Teaching Isn't Rocket Science, It's Way More Complex: What's Wrong With Education and How to Fix Some of It by Doug Green - Page 4 of 4

Teaching Isn’t Rocket Science, It’s Way More Complex: What’s Wrong With Education and How to Fix Some of It by Doug Green

1. Practice prioritizing as part of leadership preparation. 2. There are no bad kids. You need to love them all, but you don’t have to love all of their behavior. 3. Pay attention to diet and exercise. Leaders should be fit. 4. Be a model learner. You just might learn something useful as you set an example for others. 5. Delegate, but make sure you do some visible dirty work.

The first solution you come up with is not likely to be the best one. Unfortunately, it takes more time to do something a better way the first time. Don’t fall into the trap of continuing to be inefficient.

Just about any job has aspects that are less fun. Rather than complain, try getting better at those aspects. At the least, you will probably spend less time doing them, and you just might dislike them less.

Here we have the story of two chemistry teachers who started videoing their lessons for students who were absent. When an exchange student arrived in January with no chemistry, they told her to start with the September videos and the flipped/mastery method was born. Here kids get direct instruction from videos they can watch and rewatch anytime. They take unit tests when they are ready and can retake them until they demonstrate mastery, and they finish the course at their own pace. Students cannot fail, they can only say they haven’t finished yet. This method has great promise for taking us from standardization to personalization.

This may not seem to belong, but as an avid opera fan, Doug is on a mission to attract more fans so that opera survives and thrives. He makes a case that it is the world’s greatest art form as he warns that it is an acquired taste.

Here we find a summary that reminds us how one-size-fits-all teaching and the test-based accountability system are holding kids back and causing needless failure. It ends with a call to action.

Since 2009 when he started his blog, Doug has also been summarizing important books to promote sales and help people who have read the book internalize key concepts. This far he has summarized 150 books. This chapter contains nutshell descriptions of the 41 books he considers the most important along with links to his summaries. If you want to get a professional development library started at your school, these books would be a great start. There is also a list of these books sorted by author.

Dr. Doug Green has been an educator since 1970. He taught chemistry, physics, and computer science, and worked as an administrator for thirty years at the secondary, central office, and elementary principal levels. He taught leadership courses for SUNY Cortland and Binghamton University and authored over 400 articles in computer and educational journals. In 2006 he retired to care for his wife who had ALS. After her death in 2009, he started DrDougGreen.com to help busy educators and parents hone their skills and knowledge. Follow him on Twitter @DrDougGreen.