it is distressingly ordinary for patients to get treatments that research has shown are ineffective or even dangerous.
And wait there's more! The article goes on to say:
. . . medicine is quick to adopt practices based on shaky evidence but slow to drop them once they’ve been blown up by solid proof.
Oh my!
How does this relate to schools and classrooms and students and teachers - things that I care deeply about?
There are many threads to this story.
Learning is a complex. Learning is difficult. Helping someone learn to read or understand linear equations or explain supply and demand or describe how temperature, pressure, activation energy, and concentration affect the rate of a chemical reaction is not easy. To do this successfully requires not only a person who understands the subject but also understands how six- and nine- and thirteen- and seventeen-year-olds think and reason and understand.
It is hard work!
And the teachers I see every day willingly engage in the tasks that are required to understand their subject and their students. They engage in this work because they want to, because they know it is important, because it makes a difference.
I believe that doctors know their work is important. I believe that doctors engage in their work because they know it makes a difference. But, as the article in The Atlantic makes clear, some doctors
. . . continue to deliver these treatments because it’s profitable—or even because they’re popular and patients demand them.
Teachers don't have a profit margin that they worry about. Teachers don't resist change because changing would affect their bottom line.
However, teachers can and do face pressure not to change because their current practice is popular. Sometimes current instructional strategies are fun. But as teachers evaluate their current practice they may identify more effective strategies. Leaving behind a cherished practice is hard. But teachers do it all the time.
Engaging students today requires incredible insight. Making learning relevant requires teachers who understand that what worked yesterday may not work today. Today's students are different from yesterday's students. Engaging these students requires new strategies, new insights, new approaches.
I appreciate the willingness of the teachers that I know to continue to find instructional strategies that work.
Change is hard.But not changing is harder!
Modern children probably require brand-new approaches. 5 years ago I could easily combine my teacher's work with 3-4 other freelance activities and now I could barely find time to survey good writing websites. Children nowadays are hyperactive, they are like mad. It's almost impossible to make them concentrate on subject more than 15 mins. I feel like I could use a fresh book with modern teaching techniques.
ReplyDeleteHello. Thanks for the interesting article, I support all of the above.
ReplyDeleteYes, education is one of the important stages in a child's life. And the knowledge that he will receive in the process of training, can depend on his future life.
The fact is that much depends on the teacher. As far as he is interested in his discipline, he will be so interesting to them. But, when the material in the book is too complicated to understand, and the teacher is not interested in explaining it to his students, the desire to learn disappears.
In addition, it is very important to write students of various college documents - this shows not only their knowledge of the subject, but also teaches you to think, prove your point of view, etc. It is also important whether he wants to learn how to write or ask "can you do my homework for me"?
After all, the degree to which the student will be interested in his training directly depends on what specialist he will become. A good, loving affair. Or one that you should not address to all ...