Last week the Hillsborough County schools scored a $2.2-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It will fund research on what makes teachers effective and students successful. Good, schools can use some help. Ours no less than anybody else’s.
But before the schools get on board with more test scores, surveys and classroom videos, a suggestion: Remember the basics. No Foundation needs to point them out to you.
Not to wax too old school, but my eighth grade class at St. Timothy’s in Philadelphia had a 65-1 student-to-teacher ratio, a pedagogic obscenity. And that one, a nun with a black belt in parental leverage, taught all subjects. The key: the parent-teacher nexus. They were on the same side. Nothing reinforces like common cause. Everybody was accountable. Actions had consequences. Discipline was as much a given as were uncool school uniforms. No double standards for the societally challenged. Life wasn’t fair, but school meant opportunity — not a redress rehearsal or a social experiment.
Go into any school today and ask around. You’ll quickly find out who the best teachers are from students, teachers, a librarian, an involved PTA parent or an administrator who’s more than an ex-coach who always wanted to be in charge. And you’ll quickly discern what those teachers have in common, even if nobody has it on video.
They have a presence.
They command respect because they’ve earned it – and it doesn’t take long for the word to get around. They also have a command of their subject – or subjects. They are fair. They care. They’re teachers because they obviously like kids, not because the college of education had the lowest standards. They have senses of humor and spontaneity. They are creative. And they’ve never quite forgotten what it was like to be 10 or 14 or 17 years old.
Presumably, that will all be borne out by the Gates Foundation research.