A good book

 Perhaps I was being overly negative, last week. And by last week, I mean yesterday because the break was a blur and I did not use my time as efficiently as I had hoped to. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. I had two factors working against me, one, I rarely get a large chunk of time to just play, and two, well, I guess that’s both of them. That fact means I’m kind of pressurized and as soon as the pressure is off it tends to explode, the long-standing restraint muscles being exhausted. Two, because it happens in frequently I’m not practiced in using it well, avoiding those pitfalls.

Anyhoo, on to other thoughts. I’m reading a book that seems to have done some of what I’d wanted, in a teacher training program. The person designing it tried to scientifically study the best teachers and break down what it was that they actually did. And second, they tested the effectiveness of their own programs, until they found ways of teaching those skills that actually, empirically worked.l

The system/program is far far from perfect. It has some fairly specific recommendations that I highly doubt came from a general summary of what the best teachers did well. That specificity means that, because they weren’t designed for a Montessori classroom, some of it doesn’t directly apply. And, even if it wasn’t a Montessori classroom, some of it wouldn’t apply if you are working somewhere with specific rules/regulations that require things be different than the suggestions. Though it does seem pretty well designed for general application to traditional classroom structures.

I appreciate the specificity, but probably need more of the fundamental concepts so I can apply them to whatever my current situation is.

One of the points I felt vindicated on, after reading, was that they did many interviews with the successful teachers, and pretty much universally, the teachers could not really explain what it was they did that made them effective. That was the point that really caught my eye. This was the insight I had that made me want to create a teacher training protocol: the master teachers didn’t know what they were doing and nobody knew how to teach other people how to do it effectively. Or if they did know, they weren’t doing it, for some reason.

So I’m reading through that currently, as fast as I can. Actually practicing and applying it is another matter altogether. First I have to decide what feels right, then adapt it, the find ways to practice it. But there are at least some useful pointers right away. If I can’t change just yet, I can gain awareness, and that is the first step of change.

I Out (because I’m out of time.)

See you next week, take care, be well.