Myth of the the extraordinary teacher | Hacker News Reader

Myth of the the extraordinary teacher

latimes.com

62 pointsforkandwait32 comments

Her big question is "Do students really learn best this way?". Nobody knows. Because education researchers don't care about empiricism.

The English-speaking education research community abandoned empiricism when they started getting "bad" results.

There were a series of studies that proved a right-wing education fad (Direct Instruction) was empirically better than all the left-wing education fads. So the left-wingers in education academia decided it was better to throw out empiricism than lose the battle.

I'm not saying DI is great. It's a fad, like all the other fads. But using empiricism to iterativly improve it, or search for alternatives would be the way to go.

Instead, education research is now often based on Sophistic arguments, appeals to authority, appeasing policy czars (yay funding!), appeasing parents, and other methods which simply don't work.

I know this is, itself, not empirical. A more solid argument would be a pointer to what teachers are taught these days, and so we can see how much empiricism vs ex-cathedra-style argument they are exposed to.

A lot of the discussion here is focused on teachers because we think that they are the keystone to a quality education. I would argue that teachers are a vital part but they lack the power that family and culture have. In many Asian cultures, the power of the family is crushing and the values that the parents have translate to intense pressure to do well in the education environment. It doesn't matter if your teacher is good; the message is that you will force yourself to succeed in education.

Even though Western values are quickly taking root here, (via the movies, music, etc.), there exists a tremendous amount of cultural pressure to "excel academically" (for some definition of this idea). I speak mainly for China because that is the education system I'm most familiar with, but I assume that we can find similar patterns in other Asian cultures: mom and dad work 5 am to 8 pm selling egg pancakes for 50 cents a pop on the side of the street while little Johnny (or Jenny) goes to school from 7 am to 4 pm with a two hour break between 12 pm and 2 pm. When they get home, they get to look forward to 6 hours of homework. No going to soccer, maybe some piano lessons if you're rich enough. Certainly no time for video games, making out with your girlfriend, creating a gang, doing drugs (although there are exceptions, I'm speaking in broad generalizations here…).

But there does not exist this idea that you can be who you want to be, that somehow you can have a good life by developing other talents. There's also not this idea that you have a choice. I've encountered college students that tell me that they /have to/ graduate. This means that if they don't pass their tests, they will find some other way to get their diploma.

Compare this to your typical attitudes towards education in America. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, I'm just saying that there is so much pressure engrained in certain cultures "to do well" (i.e. score high on a standardized test) that makes it hard for American culture to compete.

This explanation does not explain why European cultures fare much better. I'd love to hear what some of the cultural attitudes towards education are from there as well as the strength of family influence.

This explanation does not explain why European cultures fare much better.

Actually, this explanation does work pretty well for that also. Assume for the moment that Americans of European descent and Europeans have similar cultures.

Americans of European descent achieve test scores which are comparable to the top European nations + Australia.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

The only reason the US as a whole does not fare as well as most European nations is because it's large proportion of non-Europeans drag the average down.

You get similar results when comparing Americans with Asian culture to Asians. Your culture explanation has a lot of explanatory power, and almost certainly more explanatory power than any explanation based on school system.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...

International comparative test scores seem kind of irrelevant.

What seems to be important are the contributions of a small number of members of a society, who are either beaten into submission of forced conformity, or allowed to flourish.

Here's a notion so crazy it could work: since we are clearly unwilling to pay what it takes to pay for classrooms smaller than 30, what if we instead had some classes with 20, and others with 40+? Any material which is pure lecture wouldn't lose much (see the college lecture halls of 100+), while other material gets more benefit from individual attention. It also allows teachers to specialize: Be an engaging public speaker, or focus on bonding with students and their unique learning styles.

It might only be feasible in schools without widespread behavior problems, but hey, it's a thought.

Our children [snip] deserve to have a teacher who has time to read their work, to listen, to understand why they're crying or sleeping or not doing homework.

To teach each child in my classroom, I have to know each child in my classroom.

I wonder how much of what we think makes a great teacher just comes from "Stand and Deliver", or "Dangerous Minds". I always thrived more from the "lecture" style of teaching, which I got from very few teachers until I reached college. Maybe that's a personal affinity, but so must be the need for one-on-one interaction. Maybe the tasks at hand do have a lot to do with it.

Interesting idea though, lukifer. I'd be interested in what empirical studies show. I'm sure there is plenty, as biased as most might be in one way or the other.

