Sacramento's Sustainable Future: How To Train Great Teachers

December 14, 2008

How To Train Great Teachers

According to Malcolm Gladwell in the Dec. 15 New Yorker, the "expensive, time-consuming credentials that almost every district expects teachers to acquire" turn out not to make a difference in the classroom. As with pro quarterbacks and financial advisors, it turns out that the best way to get good teachers is to screen out those with known ineffective traits, put the rest to work and winnow them after a few years.

"Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree - and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before." The payoff is that really good teachers can cover the same material - and properly - in half the time a mediocre one will take. A really great teacher has "withitness," and can offer instant relevant feedback as needed.

www.virginia.edu/vpr/CASTL/?q=node/5

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell

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Can Capitalism Be Saved?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualization

is the highest human need, our quest for our highest self and spiritual/ethical potential.

Self & Social Esteem

arises through honest effort and success.

Social Needs

are obvious to those in solitary confinement. Humans need friends and hugs.

Safety Needs

are about the future security of basic physiological needs.

Physiological Needs

are about survival.

Maslow noticed that we are preoccupied with meeting our most essential needs first, before moving up to higher levels of human potential. But we all always need to fulfill ourselves on all levels to be whole and completely human.

Why Do Some People Get Picked On?

Over the years, I have reflected on my experience, trying to figure out what it was about me that caused the other kids to select me as the designated scapegoat for my age cohort.

A relatively accepting and not very competitive personality was a factor, and I was different, because my parents were older and traditional and my mom dressed me funny.

So when you decide to make fun of someone who looks funny or poor, better make sure I'm not around, because I don't care who gets embarrassed when scapegoating is going on.

Obstacle for Youth Volunteers

Everytime anyone decides they want to volunteer with any organization working with youth, they have to get fingerprinted and pay for it too.

I am sure we want to screen out any child molesters, but since very few molesters are strangers, fingerprinting isn't very effective. It also screens out lower-income volunteers.

For worried parents and well-meaning adults, I strongly recommend Gavin de Becker's book "Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane)."

He explains how to immunize your kids, so they smell exploitative behavior long before it turns into abuse.

My California Roots

I grew up in a different California than most people. Most people who came here after the war (i.e. WW2) left behind traditional ways and thought California living was like Sunset magazine. But my ancestors first arrived just before the Civil War.

I grew up in a pre-war town, raised by traditional parents who taught us both the traditional thrift and self-reliance they learned during the Depression, as well as the contentment which requires economic means but can't be thus guaranteed. Emotional and social sustainability are also essential. Since we were close to a public university, intellectual and cultural values were a normal part of community life.

My father was always a registered Republican, but I'm not sure he voted for one after Eisenhower, and he thought W beneath contempt. My grandfather was a machinist and a union man. When we were kids, there was Bible reading after breakfast, but when my mother decided to read it cover to cover about 15 years ago, her faith was weakened by the experience.

One thing I noticed when I was in France is that there aren't any traditional peasants in California. The closest to that I've experienced here was visiting Mrs. Flint in Auburn in 1972.