
Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results - kamaal
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304213904579095303368899132
======
vicbrooker
The implications in this article that strict = effective are flat-out stupid.
A teacher does not have to be hardass to encourage children to have high
expectations and to be OK with failure.

I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and
creativity in subject-matter. The best way to do this, in my view, is mutual
respect.

The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which
eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.

Praise doesn't make you a bad learner, learning in environments that encourage
low expectations and stock answers to every situations probably will.
Strictness might correlate with high expectations, but it sure as hell isn't
the best way of going about it.

That said, I agree with a number of points in the article (some are implied
from the provided data):

\- Students with higher expectations perform closer to their potential
(whether internal or external expectations, though other research suggests
that internal motivation is far more important than external).

\- There is possibly a formative stage of development where children's
expectations are adjusted to their environment. Being surrounded by high
expectations will correlate with high expectations with the learners.

\- People who aren't afraid to fail will achieve more than those who are.

\- Students who are in environments that emphasise strict route learning
perform better on tests and memory exercises (spelling bees) than those who
don't.

None of that really goes beyond common sense.

I'd really love for education to move beyond success = memorisation and into
success = adaptability and understanding. The world rewards autodidacts
because a lot of us worked this out on our own.

~~~
yawboakye
> I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity
> and creativity in subject-matter

Yes. The question is how do you encourage curiosity and creativity in kids?
No, we are not talking about adults. I see this humble request as something
similar to what JFK asked when he said America should send a man to the moon.
If you have the opportunity, read about the changes all levels of education in
the United States had to go through to meet the demands of that "simple"
challenge. When you're done come back let's compare to now

> The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through fear, which
> eventually fades into a semblance of respect over time.

I'm Ghanaian. Educated in Ghana and lived all my life in Ghana. I've had
several teachers like Mr. K along the way at almost all levels. I hated my
primary and junior high school English Language teacher for "good" reasons.
(Especially when he commanded, yes commanded, that English is the only
language permitted to be spoken on campus.) I'd say worse things about him to
my parents. But my dad liked him because his homework assignments kept me busy
all the time. I knew I was a smart kid but the score I had for his tests said
something else about me and I wasn't ready to accept that. No! So you know
what, I worked harder and harder for what I knew was mine. Progress follows
hardwork.

Now, every time I have the prized opportunity of shaking that man's hand I do
so with a beaming face and a sort of pride that says to him: "I can't thank
you enough for coming into my life." He's proud of his students and we're
proud of him too. I speak and (perhaps) write good English because he piqued
my interest and taught me to strive because I can always get better.

> None of that really goes beyond common sense

Beats my imagination that we always have to be reminded about commonsense. I
was told economics is plain commonsense. But there's a Nobel prize for it,
right? Maybe commonsense put itself too much in our face we linger for what's
rare. And that "the solution is not the obvious solution" mantra (a.k.a
bullshit) might not be true after all.

If you agree, can we just return to commonsense?

~~~
colomon
"I speak and (perhaps) write good English because he piqued my interest and
taught me to strive because I can always get better."

You used "piqued" correctly, that already puts you beyond probably 80% of
native-born English speakers in writing. ;)

~~~
thrush
woah. is this an actual statistic? any chance you have a reference for where
you got that number? (genuine curiosity)

~~~
colomon
Sorry, no, that number was completely pulled out of my ass as a slightly more
interesting way of saying that failed attempts to use that phrase are
distressingly common. "Peaked my interest" and "peeked my interest" both get
millions of hits on Google search. My impression is it's one of the most
common English errors you see that doesn't involve pronoun trouble.

------
danso
Back in high school, our journalism teacher was legendary for his scathing,
but usually humorous criticism. And yet the Friday after we published the
newspaper, critique day, was one of the most-eagerly anticipated days, as he
would alternate between complementing people and then ripping others apart for
not just things like punctuation and sentence structure _, but higher-level
failures such as failing to interview key people and providing fair coverage.
A lot of students cried and even though he 's still a teacher today, I can't
imagine that the discipline and excellence he demanded would go over well
today.

