Teacher Ed Headed to the Hill

Deborah Ball, Dean of the School of Education at University of Michigan, will be testifying before Congress on June 18th on teacher education.

Having had the pleasure of watching Dean Ball at work during my time at Michigan, I'm thinking that if anybody can break through the bureaucratically-bound, archaic understanding of teaching and learning that has plagued our federal government (and most everyone else too) for decades, it's probably Deborah.

Fingers crossed and hats off.

Here is a snippet from her drafted testimony:

Many people have ideas about how to improve “teacher quality.” Some proposals focus on how to identify and fire incompetent teachers. Other proposals seek to increase the pay of teachers who are effective in producing student learning. Still others create incentives to attract more bright people to the teaching profession. Although these all make sense, at least in part, not one of them sufficiently addresses the core problem.

The core problem is one of ensuring that every teacher, in every classroom, can do the work we are asking of them. This is a problem of training, both initial and continuing, and not merely one of sanctions, rewards, and other incentives.

Let me explain why: Despite how commonplace it may seem, teaching is intricate work. Doing it well requires detailed knowledge of the domain being taught, a great deal of precision and skill in making it learnable, as well as good judgment and a tremendous capacity to relate to a wide range of young people. Accomplished experts and very smart people are not automatically good at making their expertise explicit to others. And as we seek to increase the academic standards and demands that we want our young people to meet, the problem will only escalate. Teaching
complex academic skills and knowledge, not to mention skills of collaboration, interaction, and resourcefulness in an increasingly networked world, is still more difficult than teaching more basic skills.