In the Sunday magazine section of The New York Times today, there was an article by Elizabeth Green called “Can Good Teaching be Learned” and unsurprisingly her conclusion, or more accurately the conclusion of Doug Lemov, is yes. Lemov spent years watching and filming teachers and discovered 49 specific, simple techniques that result in getting kids to pay attention to the teacher, AND do what they are told.
“So there is Warm/Strict, technique No. 45, in which a correction comes with a smile and an explanation for its cause — “Sweetheart, we don’t do that in this classroom because it keeps us from making the most of our learning time.” The J-Factor, No. 46, is a list of ways to inject a classroom with joy, from giving students nicknames to handing out vocabulary words in sealed envelopes to build suspense. In Cold Call, No. 22, stolen from Harvard Business School, which Lemov attended, the students don’t raise their hands — the teacher picks the one who will answer the question. Lemov’s favorite variety has the teacher ask the question first, and then say the student’s name, forcing every single student to do the work of figuring out an answer.”
The title of Lemov’s upcoming book is Teach Like a Champion: The 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College) Like most of these sorts of stories, the “solution” to the problem is really simple, and is usually the result of a simple rethinking of the problem. Lemov did something that I advocate in my book Rethink, which is to get your head into the mind of who you are talking to (whether you are selling them something or teaching them, the same principle applies), understand what they want and value and be direct with them about what you want them to do. It worked wonders. I also expect that a lot of corporations will also benefit from applying some of the 49 techniques to they lead training classes.
But Green’s article glossed over something that I think is the other half of the education and training. The first half is getting the kids focused and doing what you want them to do – the other half is defining what it is you want them to learn (beyond the basic reading, writing, math skills). That strikes me as a tough nut to crack. What is the real outcome we want for these kids? We want them to grow up to be productive contributors to our society and that includes things like social skills, musical knowledge, knowledge of history, geography, and lots of other disciplines, some of which show up in standardized tests. Is the goal to prepare these kids for college (as the subtitle of Lemov’s book suggests) which is largely decided by a math and verbal test on the SAT? Is the goal to teach kids how to memorize things or is it to really switch on their brains so they can really decide what they get (and give) out of life, be it a lot of money, or a lot of free time, or solving some hard problem, or having a big family, or something else? I would be interested to hear what Lemov thinks about that and whether he thinks the outcome of education also needs some rethinking.
-Ric
Ric,
Education is more than just following a set of rules and conforming to a set of expected behaviors. Unfortunately, the system we’ve created is setup for just this. Kids are expected to follow rules, memorize, and spit back answers on a test. Their success is measured by test results and often little else. I don’t see this changing, because learning to think and creatively innovate is subjective and would likely become political or mired in controversy.
A few goals I’d like to see from more effective teaching are:
– Give learners an appreciation and understanding of the subject. For example, not every student who takes accounting will become an accountant. But can they learn to understand and appreciate its value to business and society?
– Teach and equip learners to think independently about problem solving. I see too much of just learning the and memorizing the answer rather than understanding how its done.