But it worked, the newspaper and yearbook were consistently the best in the
country. It wasn't just a niche club, they were actually credit classes that
filled up. It was actually _cool* to be on staff, despite how seriously it was
taken (though thinking back, my main contribution was installing NES emulators
on all the machines, so it couldn't have been _that_ serious)...

Edit: to clarify, I can't recall if he "ripped" into people for spelling
errors/grammatical mistakes, though he'd point them out in a funny way and
move on. But boy, if you did something like a professional breach...such as
interview your same best friend for an article that you did last month, he
might go off on it. Sloppy writing (burying the lede) was also jumped on, but
in a constructive way. But that kind of constructive criticism...singling
someone out in class...I didn't see it much out of high school.

~~~
mattlutze
I think there must be a psychological equivalent to the feeling that your
kids' sports teams "play to their opponents."

I would not be surprised for research to demonstrate that children perform to
the expectations given them, particularly when those expectations are clear
and consistent. In fact, most people thrive in environments where they
understand the rules, rewards, penalties, and where those structures are
evenly and consistently enforced.

~~~
DanBC
The environment you describe doesn't include "ripping people a new one" for
spelling errors.

Correcting mistakes is one thing but insulting people making errors is
probably harmful not helpful.

~~~
mattlutze
My strictest, and most beneficial, professor was so hard on my writing that,
when I finally produced something up to his expectations, his feedback comment
casually wondered whether I had plagiarized it.

It's cliche because there's some merit: he wasn't our friend, but had an
incredibly positive effect on our abilities in the subject.

I've no strong opinion whether public shaming is good or bad with spelling
errors. Maybe the hypersensitivity we've culturally adopted to the emotional
state of children biases our perception of the impact of such things.

------
melling
Jaime Escalante

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante)

"In 1987, 27 percent of all Mexican Americans who scored 3 or higher on the
calculus AP exam were students at Garfield High"

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver)

~~~
Cyph0n
Wow. I guess I'll have to watch the movie.

~~~
tekalon
It was the go-to movie when we had a math substitute. Definitely recommend
watching.

------
phillmv
It's impressive to me how she takes all this unrelated research and weaves it
into "tough teachers" (tho that's possibly the fault of her editor).

It seems like the actually determining feature was that,

> "The core belief of these teachers was, 'Every student in my room is
> underperforming based on their potential, and it's my job to do something
> about it—and I can do something about it,'"

Punishing people for fucking up - traditionally what we think of as "tough", I
think - is just punishing people for regressing to the mean:
[http://crookedtimber.org/2010/09/28/mean-and-
regressive/](http://crookedtimber.org/2010/09/28/mean-and-regressive/)

~~~
yawboakye
She's asking teachers to deliver "tough love"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tough_love](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tough_love)

------
ronaldx
> What makes a teacher successful? ... Their No. 1 finding: "They were
> strict," she says. "None of us expected that."

Teachers are not successful _because_ they are strict (it's not directly
causative): they are successful because they are in command of the classroom.

You _can_ gain better command of a classroom through fear of abuse, yes, but
this is not a method we should aspire to.

~~~
Ntrails
Strictness and abuse are completely unrelated. To imply that to require pupils
obey rules is abuse is mind boggling.

~~~
ronaldx
The article is deliberately connecting the two (e.g. in the first paragraph),
which is why I comment on it.

~~~
mseebach
7th paragraph:

> Now I'm not calling for abuse; I'd be the first to complain if a teacher
> called my kids names

~~~
ronaldx
The fact that the 7th paragraph says "Now I'm not calling for..." implies that
the connection was made in the first 6 paragraphs, yes.

------
codegeek
Tough or not, Good teachers are good at the following:

\- Get the students _genuinely_ interested in listening to the teacher. This
is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will most
likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student might
over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and learning.
Inspiration and motivation are the key.

\- Make each student feel that the teacher is talking to _them_ . Yes, sort of
personalized. I remember a professor in college and every time he spoke, I
could relate to it and really loved listening to him because it felt like he
was only talking to me. Guess what, I excelled in that class.

\- Encourage students to talk, ask questions, debate whatever.Related to #1
point.

