Educational Research Jungle
The Educational Research Jungle
2-20-09
What do children know and how do they learn? These two questions have produced mountains of research and speculation. College students who are studying to become teachers are asked to read the literature and come up with viable classroom techniques that work. Administrators are trained to detect teaching strategies that constitute best practice.
In Chicago there is a school that is called “Best Practice.” In that school many of the techniques that have been proven to be effective are implemented in the classroom. A cutting edge school. Children are taught according to the most current knowledge from the best research institutions of higher learning.
Just one minute. The research is constantly changing and the recommendations are often time conflicting.
Here’s the problem. Educational research findings define teaching practices and curriculum but they are unstable at best. Today’s educational pog is swiftly in the trash heap, moved aside for another major breakthrough.
The educational trends are like an enormous pendulum that swings one way and then the other. There are the “ins” and “outs” of teaching. What is cool and what is crass? These trends usually rock and roll, come and go in the span of a decade. A teacher who has been in the classroom for ten years can detect the shift almost imperceptibly at first and then the connection occurs. “Oh we don’t teach that anymore!” or, “We don’t teach that way anymore.” Often times indignation sets in as in “How dare they change a perfectly good practice/technique/objective when it was working so well for me!”
A teacher who has been toiling away for twenty years in a classroom can look at her past practices, guidebooks and resources and tuck them away embracing what is new at least when she is to due for her annual classroom observation. She will demonstrate an effort to embrace the new and discard the old. Secretly she is wishing they would just leave well enough alone. There is no indignation, just acceptance and regret.
A teacher who has been teaching for thirty years sees the tide in educational trends turning and just smiles: a knowing smile. A smile that says, “Yeah, I’ve seen this before; I’ve done it this way before. It’s all good.” This seasoned veteran may add a thing or two but she sticks with what works. After all, thirty years is a long time and experience is the best teacher and an experienced teacher is the best bet. There is a steadfastness and resolve in her demeanor as if an invisible line has been drawn in the sand and no mere researcher/statistician dare cross it.
A teacher who is a forty year veteran, laughs at the so called new, improved way of teaching and curriculum because she has discovered long ago what works and what doesn’t and she kept the good and threw out the bad. Her judgment of best practice is the one that counts and she knows it. Her daily planning and delivery of lessons are what really matters. The piles of research can only be a guide and often time a guide that is not needed because she has seen it all before and it is all good. But alas, there is only time and space for one path through the educational research jungle and she is very adept at navigation.