Good point. I am skeptical that listening to why they are crying is a major contributor to a high quality education.

I'm just the opposite then. I gained little from the lectures. Most of my learning was done during office hours, with the TA, or in one of the labs/workshops. But, they are cheap to do and are don't show any problems so I assume lectures work for more people than not.

The idea that class size is a key leading to higher student success rate is a misnomer. Studies over the past 15 years have consistently indicated that class size has little (sometimes even converse) relation to student success rate.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956184/school-founder-says-... , http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/010326_stergios.pdf

A lot of the top performing countries in education have extrodinarily high average class sizes. Taiwan has 44, South Korea has 49. http://www.arthurhu.com/index/classize.htm .

Although you aren't entirely off base, in Taiwan many math and science based classes can be 150 students or more, which I'm sure pulls the median.

Studies over the past 15 years have consistently indicated that class size has little (sometimes even converse) relation to student success rate.

Do any of those studies consider how class size affects the top or bottom 5% of students (as measured by academic potential rather than present academic achievement)? I suspect that those students at the ends of the bell curve would benefit more from reduced class sizes, but their needs are hidden in the statistics by the broad majority in the middle.

It's really strange how we are told by these articles that the reason to worry about all this is "competitiveness on the world market", yet the bottom 10% will never contribute anything to this and can be safely ignored completely. It's irrelevant what is done with them. What is important is how the top 1% are dealt with, and the stability of the society regarding the middle 90%.

Did you read the article? It addressed that. According to the author many students in these countries pay for additional instruction fromt tutors to make up for the lack of individual attention.

The problem isn't funding. We spend more per student than ever. The problem is that a lot of that money is being wasted on things like excessive administrative staff and whatnot.

What we need is a system with proper incentives toward actually improving the quality of education. The system has become so broken that we've tried to force it by relying too much on standardized tests, but that just makes the system worse.

Yeah, I recently read that a local district (Cobb country GA) spends 2x as much per student adjusted for inflation than they did 30 years ago. Yet graduation rates and test scores are about the same.

The problem is that a lot of that money is being wasted on things like excessive administrative staff and whatnot.

Do you have any citations for that? I'm not arguing with you, and my memories of high school make me think that you are correct, but I don't have any statistics to back it up. The only statistics I've seen indicate the opposite, but oddly enough they were provided by administrators.

There's this (from a google image search): http://atomictango.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/spending-p...

The biggest problem we have is grouping by age instead of ability. Every core subject should be taught to people who are at the same level, even if it means 9 and 14 year olds in the same class.

Once you don't have to try teaching five different grade levels the same math (or other subject), 30 students become much more tolerable (not ideal, but manageable).

we recently moved three of our children to a Montessori school (one initially, then the other two six months later).

I'm quite astonished, still, at how different it is to traditional schooling. Classes are mixed age, usually spanning about 3 years, and children move to the next cycle when ready, not at a set date. Within a class, there's no mention whatsoever of what grade kids are. I don't think my kids even know.

Walk into a classroom, and you'll see the children spread out in groups of 2 or three, each group working quietly on an activity. The walls are lined with bookshelves full of activities; everything (almost) is hands on tactile experience. The older kids help the younger ones to understand things and the teacher, because she is not "teaching" (in the traditional sense) is free to work one-on-one with the children and make sure they really understand what they're doing.

Best of all, the kids love it. They really do. My daughter, who was previously hated school with a passion and was getting further and further behind (school didn't care) and was barely reading, is now an avid reader, progressing well in maths and writing and loves school.

Edit: few more details for anyone who doesn't have much experience with Montessori stuff, and I had none until only a year ago.

Each child has a journal in which the teacher writes a number of activities for that student at the end of each week (the teachers, because they spend a large amount of 1-on-1 time, know exactly where each child is in each subject). During the week, a child needs to complete those activities, but they're free to choose when and how. The remainder of the time is there's to work on/explore what ever they like.

There's no time slots, so kids are free to spend as much or as little time as they like on activities. The school actively encourages them to work towards spending the entire afternoon (3 hours straight) focused on a single activity if possible. The kids respond well to this too. Like science? then you've got three hours uninterrupted to work on some experiments with a few friends (group work is very much encouraged). Of course you can stop any time for a break and a snack. Heck, want to spend the entire day working on the one thing? Sure, so long as the teacher's confident you'll complete your journal tasks by the end of the week

There's also no exams. none. no tests or quizzes either. Here in Australia all primary school children are required to sit the NAPLAN[0] tests, and this school is no exception. Kids do no preparation and it's barely mentioned except for the days of the exams. Surprisingly (to me) the school ranked very well.