\- Actually take an interest in students if possible. For a small class size,
this is not very difficult. Get to know your students as much as possible
_outside_. Lot of students do bad in class not because they are stupid but
because they might have other factors in their personal life impacting their
performance. Find out if possible and figure out a way to work around that.
Remember, everyone is different. Every student is different.

\- Last but not the least, be interested in teaching. Yes, did I need to say
that ? If you really love to teach, you _will_ find out ways to get your
students to do well.

If you are good at most of the above, one could care less if you are tough or
soft or whatever.

~~~
ahomescu1
> \- Get the students genuinely interested in listening to the teacher. This
> is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will
> most likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student
> might over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and
> learning. Inspiration and motivation are the key.

This assumes that the secret to the student's success is the teacher, not the
student him/herself. The article's view of the teacher's role is to
push/inspire the student into putting in the required effort to learn things
on their own (mostly by reading books, doing exercises and thinking
independently). Students shouldn't get their knowledge from teachers, but from
books (I think it's dangerous to establish teachers as gatekeepers of
knowledge and as authority figures).

------
erikb
In my eyes this kind of vision, that old teaching style is better than new
style, derives from old people more out of a sentimental desire than out of
real results. Modern teaching methods are very likely much more successful
than older one's, because in such kind of details humanity generally is able
to improve well (can't provide statistics, though).

People are not completely wrong, though, when they say that the old paradigm
was more efficiently executed than the new one. The reason might not be that
it is more efficient in general though, but simply that we did it for
thousands of years, while the new approach is only done for a few centuries.
It's very likely that we go too far and need to add more discipline, but that
is part of the stuff science can do and will do in a few centuries anyway.

The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to
progress is forward not backwards. The idea can not be to see that a new
paradigm applied for 3-5 generations of teachers is less efficient then the
old one that was applied for hundreds or thousands of generations and then
just go backwards. The idea should be to improve upon what we do now. Yes,
teachers of now need to learn again to be more demanding and they should
regain the power to do so with the necessary force. But explanation, praise
and convincing need to stay in the game! At least for myself I can say that I
learned much more in the last 2 years then in all 13 years of school, because
learning on the internet works based on motivation, detailed explanations and
rewarding, "gamey" technology and not on old people in front of the class who
tell me what an idiot I am.

~~~
hrkristian
>The main reason I am writing this comment is that I believe the way to
progress is forward not backwards.

I couldn't disagree more, forward only implies new, which isn't necessarily
better.

The old paradigm of teaching, I find, was built on a lack of rules; evolving
naturally from the one-on-one home upbringing, to apprenticeships and into the
modern classroom. (Feel free to add jumps.)

Obviously it had flaws, as with a despotic ruler the students were at the
mercy if his/her whims, but from what we're seeing today that hasn't been
mitigated in the least. Despite serious efforts (teacher evaluations, PISA
testing, etc.)

Instead, because teachers are being scrutinized down to the atom and the
school system is monopolizing education, we have children who aren't taught to
respect their teachers, and parents who aren't taking appropriate action to it
because teaching is being brought out of their area of responsibility.

How can we hope to best human nature at teaching when human nature is
something we've barely scratched the surface of? Is it really right to bet our
children's future on a live experiment in human understanding? Yes, of course
we have to attempt to improve, and obviously there is and always has been room
for improvement, but the teachers weren't the enemy in that regard. They were
generally doing what they could every day to make kids learn.

