
Teaching isn’t about managing behavior - pabo
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2020/07/reality-pedagogy-teaching-form-protest/614554/
======
MarcScott
I agree that "Teaching Isn't About Managing Behavior", in the same way that
programming isn't about avoiding syntax errors and driving a car isn't about
staying between the marked lines on the road.

I was a teacher for fifteen years. The writer of this article started about
the same time I got into the profession, so has nearly 20 years of experience.

The first thing you need to do with any class is manage behavior. This can be
tricky in your first couple of years, but after a while it just becomes part
of who you are. You're more confident in the classroom, you have a reputation
in the school, you can recognise and shutdown disruptive behavior before any
of the other kids have realised something is about to kick off. At that point
your classroom changes, and you can practice what the author calls "Reality
Pedagogy", or any other type of pedagogy you like.

Believe me, having observed and mentored plenty of student teachers over the
years, the first thing you need to tackle is behavior management. Once that is
established then you have the opportunity to be the "captain, my captain"
teacher, or whatever you like really.

~~~
xhkkffbf
Exactly. And winning a war isn't about feeding your soldiers, but you can't
win the war without good mess hall sergeants.

One loud, misbehaving student can ruin the class for the other n-1. Idealists
want to dream that there are no bad kids and it's all the fault of the
patriarchy, white supremacy or worse. They may be correct, but work won't
commence until everyone is sitting still.

~~~
nickff
The problem with applying your priorities (for the idealists) is that the
misbehaving kids tend to come from the 'victimized' groups. This means that by
enforcing clasroom discipline, they (often) feel that they are reinforcing the
patriarchy, white supremacy, or other evil side.

~~~
catalogia
Suppose a child disrupts class for 30 of his peers because his dad beats him.
His dad has now effectively victimized 31 kids.

Wouldn't it be productive and moral to find ways to help all 31, perhaps by
putting misbehaving kids in special classrooms where they can receive
specialized help?

~~~
danielheath
Assuming the specialised help isn’t just worse facilities somewhere else,
maybe (or maybe not). In practice - who is going to ensure the other
facilities are of a good standard? The abusive parents?

If you don’t help that kid, the other 30 will spend their whole lives sharing
a society with an adult who didn’t get help. That’s an unfair drain on their
life too (increased crime, policing costs, etc).

Putting the disruptive kids in the same place as everyone else means the
incentives are right to do something useful to help them.

~~~
catalogia
One of my aunts is a such a specialized teacher; her program is called
"emotional support" or something to that effect. From what I understand it's a
classroom in the same school building and the students sent to her classroom
are troubled in frequently very sad ways which she won't discuss in specifics.
She's accountable to the same principle that the normal teachers are.

From what I know of this sort of program, it seems to be a sincere attempt to
help kids, not merely brush them off into a corner to forget about them. I
don't know how often it's successful, but I think in that school district at
least it's well motivated. From what I know of it, it seems like a much better
system than allowing those kids to disrupt normal classrooms.

~~~
ed25519FUUU
That’s good work your aunt is doing. Necessary work indeed, but unfortunately
not academic work.

For these students who are deeply troubled, there must be healing before there
can really be learning.

------
nickff
This piece is very nicely written, but they never describe what their
definition of 'successful teaching' is. "Reality pedagogy" might achieve some
emotional or social objectives (though the piece relies entirely on
anecdotes), but do they help the student's long-term life outcomes?

