AdvanceBlog

When I was much younger, there was a popular song whose refrain began with the following statement:

If your heart isn’t it, why can’t you tell me so …

If only the students of ineffective teachers could make such an inquiry.  If only the families with children in unproductive schools could take such a position.  If only those educators whose heart isn’t it, if only they would tell us so.

I’m not much of a gambler, but I’m willing to wager that the vast majority of challenges facing schools can be traced in ineffective instruction.  Ineffective instruction is a multi-faceted concept.  For the sake of brevity, we can simply portray it in three dimensions:

a)    lack of understanding of who is being taught,

b)    lack of preparedness, and the

c)     absence of care.

I have supervised a number of well –intentioned teachers.  They care about the children.  They have prepared the contents of their lesson.  However, they failed to understand who they are teaching.  Knowing your audience is a substantial component of effectiveness.  No one could be effective in selling igloo timeshares to a nomadic desert tribe.  The igloos could be the most well-crafted, wind insulated igloos ever made, but the desert tribesmen could care less about timeshares made of ice.  The same can be said for your students.  Instructional content is intended to be at a place beyond the student’s current knowledge, the key is building the bridge from where they are to where they need to be.  But you can’t build the bridge if you do not know “where” or “who” they are.

Some teachers are rendered ineffective due to their lack of preparation.  They have a general idea of what to teach, but once the students begin questioning – that teacher’s lack of preparation becomes evident.  Some people refer to this phenomenon as “winging it”.  If the class is one hour, even the most knowledgeable teachers can only wing-it for twenty minutes.  Everything after that comes of as bullstuff or inconsequential rambling which the students tune out.  Some students will reflect their teacher’s lack of preparation with a lack of effort.  It all adds up to students not learning.

Teachers who do not care demonstrate the worse aspect of ineffective instruction. They often masquerade behind the façade that students need to come to where they are.  A more caring teacher knows that, but brings the students to where they should be.  The uncaring teacher would have you believe that if the principal would just remove this one kid (often the student who has been woefully under-challenged), the class and instruction would flow wonderfully.  Once that happens, half the class eventually needs to be removed so that that teacher can “teach”.  These teachers often refer to the students as “those kids”.  Detaching the students from themselves, their values and ultimately their responsibility.

The chorus of previously mentioned song ends with:

If your heart isn’t it,

why keep me hanging on,

just tell me and I’ll be gone

from your life

Heartbreak is evident and harmoniously imparted by the rejected lover.   Yet, who could be more rejected and heartbroken than a student victimized by ineffective instruction?