Newsletter

Rip’s Teaching Tips​

Monthly Newsletter

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Ideas, resources, and inspiration for teachers

 

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Q: What are some of the things that teachers do that are both ineffective in regard to student learning and that also put unnecessary stress on teachers?

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A: I have seen some teachers who attempt to teach all of the outcomes in their programs of study. For example, where I teach, there are approximately 400 learning outcomes in the various programs of study for elementary
subjects. While the school calendar may indicate that teachers have over 950 hours of instructional time each year to teach this vast array of objectives, this is a myth. Every teacher has to contend with announcements, Christmas concert rehearsals, assemblies, administering standardized or state required tests, transitions between classes, and so on. In actuality, teachers have far fewer hours for instruction than the official school calendar indicates. I have worked with teachers who claim they have actually covered all of the objectives in the curriculum. And while in fact they may have done this, their students rarely came along for the journey. Attempting to teach all of objectives in the program of studies may work if you have a class of students who are all functioning at grade level and they all have learned the prerequisite skills and knowledge necessary for mastery of your subject area. I have heard such classes exist, although I have yet to find one. Instead of starting with the program of studies, start with the students in front of you. Find out where they are at academically, what their needs and interests are, and start from there. That, dear readers, is a recipe for classroom success.

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Research Spotlight: ​

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​There are a lot of “firsts” in teaching. The first time you meet new colleagues, the first time you meet your students at the beginning of the year or the semester, the first time you meet the parents of your students.

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell tells us that we all make snap judgements in all parts of our lives, primarily based on past experience. Each time we meet a new student, we can fall victim to this predisposition and make a snap judgement about the student based on nothing more than our first impression. Often, these judgements are incorrect.

 

Daniel Kahneman makes a similar argument in Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahneman demonstrates that many of us
practice make decisions based on the WYSIATI premise (What You See Is All There Is). We often make quick
judgements and snap decisions based on very partial and incomplete information, thinking that “what we see is all
there is to see” – and this is especially true when we meet new people. We make judgements based on their
gender, their clothes, their overall appearance, and their looks – and this judging starts within milliseconds of our
seeing them.

Please be aware of this tendency toward snap judgements about your students. I worked hard not to arrive at any
firm conclusions about new students until after I had worked with them for at least one month. This practice
served me – and my students – well over the years. How about you? What do you do to avoid snap judgements
about your students that can be way off the mark?

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Book of the Month: Summary of a Book That Can POSITIVELY Change the Way You Interact With Some of the Adults (parents, caregivers, fellow teachers, school administrators, and school board members) in Your Work

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The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity is a small book, easy to read, that has the power to help you see some of the adults you work with in a sharper light. While “stupid” is one of the taboo words in education, Cipolla has a very specific definition of the way he uses it. He says that a stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer losses. Cipolla calls it “the golden law of stupidity.”

Here are 10 lessons from the book:

1. Stupidity is a Universal Constant: The first law states that always and inevitably
everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. Stupid
people are everywhere, in every group, regardless of education, class, or culture.

2. Stupidity is Independent of Other Attributes: The second law is the most crucial: The probability that a
certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Intelligence, charisma, or a
PhD offer no protection against being stupid.

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3. A Stupid Person is a Menace to Society: The third law defines a stupid person as a person who causes losses to
another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. This is
the core of their danger: they create damage with no benefit to anyone.

4. Non-Stupid People Underestimate Stupidity's Power: The fourth law states that non-stupid people always
underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. We foolishly assume stupid people will be harmless, but
their actions can have catastrophic consequences precisely because they are unpredictable and irrational.

5. A Stupid Person is the Most Dangerous Type of Person: The fifth law concludes that a stupid person is the
most dangerous type of person. This is because they are more destructive than bandits (who at least gain from their actions) and are impossible to manage rationally.

6. The Four Human Types: Cipolla's model categorizes everyone as: Helpless (benefits others, loses themselves),
Intelligent (benefits themselves and others), Bandit (benefits themselves, harms others), and Stupid (harms
others and themselves).

7. The Golden Rule of Survival: The ultimate lesson is to shrink your exposure to stupid people. Since you cannot
reason with them, predict them, or deter them, your primary strategy must be to recognize them and minimize their ability to cause damage in your life.

8. Stupidity is Not Ignorance: Ignorance can be cured with education. Stupidity is a fundamental inability to
rationally connect actions and consequences. It is a permanent cognitive deficit.

9. Beware of the Helpless Person: While not malicious, helpless people (those who help others at their own
expense) can be dangerous allies because their actions often inadvertently empower or create openings for stupid
people to cause damage.