Now, instead of teachers, we have politicians trying to secure the upcoming
election by ripping apart the status quo so they are able to use fancy
sentences and faulty statistics in the media.

~~~
erikb
I love your straight disagreement and have to agree with most of your
arguments. Your first line is not complete, though. You said forward doesn't
imply better, which is true. Forward can even mean worse. But we already know
that backwards never gets better, because it was already shitty the last time.
We must make new experiences to find the path towards better.

------
gingersnaps1
I had a teacher like this in high school for math. He taught algebra, geometry
and calculus. He also ran the math team. ( He used to teach at Kenwood Academy
in the Chicago public schools where I graduated in 1987 but now he is at New
Trier.
[http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/person.aspx?id=4450](http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/person.aspx?id=4450)
). He was a strict, no-nonsense, here is the homework, here is the test, here
is your grade, "oh, you didn't understand that, too bad, we're moving on" kind
of guy. Was he successful? That depends on how you define it. There is a lot
of survivor ship bias. Most kids would have some exposure to him for algebra
and geometry and so when calculus was an option kids would think "hmmm, do I
want to go through this with this guy?" Those who said yes did well. ( I think
students scored either 4 or 5 on the test, 3s were rare and lower was almost
unheard of ) The thing is that many very bright, capable kids who were
interested in math said no to calculus because of him. I certainly never felt
like I learned more from him than any other teacher I had who tried to get
everyone to learn the material.

Maybe a better comparison would be algebra and geometry since he taught those
classes but other teachers did as well. Did his students perform any better
than the students of other teachers? I would say not although I don't have the
data to back it up. I had another teacher for algebra and then him for
geometry and when I was in his geometry class with other students that had him
for algebra I felt we were even. I never felt like the kids who had him for
algebra were way ahead of me when it came to doing the algebra that came up in
geometry.

~~~
yawboakye
One thing that's true of the Mr K's out there is that they define their
success entirely in terms of the success of _all_ their students. While a
help-you-get-creative teacher will allow you fail because you "want" to (who
really does?), a teacher who delivers tough love would make sure you succeed.
In this permissive era where parents allow their kids to while away time in
front of televisions and computer doing basically nothing, it's only great if
teachers could act _in loco parentis_ and instruct not only in science and
math but also in discipline and self-control

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_In this permissive era where parents allow their kids to while away time in
front of televisions and computer doing basically nothing_

And also where they prohibit them from outside interactions and tightly
monitor their social lives (or lack thereof).

Hardly seems permissive to me.

~~~
yawboakye
Especially true for Africans and African Americans. But that represents a
smaller percentage. When majority of Snapchat users are early teenagers then
parents are really monitoring outside interactions and social lives.

------
Haul4ss
One of the most concise descriptions of good teachers I've seen actually came
from pg in his "rarely asked questions" list.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/raq.html)

(1) They had high standards. (2) They liked us. (3) They were interested in
the subject.

I've been unable to express what makes a good teacher more concretely than
that.

~~~
userulluipeste
I think that's more valid to parenting than to teaching. For me to call one a
teacher, one has to have:

(1) Something to teach me.

(2) Willingness to teach me.

(3) A serious attitude towards teaching once he decides on that.

~~~
Haul4ss
You could almost argue that your 1, 2, and 3 are the same thing as my 3, 2,
and 1.

------
mathattack
My 2 cents on great teachers _... I only had a few. Perhaps 2 in high school.
Another 2 in undergrad. And perhaps 6 or 7 in grad school.

My observation on them is consistent with what the article conveyed.

1 - They knew exactly how much a top student was capable of, and kept the bar
at the top of that range. No higher, and definitely no lower.

2 - They were passionate masters of the material. They were teachers, who
covered computer science and biology. They were biologists and computer
scientists who taught. (And economists, etc)

3 - They taught the same classes over and over. (Like the conductor) This was
perhaps enabled by 2, and allowed them to know 1.

4 - They weren't afraid to give bad grades.

5 - They prepared you both for the exam (AP, final, or whatever) and to think
deeply. It wasn't (Content OR Reasoning), it was (Content AND Reasoning).

Teachers like this are few and far between.

_ I will define great as "People who I thank later for the lasting impact of
what I learned from them."

------
rumbler
Also very important to note: being strict works only when the teacher is
actually competent. I've had high school teachers whose understanding of math
was basically the textbook + epsilon. They were strict in order to keep the
class under control, but they did not inspire me to do my best at mathematics.

~~~
dhimes
This is extremely important. Incompetent + strict leads to an angry and
defensive teacher who loses the respect of the class.

------
brudgers
Sure criticizing a below average performance tends to correlate with a better
performance next time, and praise of above average performances tends to
correlate with the next performance being worse. That's because the
comparisons are to an average.

