I really admire him; I freely admit that the Opening Talk is inspired loosely by his class.

The difference, I think, and really the thing that bothers me about this KIPP school, is that he didn’t need to spend two weeks reeducating“KIPPnotizing” us to make us behave. I expect that your daughter’s teacher didn’t have to, either. The only schlocky motivational poster in his room was the one he used as a drawer liner. He commanded respect, naturally, and earned it by sheer force of competence and personality; even Jason (whose name usually made teachers laugh nervously even five or six years later) sat down, shut up, paid attention, and took his hat off.

Not everyone teaches well in that style, though; some of my other favorite teachers ran very egalitarian, almost social classrooms, and the independent, individual critical thinking I learned from them is just as valuable, in the long term, as the extra subject material I learned from the authoritarians. Unfortunately, the benefits from that don’t show up for years, and certainly not on standardized tests, which carry a lot of weight in news stories and the TFA/KIPP company cultures. From interviews and everything else I’ve seen, those programs feel like… academic theater, really, more than anything. They look great in news stories, and I admit they do get the results that people are testing for.

I pick up this weird fetishy vibe for Theory-X-style discipline, for stamping uniform, standardized, politico-friendly teachers out of the TFA/KIPP mold, rather than helping people find the grooves that work best for them and bring out the long-term best in their students. A solid work ethic is a tremendously valuable thing, but at the same time, if you think you can make up for critical thinking skills by working harder, there’s no end to the things you can’t do.

That’s one man’s opinion, at least.

I don’t think you should immediately judge such a classroom until you’ve seen it in action. Like most things in life, saying that everything like that is a bad thing is too general of a comment to be realistic.

I’m also not sure where you got this idea: “The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you.” I scanned the article, and didn’t notice anything about humiliation. If you have ever seen a great teacher utilize the, “stops in midsentence; missing one person’s eyes,” approach, you would see that this body language is usually an effective and gentle correction so that learning can continue in a group lesson.

My preciouses spent two years each in a classroom much like that one (although some quiet talking is allowed), and they felt loved, challenged, and guided. And happy! In fact, Precious #1 was in the polar opposite of that classroom for six months, floundering from lack of direction, basic behavioral standards, and structure. Within one week in “Mein Herr’s” classroom, she was thriving, learning more in that one week than in the past six months.

If you’d like real life examples, I can invite you to two classrooms: “Mein Herr’s”, and one very much “not”. You’ll see what I mean. One where the children learn beyond the grade standards, and one where they sort of frustratedly coast through if they’re lucky, and try to catch up the next year.

Many, many people can become teachers. Not all of them can become effective and caring teachers.

Respectfully,
~T

Peoples’ egos get in the way too much.

of course, from what you’ve said in this essay, then maybe Teach For America isn’t the place to be if you want to make a difference.