When Mr. Smith stops his lesson and yells to this student:
"Hey, what are you doing sleeping in my class?!" – Mr. Smith is usually more disruptive to his own lesson than the student. Futhermore, his "miscall" does not "help" the student by reprimanding him in front of the class. We need to train teachers in about 15 typical "miscalls" and what to do instead of making these.

One more point:
I mentioned we need to teach more than just subject matter methods. But even in teaching "subject matter methods" we need to go further. Since the personality of the teacher is the most effective tool in the classroom, even a good Lesson Plan, chock full of good methods, will still not do. We need to train teachers in not just "good lesson plans" but in the delivery of good lesson plans. The same on-paper lesson plan that is effective for teacher A, bombs for teacher B. Jay Leno does not get paid for his "lesson plan" of jokes written out for him. He gets paid for his delivery. We need to train teachers in this performance delivery, and how to practice this:

Now, if you are not one of these professors putting teachers through a curriculum that does not speak to the priority of their needs, fine, don't defend yourself.

However, if you are one of these professors, spend a lot of time in your teachers' classrooms, listen to what they need, then revamp and supplement your teacher education curriculum, and then re-train.

Be more threatened that:
once caring teachers are now giving up all over our country and quitting; we have fewer and fewer competent "lifeguards" for our children; some incompetent teachers are not re-training, and just staying for the vacations they get; and our children are in grave trouble from classes in disarray - to school violence.

Be more threatened by these, than your concerns about protecting your traditional professorial teaching.

» More Gazette articles...