Reply #68: It sounds like what I do when I perform music [View All]

[ProudDad]

I sit up there playing and singing and during the entire performance I must read the audience. I must do the same kind of thing you're describing here:

"Reading the mood, energy, and focus of a whole group and of every individual tells me how to start the day, and how to start every class period. If I've gotten to know my class as a whole and as individuals well enough, I will read them correctly and choose the most effective way of getting their attention."

This is an art that NO ONE can learn quickly. It took me many years to get at all good at performance, at reading audiences, and adjusting my performance to meet their needs. This is an art that can't be taught in a teaching curriculum. This must be learned on the job and from our peers.

When my daughter was in elementary school she had an opportunity to be in a classroom with a team of teachers for a time. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Each of the 3 teachers had their own strengths and I suspect the whole of that experience greatly exceeded the sum of its parts for the students and the teachers.

Your point about teachers cooperating with one another, assessing and supporting one another was right on. The best evaluator of how a teacher is doing has to be her/his peers. Most of the folks inhabiting school "administration" is either corrupted by concerns about the "bottom line" above all (the Business School approach) or have been plucked out of the teaching ranks to occupy a rung one step above their Peter Plateau or, in the best case, have been removed from day to day contact with their ex-peers. In any case, they are rendered somewhat incompetent to determine how any teacher is really "performing".

Of course, it's "expensive" to do education right. It's much more important that we spend 12 BILLION dollars of my grandson's money for a phony "war on terror" and more billions on the phony "war on drugs" than spend any significant amount of money on educating our children.