we've barely scratched the surface of? Is it really right to bet our children's future on a live experiment in human understanding? Yes, of course we have to attempt to improve, and obviously there is and always has been room for improvement, but the teachers weren't the enemy in that regard. They were generally doing what they could every day to make kids learn.
Now, instead of teachers, we have politicians trying to secure the upcoming election by ripping apart the status quo so they are able to use fancy sentences and faulty statistics in the media.
Edit: coincidentally, this was just posted: http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-so-few-grow...!