10. The Model is a Tool for Sanity: The true value of Cipolla's laws is it provides a dispassionate lens through
which to view irrational behavior, replacing frustration and confusion with a clear strategy: identification and
avoidance.

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TRUE Teacher Story of the Month​​​​​​

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     I have a friend and colleague who taught junior high school mathematics for over two decades. He told me that on a number of occasions as the staff was getting ready to open for a new school year, his principal would come to him and say, “I want to let you know that your class sizes this year might be a bit larger than last year. The timetable now has most of your classes at 35 students.”

     Now, as we all know, putting 35 junior high school students in one class is a handful, especially if some of them have needs that are quite a ways outside of the normative needs of typical middle school students.

     My friend told me that in circumstances such as this, he would always give the principal this response, “I’m a pretty good math teacher, and I can teach up to 30 students really well. You can put more than that in my classroom if you want, but know that only 30 students are going to learn math really well.”

     There’s some interesting food for thought here for school administrators when they go about the process of creating timetables and determining class sizes.

 

If you are an administrator, don’t assume that just because you’ve placed x number of kids
in a teacher’s classroom that x number of kids are receiving a good education. You need to
consider, given the context in which this teacher works, how many students can they

reasonably be expected to teach well?

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Teacher Well-Being Corner

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH​

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The following is an excerpt from a letter, written by a Holocaust survivor, that was given to the teaching staff on
the first day of a new school year by their principal:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness:
Gas chambers built by learned engineers.
Children poisoned by educated physicians.
Infants killed by trained nurses.
Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.
So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children
more humane.

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Teacher and Child (1976, p. 245) by Dr. Haim Ginott

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TEACHING Q&A

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On the Rip’s Teaching Tips website there is a section where teachers like yourself can submit questions and I will answer one or two of these each month in this newsletter and explore some possible answers that I hope will prove useful. This months question is:​

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QUESTION OF THE MONTH:  How do I know if I'm teaching well?

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A: This is a wonderful question because it goes to the very essence of what we are trying to accomplish when we
teach: we want our students to acquire new skills and knowledge, but how will we know if we have achieved what we set out to accomplish?

Some teachers like to get colleagues or administrators to observe them teaching, and then get feedback on their
teaching. For example, Principal A observes teacher B teaching a class, after which Principal A says, “Nice work.
Great lesson. I was really engaged, and so were most of the students. Nice work!” While this might feel good, it doesn’t answer the question of whether or not the teacher is “teaching well” because it fails to answer the most important question about good teaching: “WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID THE STUDENTS LEARN?”

In answering the question, “How do I know if I’m teaching well?” I’m framing it from the point of view that
“teaching well” means that your students have learned what it is you wanted them to learn. In other words, your
students have achieved the learning goals or objectives that you have set out for them to achieve. Clearly, we have
entered the realm of student assessment here. Since we are unable to read minds, the only way we can understand to some degree what our students have learned is through the various vehicles of student assessment.

There are multiple ways that you can assess what your students have learned. Assessment is often broken down
into two categories: Formative assessments, which are used to provide feedback to students while they create
evidence of what they have learned. Some examples of formative assessments are exit tickets, think-pair-share
activities; teacher observations and feedback; low stakes quizzes to provide real-time feedback to students. The
other most common mode of assessment are summative assessments, which are often used at the end of a unit or
course to enable student to provide evidence of learning on the entire course or unit. Unlike formative assessments, summative assessment work product from students cannot be improved based on teacher feedback.
Examples of common summative assessments are final exams; research papers; essays, projects; presentations; or
portfolios.

The problem with any assessment is that it only shows us the evidence that the student is able and willing to
provide to us in regard to their learning. Sometimes students give it their all. At other times, they may be
disengaged or preoccupied with other things, and unable or unwilling to demonstrate fully all that they have
learned.

How do I know if I’m teaching well? Through the evidence that the student provides you that gives you a glimpse
into what they have learned. In other words, through the authentic assessment of student learning.

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Fun Extra​

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A teacher and an orangutang walk into a classroom.​

The teacher says, "Class, today we're going to be studying evolution."

The orangutang grabs a marker and yells, "Finally, my turn to teach!"

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If you find this newsletter of value, please feel free to SHARE it with your colleagues.

 

And please remember:

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If you’re not having fun... you’re doing it wrong! 

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Thank you for all that you do to help kids! Teaching is hard, but there’s no doubt that you’re making a difference.  The very fact that you have taken the time to read this newsletter tells me that you want to grow and continue to get better as an educator. My compliments and my thanks!

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