As an aside, despite the article's assertions, there is very little evidence
that experience improves teaching ability, despite many studies on the matter.

~~~
adamsea
With regards to long-term life outcomes, that's an interesting question. It'd
be cool to see some studies.

I don't disagree with your implication that the teaching process the author
describe might short-change learning the core skills/knowledge being taught in
a course. But I would think that depends on the application of the technique
and doesn't stem from the nature of the technique itself.

Also lets' not forget that anecdotal knowledge is a legitimate source of
knowledge, it is just a different kind than scientifically produced knowledge.
They both have their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, and each should
be critically assessed using different criteria (quality of the scientific
paper, reputation of the scientists/journal behind it, and for anecdotal
knowledge, reputation of the writer, logic of their argument, how it
corresponds to our lived experience, etc).

Also I'd like to rephrase what you wrote to read "emotional objective for the
student", and "social objective for the student". As the author is arguing
these practices help the student's emotional and social development.

I think it does define what the author considers successful teaching.

A definition by providing a counterexample of unsuccessful teaching:

"I taught through violence against Muslim students and used the permission I
tacitly received from the school to justify my inaction. I ignored the chaos
of the world beyond the classroom because I believed that it was my job to
just keep on teaching. Looking back now, I realize I was not actually teaching
at all."

What the author believes the goals (outcomes) of teaching should and should
not be:

"In 2001, I thought that good teaching meant delivering content knowledge to
students who were behaving “appropriately.” In 2020, I know that is not
enough. I’ve learned to see my classroom as a platform for empowering students
and transforming society, and to use my pedagogy as a form of protest against
norms that silence students. Far from sacrificing content knowledge, engaged
students, whose voices are heard, are better able to learn it."

A positive definition, which describes the behavior of a successful teacher,
and that the desired outcome for the students is creating a certain kind of
learning process for them to participate in:

"Reality pedagogy interrupts the notion that teaching is about managing
students and their behavior. Instead, I’ve learned to see them as co-teachers,
and I create space for dialogue—in small groups outside of class—about how
they experience the classroom and the world beyond it. It’s a space for
connection, but also for any critiques they have of my teaching. These
conversations are generative for everyone involved. Teachers need feedback
from their students, who can see what teachers have been trained to ignore in
their blind pursuit of a calm, quiet classroom. And students need a sense of
agency, which they are often denied.

Co-teaching requires that teachers be humble enough to become students of
their students—especially the students who have been most harmed, and will
benefit most from a teacher listening to their experiences. In my first years
of teaching, I never asked to hear my students’ thoughts about having to sit
and learn while the world around them was going crazy. I didn’t make space for
my Muslim students to heal from being targeted. But if I had started that
dialogue, I would have learned a lot from them about how I could have been a
better teacher.

When students have this kind of agency, a classroom can start to function like
a family—or even a small society. I give all of my students a classroom
responsibility that counts toward their grades and involves taking care of the
physical classroom and each other. And I institute democratic decision making
for all actions taken in the classroom: Students help to decide what
assignments we work on, how long we spend on activities, and what to discuss.
The classroom can serve as an example of what the world should look like—all
students with equal power, regardless of their culture or background—rather
than a replication of what it is.

Reality pedagogy involves connecting academic content to events happening in
the world that affect students. The curriculum can weave in specific
references to the neighborhoods where young people are from, inequities that
they and their families are hurt by, and protests in the community. But that
doesn’t mean these lessons are always serious. Students can compete to show
their knowledge through art, games, and music. I have created projects like
the Science Genius competition, where young people write raps about science
content and events happening in their lives and compete to be the best
scientist, rapper, and storyteller. The classroom—especially for Black
youth—should not feel like a place where they are policed or silenced. Black
joy can be a part of daily learning."

~~~
adamsea
LOL sorry for the length on this comment : )

~~~
d0mine
You should have added at the end: "generated by GPT-3" (signal to noise ratio
is close to zero).

------
ARandomerDude
> In the next five years, most of America’s most experienced teachers will
> retire.

This is true of all career fields at all times.

~~~
swsieber
But moreso in teaching right now:

> In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. Less than three
> decades later, that number had fallen to just three years leading a
> classroom.

~~~
burfog
Teacher burn-out is mostly ignored because fixing it would require undoing
some very deliberate changes, like keeping bad kids in school and even in
normal classrooms. We'd have to empower teachers to expel kids who refuse to
be students.

~~~
treeman79
Wife has been bitten, stabbed, attacked by students many times. Nothing is
ever done. Usually a small number of kids that ruin everything for the rest.

    
    
      Many schools are a blame teachers culture.   
    
    

She’s been at this long enough many of the trouble makers have grown and are
in jail, missing, or dead.

Turns out ignoring bad behavior doesn’t work.

~~~
giantg2
In our state, that can be a felony aggravated assault charge (assuming they
meet mens rea and charges are pressed).

~~~
treeman79
2nd graders pretty much have to kill or permanently maim the teacher before
something serious happens.

Of course some of these are 3rd time 2nd graders

~~~
giantg2
Yeah, that's a bit on the young side for mens rea in most states. And even if
they meet that the system is hesitant to do anything.

------
xmsam
Teaching isn’t about managing behavior, but it is about managing attention. A
misbehaving student draws others’ attention from the task at hand, stealing
valuable focus away from the learning activity. Managing behavior is therefore
critical to both teaching and learning.

------
gnicholas
The WTC story reminded me of what happened in one of my college classes that
day. I was in a linguistics class on syntax and the teacher was diagramming
sentences. It was around 11 AM ET, and students were aware that the towers had
fallen. The teacher was annoyed by the students who were whispering in the
back of the smallish classroom, so she diagrammed the following sentences:

• The students were talking in the class.

• It annoyed the teacher that the students were talking in the class.

After class she learned what had happened and sent an apology email to
everyone (and cancelled the next class). My guess is that she had been
prepping class all morning and hadn't read any news.

------
JKCalhoun
> In the next five years, most of America’s most experienced teachers will
> retire. The Baby Boomers are leaving behind a nation of more novice
> educators. In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. Less
> than three decades later, that number had fallen to just three years leading
> a classroom.

This might not be a bad thing. I remember the late 60's and early 70's being
an incredibly innovative time in education: likely when many of the Baby
Boomer teachers were stretching their wings.

Experimental schools, "free schools", open classrooms, self-paced learning
etc. It was a time when you knew someone that attended a Montessori school,
when we were moving to the Metric system...

In short it was a time of optimism and trying out new ideas. If the current
crop of teachers can get out from under the yoke of "Common Core" or these
other top-down initiatives we might see some innovation in education again.

And frankly school might become fun again as well.