 _And he found that all of them "deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who
would challenge them and drive them to higher levels of performance."_

The article ignores selection bias from the get go. Participants in most high
school activities [in the US] tend to be self-selected. In the string section
of an orchestra, they are not only self selected but also thoroughly weeded
out by the institution; there are no novices or dabblers.

~~~
NoahTheDuke
>That's because the comparisons are to an average.

Also known as Regression toward the mean[1]. Talked about a bunch in
Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean)

------
navait
I see these articles, and what troubles me is that they assert schools are a
certain way without backing it up. People love to complain how spoiled kids
are these days, but how much truth are in those claims? My education was
certainly like the article's Mr. K, but my schools were chronically low
performing.

Specifcally,

-Are schools really eschewing rote memorization?

-Are schools really less "strict" than before? Does a teacher really have less control of their classroom than today?

-Are helicopter parents really more of thing today than in the past?

-Are kids really not being taught they can fail a class?

I've yet to see any evidence cited for the above assertions, but I do hear
them constantly being repeated.

~~~
bluedino
>> Are schools really less "strict" than before? Does a teacher really have
less control of their classroom than today?

In the USA, teachers used to be able to _hit_ students, about 30 years ago.
Things have changed quite a bit.

------
6d0debc071
> _how praise kills kids ' self-esteem_

That's dramatically over-simplifying. Praising kids for inherent qualities, or
for achievements, can kill self-esteem/achievement. Praising kids for effort
seems to work quite well.

------
throwaway344
I find the arguments here are kind of missing the point. Replace the word
teacher with the manager, and student with employee and how many of you would
continue to agree with the premise of the article? How many of you would
continue to agree with the article, if your manager was the one with "strict
discipline" and "unyielding demmands"?

Also this article reveres rote learning in a way that I disagree with and I
think many of you would disagree with in a context closer to home. How many of
you would like to see CS 101 classes be dominated by memorization of semicolon
placement in C++?

~~~
rimantas

      > How many of you would like to see CS 101 classes be
      > dominated by memorization of semicolon placement in C++?
    

Do they memorize semicolon placement or something more fundamental? Many
speaking about rote learning forget that you _must_ learn the fundamentals.

------
lutorm
Nice how he took Dweck's research and summarily dismissed one of its core
results: that it's praising _intelligence_ that's counterproductive, and that
praising _effort_ works. It's even in the quote, but apparently he didn't
notice the word "intelligence".

Edit: coincidentally, this was just posted:
[http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-so-few-
grow...](http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-so-few-growth-
mindset.html#)!

------
jorgebg
Its "Why tough teachers get good SAT scores" not good education results.

~~~
mseebach
The delightful irony of refuting an article that painstakingly makes the case
that the conventional wisdom is wrong by curtly repeating the conventional
wisdom.

SAT scores are mentioned exactly once in the article (well, twice, but in
reference to the same finding), I have copy-pasted it for your convenience:

> When she applied the ["Grit Scale"] to incoming West Point cadets, she found
> that those who scored higher were less likely to drop out of the school's
> notoriously brutal summer boot camp known as "Beast Barracks." West Point's
> own measure—an index that includes SAT scores, class rank, leadership and
> physical aptitude—wasn't able to predict retention.

