Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

(Nancy Kaufman) #1

based management teams. It includes an essay on student teaching and excerpts from a stu-
dent teacher’s reflective journal.


JOIN THE CONVERSATION—SCRIPTED LEARNING
David Craig presents a “model dialogue” between a monitor and student from an 1840s
training manual. I find it eerily reminiscent of contemporary scripted learning programs
that are supposed to “teacher-proof” classroom instruction and provide easier means for
assessing student learning (Dickens, 1973, p. 22).

Monitor: What have you been reading about?
Boy: Ruminating animals.
Monitor: Another name for ruminating?
Boy: Cud-chewing.
Monitor: What is the root of the word?
Boy: Rumen, the cud.
Monitor: You read in the lesson the enamel is disposed in crescent-shaped ridges.
What is the enamel?
Boy: The hard, shining part of the tooth.
Monitor: What part of the tooth is it?
Boy: The covering of that part that is out of the jawbone.
Monitor: What do you mean by disposed?
Boy: Placed.
Monitor: The root?
Boy: Pono, I place.

Questions to Consider:


  1. How does the “boy” demonstrate what he has learned? What is missing from his edu-
    cation?
    2.Scripted learning programs such as “Success for All” have been developed and pro-
    moted by major institutions and scholars such as Robert Slavin of John Hopkins Univer-
    sity. They have been endorsed by school systems that see them as solutions to the
    problem of boosting scores on standardized exams in poor communities. Their propos-
    als have been sharply debated in educational magazines such asPhi Delta Kappan
    (Pogrow, 2000; Slavin & Madden, 2000; Slavin, Madden, Dolan, Wasik, Ross, et al.,
    1994). Do you think these programs have value? Would you want to teach in a school
    that used this kind of model for teaching? If you had children, would you want them in
    schools using this type of program? Explain your views.


SECTION A: WHAT SHOULD YOU THINK ABOUT AS YOU PREPARE
TO STUDENT TEACH OR START YOUR FIRST TEACHING POSITION?


Some of you will find these suggestions a little silly, especially if you are a second-career
teacher or someone who has significant work experience. However, I know that when I was
in my early 20s these were very real issues for me as I struggled to figure out what it meant
to be a responsible adult, worker, and professional.


STRUGGLE 255

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