Education

As a teacher myself, I know that writing good lesson plans isn't easy. It takes research, planning, writing, editing, printing, testing in a classroom, revisions, more testing... well, you get the idea.

If other teachers are finding Deanna Jump's work good and useful, then I'm happy to see her have some success selling her lesson plans. If her lessons were suited my classroom, I'd be glad to spend $8 and save hours of work. But a good lesson alone does not a good teacher make.

There is no doubt that the California school system has many excellent, dedicated teachers, but it is a mistake to assume that every teacher is of that high caliber. There are no reliable statistics available to measure teacher competency, but a casual observation of teachers in the secondary system reveals problems which point to teacher incompetence as a significant factor in the high failure and drop out rates in schools today. Students complain of boring, ineffective teachers who waste a lot of time in the classroom on busy-work; teachers who waste time talking about themselves; teachers who spend little time with the students, giving worksheets and busy-work instead; and teachers who give tests for materials not covered in class.

My personal observation is that most secondary level teachers teach only to Bloom’s second level. Lessons are often inadequately prepared and the students are bored in class. Harry K. Wong, Ph.D., says that if you want to increase student learning and achievement, increase the time the student is working. Furthermore, he says that if the student cannot demonstrate learning or achievement, the student has not failed—teachers have failed the student.

Too many teachers do not put the student to work. A boring lecture followed by an in-class reading assignment or worksheet is often all the teacher has to offer. In a high school near me, the “block” schedule, in which classes were 1½ hours long, was abandoned for the traditional class length of 53 minutes, plus a 7 minute passing period. Was this because teachers were unable to engage students for that length of time?

A well-organized plan, which includes teacher instruction and guided student work assignments, is essential. The teacher cannot put the students to a task, then go sit at his desk. The teacher must be involved at every moment with the ongoing work. Group work is an important part of student participation because it allows the students to help each other in small social groups in which some peer pressure works to motivate group members. Teachers must outline to the students what is planned for the day, present instruction, do work, recap the lesson, and test only on the material actually studied. Homework should be designed to reinforce the lesson for that day. Why is that such a hard concept for teachers to understand?

Teachers complain that students are using technology to cheat on tests. Really? Where was the teacher while the students were taking the test? Gone, that's where. While the teacher is gone, the students can pull out their cell phones and exchange answers or look things up. How do you stop this? Take away cell phones before a test? No. You stop this when the teacher is in the classroom walking the aisles between the students, watching what they are doing, and answering questions that come up. That's where the teacher is supposed to be during a test.