I'm extremely envious; I'd have loved the opportunity to enjoy school. If my kids have to spend 13 years of their life at school they may as well enjoy it

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAPLAN

"we can't demand that teachers be excellent in conditions that preclude excellence"

We can if we keep judging "excellence" by standardized tests which we water down until they give an answer we like and institute policies which push educators into doctoring the answer sheets.

Or did you want the students to actually learn stuff?

All the hand wringing over American teachers is entirely misplaced. American teachers are very good. Possibly the best in the world. Once you disaggregate national educational outcomes by ethnicity this becomes clear. White Americans outperform all white nations except Finland. Asian Americans of all extractions outperform their home nations. Black Americans outperform all black nations. And so on.

Judging teachers without accounting for the students they happen to teach is rather unfair. But because race and ethnicity are totally essential to understanding this it's unmentionable.

American teachers are very good. Possibly the best in the world.

The one unreplicated, not peer-reviewed blog post relied on for this assertion by HN participants who are not formally trained in social science research does not inspire confidence in this conclusion. I have lived in other countries, and I have worked with public school teachers in a country outside the United States.

The TIMSS studies

http://timss.bc.edu/

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/

are the best international dataset on the issue, and no competent professional analyst of the TIMSS data has ever reached that conclusion. A recent analysis of the PISA studies conducted by the OECD

http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1...

is a different international dataset, and its data suggest that the United States is underperforming in mathematics education of the most able mathematics students in the United States.

http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/

tokenadult, on a different day: "The methodology ... [comparing aggregate TIMSS scores] you point to repeatedly is laughable."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2773391

Also, could you define "competent professional analyst"?

Those types are comparisons are fundamentally worthless. You generally can't compare averages across school systems as often systemic things are quite different, such as who is even permitted to take the test.

Additionally data I've seen puts the US at the 75%ile once you adjust demographically for whites (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKVzaSdWnI/AAAAAAAAAY...). That means the US isn't bad, but it's certainly not stellar. Considering how often I see on the news people saying the US is the best country in the world I'd think we'd rank above Germany, Canada, and Switzerland. And we're not even playing the same sport as Finland.

Judging teachers without accounting for the students they happen to teach is rather unfair. But because race and ethnicity are totally essential to understanding this it's unmentionable.

Who doesn't talk about race? Every major conference I've seen on this issue discusses race. After unions, it's probably the single biggest issue discussed among policy makers in ths US.

I don't know who claims the US is the best in the world, but we are certainly close to the top. We score 6 points below Canada (530 vs 524) and 1 point below Germany (at 525).

Rankings make sporting events exciting because they exaggerate small differences. They are less useful when looking at statistics for the same reason.

Who doesn't talk about race? Every major conference I've seen on this issue discusses race. After unions, it's probably the single biggest issue discussed among policy makers in ths US.

Maybe the OP was suggesting that the typical discussion of race focuses on the racial achievement gap, while ignoring the performance difference between American immigrants of an individual race and their fellow students in their native countries.

that's actually quite an interesting finding. do you have a citation? not calling you out, I'm genuinely interested, as I could totally see that happening with simpson's paradox and all.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/43896331/A-Right-Denied-%E2%80%93-...

Slide 34 is most relevant. This is a presentation deck used by KIPP, one of the more successful charter schools in NY.

Family background matters a lot in how well students perform, but it doesn't help that low-income minorities tend to get the worst teachers. Teacher quality is more closely associated with educational outcomes than any other school-related factor, including curriculum, budget, and class size.

Take a good look at that guys posting history. You're not likely to find a reputable source.

Actually I remember some well liked and upvoted blog on HN posting stats that separated out affluent ethnicities from poor ethnicities and making US education look good.

Yea this http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou... is the blog, mentioned by yummyfajitas

yummyfajitas has posted a lot about this topic on HN, most recently on the aptly titled Simpson's Paradox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2824694

Just search his posting history with relevant keywords and you'll come up with a lot.

"How to Improve the Supply of High Quality Teachers"

http://edpro.stanford.edu/Hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com