Am I missing something? I have great respect for American teachers but I never realised they set the benchmark for quality teaching:
Teachers from 80 Devon primary schools will trial American teaching methods in a bid to reduce disruptive behaviour in the classroom.
Organisers said it was about building on teacher’s knowledge and offering additional support.
Researchers from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) are behind the scheme.
The schools will be involved in a five year study from September to see how effective the project is.
The PCMD has received £1.7m from the National Institute for Health Research to test the scheme.
The course, which is called the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (TCM), has already been trialled on 40 teachers in Devon.
Dr Tamsin Ford, clinical senior lecturer at PCMD, said the results from the trial were positive.
Education achievement in the U.S. has fallen to the middle of the pack among developed nations, according to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which ranked the knowledge of 15-year-olds in 70 countries. The U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics.
Is the American style worth implementing in my own classroom? Do American teachers even know what the “American style” is?
Tags: 80 Devon primary schools, American teaching trial, Classroom Management, Devon teaching trial, disruptive behaviour in the classroom, Dr Tamsin Ford, Education, Education ranking world, Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management, National Institute for Health Research, Program for International Student Assessment, Teach like an American, trial American teaching methods
Topical Teaching 
June 26, 2012 at 4:00 pm |
I don’t think you missed anything, Michael.
If what we see depicted, on TV programs, of American classrooms, is a true reflection of the “American method”, most American teachers would be eaten alive in some of the schools where I’ve taught. As a matter of fact, in the 1970’s, when our authorities imported a number of US teachers, attracted by tax free salaries, I saw just that. I heard of one Yank, when he got his appointment, he went, “Kiama? Where in the heck is Kiama? I’m not sure I’m going to like that.” Better they should have sent him to Wilcannia. Then he’d really have known he was alive.
As for the Devon teaching trial. I find that amusing. I started primary school in a village in Devon. Our teachers were all “furriners” and they spoke with a plum in the mouth. It was like, in Australia, if you sent a Yank to Cunnamulla. Honestly, it is only now, 60 years later, that I understand some of the words spoken by these teachers, through the wonders of Google search: just little fragments, words of poems or songs, that have remained in my memory all this time because my mind had nowhere to fit them from my experience.
As far as I am concerned there are a number of academic diseases that originate either in the USA or the UK. We catch them here after the devastation caused by them overseas has been made to stand out like the proverbial country building, all because our politicians and administrators haven’t the slightest idea how to think for themselves. The best one I’ve seen lately is a scheme to provide for about 13 schools in NSW with significant Aboriginal enrolments. Now, if it was developed here with rural Australian Aboriginal students in mind, I would have no objection and probably be all for it. Would you believe it’s a cut and paste job from a trial program conducted in inner city urban schools in cities in the USA and the UK, ten years ago!? Cut and paste, change a few particulars, change the context and bingo……..another disease caught from overseas. As with so many of these “mickey mouse” schemes they remind me of some words from Macbeth, Act 5: “It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”
June 27, 2012 at 12:34 am |
As an American teacher who teaches in one of the highest performing states in my country, and in a poor urban one with students who would eat you alive, I beg you not to discount ALL teachers in the USA. Yes, we have abysmal results in our southern and mid-western states and it is chiefly due to not addressing the staggering amount of poverty and immigration we have, as well as equitable funding of schools no matter what neighborhood they are located in. Those states are dragging the entire country down and, as teachers, you know how those averages hurt everyone. Yet, this is not why I will tell you to NOT follow system.
Why? Because this country is rapidly embracing -more so than in the past- a testing regime that will rule everything. Further, they are also pushing private charter schools, virtual schools, and any school that does NOT include a unionized workforce and is located in an affluent area. This means that the children in high poverty areas are about to be gobbled up as profit-makers for people who are CEO’s and not educators. If some kids happen to learn in the process that’s good. If not, kick them back to the ‘public’ school.
Oh my gosh, there is so much wrong with what is happening with education in the USA now there are entire blogs by many educators who are doing their best to keep the public informed. Here are two:
http://dianeravitch.net/ Diane Ravitch and then in my state, the Jersey Jazzman (who keeps his ID hidden to avoid retribution) http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/.
As for the proposition of joining low achieving students, probably in poverty, with higher achieving and more affluent students, if done property (the main caveat), there is a lot of educational research proving how this is the best path to follow. In fact, view this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mbJhjCbwo8 to see a system working this way and see the corporate fight to end it. What is happening here is criminal and I consider traitorous.
There are many reasons not to follow any single model from the USA but dismissing our entire hard working workforce based upon the reaction of some quite-likely hand picked connected individuals (the bane of our model) because they were traveling abroad is frankly wrong. I would go shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues by my side against any classroom anywhere anytime because together we are agents for change and we are professional teachers.