------
negamax
I haven't read the article but from personal experience I know this is not
correct. Tough teachers without inclination and ability to better the student
only makes them worse. As put in by one of the best teachers I had 'A
teacher's job is to make student interested in the subject'. Whatever approach
makes the student reach to this, would be right.

~~~
ankitml
you are using two different "types of teachers" to judge his argument and
construct your argument.

A teacher without inclination and ability to better the students would perform
bad even with your approach, which is "whatever approach to make student
interested".

I think to read the article in article's spirit, he is talking only about
teachers interested and able to "teach". The article's definition of teacher
is someone who can teach (make students better) and not someone who is
appointed by school and is not interested in students.

Considering this, the question OP is trying to address is : among the various
approaches which is the best approach to teach.

I would say, an article containing analysis on data is more informative to me
than just making a statement, whatever approach is right.

------
rayiner
It's probably my personal leanings from growing up in an immigrant family, but
I think the article is spot-on. American educational philosophy is a total
disaster. American teachers are simply not in control of their classrooms.
Kids need structure, they need discipline, and they need order. It's a
prerequisite for learning.

------
watwut
I agree with some points in that article. I remember that overly nice teachers
aiming primary for fun often taught us very little. It was pleasant, but we
have been behind. However, I believe you can have high expectations without
being jerk about it.

But:

0.) Practice is not the same as rote learning especially in math above third
grade. Practice in math means that you have to solve many different exercises
and occasionally having to come up with solutions by yourself. Practice in
math means that you are occasionally faced with exercises you have not seen
before and you have to logic-think your way out of that.

Rote learning is quite opposite of that. Drilling essentially the same
exercises over and over is opposite of that too.

Incidentally, those international tests try to confront students with
unfamiliar situations and measure how they perform there.

1.) Why is everybody so obsessed with multiplication tables? It is something
6-7 years old have to learn. I just doubt that whatever happened in the first
grade is all that much important years later on when you are 16 years old (age
those international tests are done).

Even if you had worst first grade teacher in the world that did not taught you
how much 2+2 is, teacher in fourth grade was supposed to force you to learn
that. How come it did not happened?

2.) Is it possible that while super tough teacher in the beginning could be
great for talented committed students, but not really match for average one?
Only student with huge commitment and talent would persist and all others
would gave up.

I was such average kid in music, hated that and stopped playing as soon as I
could. It is quite possible that if I would find at least something enjoyable
on lessons, I would learn more.

Of course, it does not really matter whether I play music today. But, it would
matter if I would learn to hate math or computers the same way as I hated
music practice.

------
cafard
"Rote learning, long discredited, is now recognized as one reason that
children whose families come from India (where memorization is still prized)
are creaming their peers in the National Spelling Bee Championship."

Clearly, What America Needs is spelling bee champions.

