Things I learned from teaching (2023)

Because, very sadly, it is now an epidemic in the US that has no workable solution in sight because of intransigence around a 233 year old constitutional amendment in a context of intense, media-led paranoia (perhaps creating a feedback loop). "Bowling for Columbine" is 22 years old now - I don't think there's been substantial progress any of the root causes Moore called out back then.

I used to teach at public middle school. The format of "lecture and assignments" is a big reason I couldn't keep doing it. Every trained educator knows it's scientifically the _least_ effective pedagogical method we know, but the school administrators, parents, and the entire system forced us to keep doing it.

After years of learning that lecture is almost completely ineffective, I had to do it anyway because the system is fundamentally broken.

Not only is lecture scientifically ineffective, but students can watch for free on YouTube or Khan academy the best lectures ever given on a subject, at their preferred speed, format, time, and location. Lectures that are animated, drawn, rewindable, and humorous. But I had to give the lecture anyway. Live. The same lecture three times a day to my three different classes. And we were graded by the administrators at how well we performed those lectures. We were even made to write them ourselves.

Imagine being an actor forced to write and perform a play three times a day that no one in the audience wanted to watch, and you knew for a fact was a waste of their time. But your bosses and the audience's parents demand it anyway. It's hard not to grow extremely cynical about the whole affair.

Then there are mandatory state exams which are even more cynical. All our funding came from the results of those, so we were extremely stressed about cramming all year for those. Cheating by teachers was rampant, so the school tried to have us monitor each other, which only worked if you wanted to be hated as a snitch.

If a student was failing, it was my fault. I had to justify any bad grade given to a student. If I did justify it, I was then blamed for their failure. There was no reason at all to give bad grades to students.

--Trauma dumping time--

If you happen to be male, expect students to act extremely inappropriately as a joke. They know you can't really do anything about it, so students will do it to stress you out. This is extremely stressful. I was constantly sexually harassed by older students, and was terrified I would lose my job over it.

My first day at one middle school in Texas I overheard several of the other teachers questioning why was I the only male adult on campus in tones indicating they thought I was a pervert. They could not believe a male would want to teach middle school for any other reason.

It became hard to show up everyday fearing that I would get assaulted by a student and thrown in prison over it. I was extremely careful to always have witnesses around, which wasn't always possible as there was no separate bathrooms for teachers. At one point I seriously considered wearing a bodycam every day just to have my own evidence of innocence.

Then there were the bomb threats, hallway fights, and the fact that quite a few of the male 10th graders were bigger than me and violent. At least once a week there was a hallway fight. At least once a month we had to evacuate for a bomb threat.

So as a teacher, I had to write and perform a play every day that no one wanted to see, that was a waste of everyone's time, to students who thought it would be funny to get me thrown in prison, a few of whom were bigger than me and violent.

The public school system is completely broken. I left it and never looked back. I would never send my kids to a lecture format school system in a million years. I would send them to a democratic free school, Montessori, unschool, or homeschool. But our public schools (and most private schools that rely on lectures) are cynical systems designed to stamp out creativity, critical thinking, logic, emotional intelligence, and empathy. It is designed to make incurious factory workers.

Don't take my word for it, see the words of John Gatto, the famous NY State teacher of the year: https://cantrip.org/gatto.html

He wrote this in 1990! This was long before cell phones, porn addicted students, mass shootings, and drug abuse. When students could still be given bad grades!

Great article! Definitely agree that engagement raises like crazy when giving something students can do during the lecture.

In my case, it was a Data Science intro course, so having the theory together with Python Notebooks that I shared beforehand was a good way to get them interested throughout the full 3h of each class. As you said, when technical problems arise it's hard to keep an eye everywhere and patch all holes, so creating smaller groups/teams on that case helps, because even if not everyone can play with the code directly, they can follow things closer.

Main point as you said is that a teaching experience is a huge learning experience.

I've never been to a university that didn't run tutorials or practicals alongside lectures. Given a flipped classroom doesn't have lectures it can only be cheaper than the standard method, since the tutorials exist in either model.

> I believe the fallout from lectures and university in general are just a part of the design.

Just no. There are so many factors that go into students dropping out, many of which are outside their control (e.g. needing to support parents). There is a lot of research on this.

If you can get the work, corporate training has better students and more money. You only get a few days with the students, however. Otherwise, there are lots of "learn to code" like groups that need mentors.