~~~
snthd
[https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_mosquitos_malaria_and_e...](https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_mosquitos_malaria_and_education/transcript)
>12:11

> Once somebody has taught for three years their teaching quality does not
> change thereafter. The variation is very, very small.

~~~
zepto
This means that in then current scenario half of teachers will not have
reached full competence, whereas in 1988, 80% would have.

This is a monumental problem.

------
catalogia
If math class is for teaching social science, then perhaps social studies
class could be for teaching trigonometry.

~~~
falcor84
On a related note, for better or worse, social studies seem to be the main
driver bringing people to study statistics.

Indeed, that was what popularized IBM's SPSS tool, originally standing for
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

------
082349872349872
Managing behaviour in a mid-80's soviet classroom.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT9VBW87QXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT9VBW87QXw)

Note the rigid uniformity, and how students are expected to stand when giving
answers. It may also be a good example of the extent to which academically
strong students were dragged down by their peers?

(The whole movie is subversive in certain ways. I understand soviet children
were indoctrinated to be helpful to adults, but in the movie Julia's
grandmother —who may have had some experience herself with the value of
keeping one's mouth shut— helps them buck the system.)

On sexism in the soviet union:

Today, little Johnny's class has a pair[1] of teaching observers. After
waiting a moment with no hands raised, the teacher calls on Johnny, asking him
what inspired Pushkin to write _To the Beauty_. Johnny answers, "she has such
fine legs. I bet her ass — exquisite." "Citizen John!" exclaims the teacher,
"go straight to Principal, and tell him what you said!"

On his way out the door, Johnny angrily denounces the teaching observers:
"next time you prompt, Comrades, please ensure you know correct answer."

[1] one who can read, and one who can write. Their job is to keep a watchful
eye on the intellectuals teaching the classes.

~~~
heimatau
This video has edited the children's mouths and the teachers. This is an
intentional edit when they speak. It's really trippy to watch. Because it's
fairly good in some instances but...also terrifying.

~~~
d0mine
The grandparent comment is trolling. The video is not a documentary (there is
an innocent explanation of why the English part is edited) and the comment's
text is just political jokes from 80s (I've heard somewhere that CIA takes
credit for many jokes of that time).

~~~
082349872349872
Trolling? The first part specifically stated it was a movie; I'm not sure what
gave the idea it might have been a documentary. The joke is to explain why the
other students were prompting Fima — a behaviour that was strongly discouraged
in my western schools.

Of course I'd recommend watching the whole thing (or even the Alisa cartoon),
for good examples of non-western juvenile SF, but in this case I was
deliberately trying to show an example of non-western classroom behaviour
management.

It may not have been entirely realistic, but judging from the nostalgic
comments I've seen, it was not so unrealistic that students at the time it was
aired found it ludicrous.

(counterargument: _Friends_ — has many fans, but just how did NY baristas
afford apartments like those?)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> The best teachers don’t just keep teaching. Instead, they use their pedagogy
> as protest:

I hope not.

I think teachers should teach to the status quo and let students when they are
older or their parents make the decision about what they are going to protest,
and what changes they are going to push for.

In general, I think students, especially young students, should be shrieked
from the ugliness of life as much as possible so they can focus on learning
the educational and social skills that will help them in life. Teach to give
them the tools so that they can make their own decision when they get older.

Otherwise, if teachers are really using their pedagogy as protest, expect to
see even more erosion of support for the public education system, and even
more fracturing of the social bonds as schools are chosen , not for their
ability to educate, but whether what they indoctrinate matches up with their
parents’ wishes.

~~~
seneca
Hear hear.

This pattern of people leveraging their professional position as a platform
for activism is questionable, but debatable, in general. But being entrusted
to teach children requires exactly that, trust. If school systems lose the
trust of parents, and eventually their larger communities, they're done.

If schools can be reasonably viewed as attempting to indoctrinate children,
there will be a massive backlash. People will put up with a lot, but their
children are generally off limits.

~~~
falcor84
Interesting, but isn't it the reverse? I don't think education can be really
free from politics. Thus, if teachers are not allowed to take up "activism" on
an individual basis, and are forced to "toe the party line", then that's
exactly indoctrination of students, no?

~~~
seneca
This is a rephrasing of the "everything is political" argument. No, teaching
math is not.

~~~
falcor84
I would argue that even teaching math is somewhat political. Examples:

1\. What is the teacher's take on students making errors - Do they immediately
correct them? Do they give the student the time to come to a contradiction
themselves, but possibly confuse them and other students? Something else?

2\. What is the teacher's take on mathematical knowledge - is it there to be
discovered, or to be created? How much of math is already known by academics
and how much is still in the future? Do they teach concepts as fully given, or
as challenges for the students?

Each of these and many other aspects of teaching could influence the student's
view of authority and their own agency.