~~~
codegeek
i checked and indian american kids have won 9 out of the last 13 championships
including the last 6 consecutively. [http://www.spellingbee.com/champions-and-
their-winning-words](http://www.spellingbee.com/champions-and-their-winning-
words)

~~~
cafard
Full credit to them: I am not going to disparage anyone for doing something
well. Yet when I think of work that the nation and world really need done,
spelling recondite words doesn't make the list.

------
admstockdale
The best teachers are able to adapt -- they have command in the classroom &
students respect them. Each student CAN be treated differently depending on
what they respond to. Some students might react best to a bit of tough-love,
other will respond better to positive encouragement. The key is knowing your
students well enough to know what makes them tick.

------
lazyant
This is a Malcolm Gladwell-esque article/book in the worst sense; a mismatch
of famous studies (I believe I've read about all of them before; many have
shown up in HN) that are used or abused to drive a narrative or idea of
something that sounds plausible. Too long to comment on all the mistakes she's
making.

------
zeidrich
1: A little pain is good for you.

The article states that "constructive, even painful feedback" is necessary. It
conjures an idea of being hurtful to students. That's not the truth though. It
means giving uncompromising honest feedback. When something is incorrect, it
is stated as being incorrect, and a student can learn. That might be painful
to the student's ego to hear that they were wrong, and is something we might
tiptoe around now, but it's not being cruel, in fact it's being respectful to
the student. It's not the pain that's good for you, it's the honest and
constructive feedback, and if you feel some pain in hearing that, deal with
it. But show me a study that shows that going around calling your students
idiots who will never make anything of themselves will help them because it's
painful and I will be surprised. In response, pain isn't good for you, honest
evaluation is good for you, and you might feel pain when you hear it.

2\. Drill, baby drill. The article mentions drills, but the real takeaway from
the article is memorization. I'm in favor of memorization in terms of
learning, because it allows you to conjure up simple methods without having to
go through a process. When I want to know what 8 _7 is, I know it 's 56, I
don't have to count on my fingers. When I need to think about what 82_70 is, I
know it's 5740 because I know 8 _7 and 7_ 2 off the top of my head. That said,
drills in school aren't necessarily the most effective way to memorize
something. Many memory training things use very different methods, and we
don't even try to teach our children with those methods. If we recognize that
it's commitment to memory that is important and not drills, we could be more
effective.

3\. Failure is an option. This I absolutely agree with. But part of the
problem we have is that we have institutionalized the fear of failure. You say
that failure is a good thing, but the article pushes for antiquated systems
where a failure can have all sorts of permanent social ramifications. From
primary school where a student gets held back, to secondary school where
grades determine your choice of post-secondary education, to university where
a poor GPA can ruin your options. We rarely get an opportunity to learn from
these mistakes without judgment. If a teacher allowed you to retake a test
until you understood the material, that would allow failure to be an option,
but we concern ourselves with the logistical problems of having students at
different points in the curriculum. So we are afraid that if we fail we will
not keep up, and once we stop keeping up, there's little point in trying any
more. The class marches on, and even if we learn the things we failed the
first time around, that test is already taken.

4\. Strict vs. nice is again honest vs. dishonest. A strict teacher says "Do
this assignment by this date and I will grade it for you." Then they accept
the assignment on that date and grade it. A student who is late completing the
assignment asks the strict teacher to submit it late, and the strict teacher
says no. The "nice" teacher will say yes. The strict teacher was honest and
forthright in their request. The nice teacher wasn't. When you're dealing with
someone who honors their word, it's easy to know what is expected, and it's
easy to respect them. When you're dealing with the nice teacher, you're a bit
uncomfortable, why did you do the assignment on time when Jimmy handed his in
late and didn't have anything happen? Then next time when you have an
assignment due, you aren't sure if you have given your best work, (and you're
afraid of failure), but you think maybe the nice teacher will let you hand it
in late. You wait to finish it until it's late, and then you're uncertain
whether the teacher will still accept it, and eventually it just goes
unsubmitted altogether. With the strict teacher, you know they will only
accept it tomorrow, so you do what you can. Or you don't. Either way, you know
the consequences.

But what that gets twisted into is an idea that a strict teacher has to be
dishonest, and tell the students they are worse than they are. That they have
to hurt them to make them feel better. Again, I don't think it's the hurt that
helps, but the honesty and integrity.

The article gives an anecdote about coddling a child in first and second grade
vs. a third grade teacher that tells them to get to work. This isn't really a
matter of strictness the way the rest of the point is. It also has not a lot
to do with learning in the traditional sense, but more of learning in a social
sense. The big takeaway in this is still integrity. When you make a reasonable
request to the class, and a child in the class has an issue with it, do you
modify that request? You you make things lighter for them. If you do, you're
undermining your own integrity. You're saying "What I asked you to do wasn't
important, so if you have a problem with it, you can make me change it." It's
hard to hit a moving target like that.

5\. Creativity can be learned. Creativity is only as useful as the student's
ability to express it. A problem with this model is that an excellent student
doesn't have an opportunity to demonstrate any special talent. Neither do they
have much ability to do so in the current system. Does that mean that it's
better to regress to a point of rapping knuckles with yardsticks and
ineffective drills?

6\. Grit trumps talent. "Grit" is a person's ability to continue to work
consistently. When a person gives up on something, it's often because
attempting to continue working on it causes unbearable stress, or there's an
absolute indifference to it. The stress is going to come from a fear of
judgment from failure. Something is hard, that means we're recognizing that we
might make a mistake, that we don't understand it fully and if we ask for help
or show something incorrectly we will be ridiculed. This means we barely dip
our toes into things we struggle with, and don't get interested. How will
moving to a culture of fear and pain teach students to be optimistic?

7\. Praise makes you weak. Yes, praise in general is pretty pointless. It's
vapid and hurtful, because it makes students seek more praise. Instead, if a
student is left alone, they're going to feel intrinsic motivation from the
actual learning. There's an element of overjustification effect that takes
place.

That said, the absence of praise doesn't mean that a culture of insults and
diminuation should take its place

8\. Stress makes us strong Not really. I just strictly disagree with that.
Dealing with stress makes you strong as you learn to deal with it. Being under
stress is harmful. Being put into a stressful class will not make you strong
because you can't do anything about it. Sort of the difference between a good
exercise regimen where you damage your muscles and then let them heal, and a
situation where you're constantly overstressing them and never have an
opportunity to have a break. One will build strength, the other can cause
long-term damage.

The Mr. K in the article is finally described as cold, unyielding and kind of
scary. These are not bad qualities. Being Cold just means he's not likely to
yield to an emotional request, unyielding indicates he's going to stand by his
word. Like I mentioned earlier, honesty and integrity is a good thing, and he
embodies these characteristics. Being scary is a bit of a wild card, it means
he's causing anxiety in the students, that's probably not great for
performance, but it probably leads them to not question his requests, which
just leads to a stronger understanding of his expectation.

The Mr. K character in the story doesn't embody the sort of things that the
individual points seem to.

You can be a kind and fair teacher, you don't have to lose your temper, you
don't have to yell, you don't have to tell your students their work is
terrible when it's average. You don't have to embarrass them in front of their
peers.

But you will be more effective if you are honest, trustworthy, and challenge
your students to excel. If you structure your class so that the student is
graded based on how well they know the subject rather than how few times they
have made mistakes. If you provide the resources that a student needs to
improve themselves when they've fallen behind the pack, and if you provide the
resources that a student needs when they've excelled beyond the pack.

------
guard-of-terra
The better question is "why classical music teaching gravitates to be a
concentration camp".

Because come on, no other areas see this. Math it hard too, but do math
teachers scream on promising students? They usually don't.

Maybe sports are another exception.

------
normloman
The article makes several points, each backed up by maybe one piece of
research or anecdote vaguely related to the point.

It's sad how irresponsible journalists like this make a greater impact on
public debate with flimsy articles like these.

------
al2o3cr
"Sure, our teacher was tough - but look at how many students came back to his
funeral!"

Of course the ones that showed up for the concert liked him - the ones that
wanted to piss on his grave were, I'd guess, off doing _that_. Confirmation
bias much, WSJ?

