📑 Excellent Teachers in an Age of Fads

Bookmarked Excellent teachers in an age of fads by Mark Enser (Teaching it Real)

Many things that get labelled as “fads” might work for an individual teacher (although many things might work better) but they only become fads when divorced from their original meaning and then are spread around and are imposed on other teachers. Teachers, being brilliant, are able to make these things work as best they can, or at least to minimise harm, but they still have an opportunity cost. Worst still they add to our workload and drive teachers out of teaching.

The solution is to give teachers time to study how pupils learn and time to reflect on and discuss their own learning – and then to allow them to teach. If someone wants to discuss a new method then that is wonderful; but it needs honest critique and the ideas behind it need to be explored.

This is an interesting post. I had never thought about the ability of teachers to make the most of a bad situation.

Another approach to this situation is to support teachers with structures, rather than solutions. Some of these approaches include Modern Learning Canvas, Agile Leadership and Disciplined Collaboration.

Discussing the teaching of literacy in Australia, Deb Hayes talks about uncommon pedagogies and the development of an oeuvre:

How might we support teachers to develop their oeuvre? What might the public discourse of schooling look like if it were to be based upon a deep respect for teachers, their knowledge and their understanding of the local conditions of teaching and learning?

Each of these perspectives provide a different approach to implementing change in education.

h/t John Johnson

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