Teaching isn’t about managing behavior

> In the next five years, most of America’s most experienced teachers will retire. The Baby Boomers are leaving behind a nation of more novice educators. In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. Less than three decades later, that number had fallen to just three years leading a classroom.

This might not be a bad thing. I remember the late 60's and early 70's being an incredibly innovative time in education: likely when many of the Baby Boomer teachers were stretching their wings.

Experimental schools, "free schools", open classrooms, self-paced learning etc. It was a time when you knew someone that attended a Montessori school, when we were moving to the Metric system...

In short it was a time of optimism and trying out new ideas. If the current crop of teachers can get out from under the yoke of "Common Core" or these other top-down initiatives we might see some innovation in education again.

And frankly school might become fun again as well.

This piece is very nicely written, but they never describe what their definition of 'successful teaching' is. "Reality pedagogy" might achieve some emotional or social objectives (though the piece relies entirely on anecdotes), but do they help the student's long-term life outcomes?

As an aside, despite the article's assertions, there is very little evidence that experience improves teaching ability, despite many studies on the matter.

It think more important than certain paradigms in teaching are actually competent teachers themselves. The optimistic model drew certain crowds. It is an advantage to have a common core in education if is doesn't end in forming people and instead giving them tools.

I think the state has to ensure that education is broadly available and not let people fall behind. But you can only administrate so much to ensure good quality of education.

> In the next five years, most of America’s most experienced teachers will retire.

This is true of all career fields at all times.

I agree that "Teaching Isn't About Managing Behavior", in the same way that programming isn't about avoiding syntax errors and driving a car isn't about staying between the marked lines on the road.

I was a teacher for fifteen years. The writer of this article started about the same time I got into the profession, so has nearly 20 years of experience.

The first thing you need to do with any class is manage behavior. This can be tricky in your first couple of years, but after a while it just becomes part of who you are. You're more confident in the classroom, you have a reputation in the school, you can recognise and shutdown disruptive behavior before any of the other kids have realised something is about to kick off. At that point your classroom changes, and you can practice what the author calls "Reality Pedagogy", or any other type of pedagogy you like.

Believe me, having observed and mentored plenty of student teachers over the years, the first thing you need to tackle is behavior management. Once that is established then you have the opportunity to be the "captain, my captain" teacher, or whatever you like really.