~~~
sliverstorm
Of course the students that showed up for the concert liked him. But the point
is, that's how many students liked him enough to come to his funeral.

------
userulluipeste
_" a teacher who basically tortured us through adolescence"_

This "torture" idea came up in my mind just reading the title. Having a
professor that is being harsh only objectively may be good in a limited sense,
but in my experience this is just rare (and I had "the joy" of being educated
by a good lot of harsh teachers). Being harsh objectively is the only kind
that is supposedly beneficial, and it is "supposedly" because its efficiency
is just very dependent on the subject's susceptibility. This is rare because
it requires a lot of discipline on the teacher's part. Most often than not,
around an harsh attitude the reason is pushed aside to make room for ever-
dominating emotive behavior. On the teacher's side this leads to an
unconstrained way of pulling the strings, and on the pupil's side - to cede
and degenerate into fear, close-mindedness, and self disrespect, among many
others. Don't get me wrong, the primary results will be there. The teaching's
goal will be reached, if we're to ignore the costs (and we often do). I just
guess the difficulty of summing it all up or realistically considering the
entire thing on its true value as a parent or policy-maker if one hasn't been
subjected to it and its effects.

 _" My old teacher Mr. K seldom praised us. His highest compliment was «not
bad.» It turns out he was onto something." "the belief, the faith really, in
students' ability to do better."_

That of course is valid only if the amount of disparage in pupil's overall
social interaction is minor, otherwise there wouldn't be enough confidence to
build up in the first place. The writer praises her teacher for his results
and concludes that the means must have been justified. I don't. What I see is
the most rudimentary automatic negative-reaction based system. Any deviation
from the expected parameters causes a literally negative reaction from the
ruler that enforces the entire process. A most rudimentary form of teaching.
It doesn't need any calibration to student's profile, it doesn't require much
refinement of pedagogics as the task of getting back (somehow) in the normal
parameters falls mostly on the student, and it definitely relieves the teacher
of any kind of stress for the locus of control that is the pupil performance
not being in his direct reach. (Actually, a harsh teacher gets rid of his
stress in the lessons.) As a researched material this article presents itself,
I'm disappointed of the conclusion. I expected efficiency without getting back
to the old and brute ways.

The state of the education may not be rosy, but getting into "harsh" seems a
bit extreme to me. Instead of "harsh" I would call for "serious". You only
need teachers to show you the way and the limits. It's you and only you that
should be harsh on yourself, no one else.

