Summary: We should do serious analysis of the power of publishing houses in the schools. It's possible that, in our confusion and dispute over excellence in teaching, we have given over essential school and professional powers and decisions to publishing houses.
Is the excellent teacher ( aka "master teacher", "lead teacher" essential in each school ? Or may we conclude that the effort of training and supporting the master teacher is unnecessary, unnecessary because because the job is done "well enough" with mediocre teaching and the textbooks we have?
I will be the first to say that having a good textbook is a major boon to a teacher. Its use saves each practitioner from the time and expense of developing print support materials. I don't know of a parent, prospective teacher, master teacher or critic of the schools who would deny the utility of texts.
A master teacher, a competent teacher, can, however, teach her/his topic without a text--making, finding or copying print materials as necessary. The same cannot be said for a text. Simply handing the Biology text to the 16 year old will not accomplish much. Even if her/his life depended upon passing the final, that student would achieve more with some form of intelligent adult support, more yet with the support of a trained Biology teacher and best with the master Biology teacher.
I would say that as one's human learning and content expertise go up, the net gains of the students go up. The textbook may provide well organized material but that is not enough to move the average 16 year old toward any form of expertise. A skilled adult communicator can enhance that movement. Someone with certain content expertise would do better. The master teacher , however, with knowledge of
- her/his content and of its usefulness here-and-now to adolescents,
- information readiness of her/his clients, generally, and
- the means to adjust expectations and methods to each individual
Cost effectiveness sorts of thinkers might persuasively argue to the effect that
Hall, we'll even give you your ranking of the situations you've named. But until you establish that the size of those rank-based differences are LARGE we would have to say that the additional investment in teacher development and support may not be enough to justify the pay-off. Why don't you prove the existence and size of the teacher and master teacher effects? Then we can talk!!For the reasons just given, and many more, we must determine the size and ranking of those differences. If they are of the size and rank I maintain, there are major changes that must take place in schools, school administration, pay structures, teacher evalluation and teacher support.
[The author of this entry,S. Pike Hall, Ph.D and Professor Emeritus of Education at Drake University, has spent years in public and private education, has taught young children and adults and has trained thousands of elementary, secondary, special education and higher education teachers.]
