Interesting that you state "I'm not known for having great classroom management skills." and "I don't write my lesson objectives on the board."
I made similar statements in my book "Out on Good Behavior".
To wit:
"I freely admitted that classroom management is not my strong suit."
"I tend to stay away from things like posting “Today’s Objective” because most students ignore them—as do I."
I'm wondering if this is just coincidence, or that these are take-aways that you obtained from my book. To refresh you memory, you gave my book a 2 star rating on Goodreads and didn't leave a review as to what you found objectionable. Given that my two statements might resonate with you, I'd be curious as to what you found so disagreeable or poorly written in the book that warranted you taking the time to partially communicate to the world your dislike of it.
I'm sure we do have a few things in common as teachers. I do want to point out there are probably tens of thousands of teachers who aren't great at classroom management and think writing objectives on the board is dumb. I know plenty. These are not takeaways from your book, rest assured I have had mediocre classroom management for twelve years and have never been much for writing objectives.
Here's my attempt to encapsulate your thesis: "Education keeps coming up with new ways of teaching that just make things confusing. Good teaching hasn't changed much in decades; the "traditional teachers" still doing the same thing they were decades ago are often doing the best job. Shut your door, focus on your students, and stick with a traditional approach." It seems like you identify as a contrarian and enjoy bucking the conventional wisdom. While your advice might be helpful in some situations, I think a heuristic of "traditional teaching is good; shut your door and do your thing" isn't a helpful approach to teaching. While teaching hasn't changed as much as some highly-paid consultants would like us to think, there are plenty of newer practices worth learning from. I'm working on a post right now about variation theory, an approach that has become more popular in the last few years that I find really helpful. I could give plenty more examples. Similarly, I've learned a ton from observing other teachers and picking up little tips and tricks. Even teachers who teach very differently from me often have thoughtful ideas and perspectives.
To summarize: there are plenty of good nuggets in your book and things we agree on, but I disagree with the overarching themes and that motivated my review.
Interesting that you state "I'm not known for having great classroom management skills." and "I don't write my lesson objectives on the board."
I made similar statements in my book "Out on Good Behavior".
To wit:
"I freely admitted that classroom management is not my strong suit."
"I tend to stay away from things like posting “Today’s Objective” because most students ignore them—as do I."
I'm wondering if this is just coincidence, or that these are take-aways that you obtained from my book. To refresh you memory, you gave my book a 2 star rating on Goodreads and didn't leave a review as to what you found objectionable. Given that my two statements might resonate with you, I'd be curious as to what you found so disagreeable or poorly written in the book that warranted you taking the time to partially communicate to the world your dislike of it.
I'm sure we do have a few things in common as teachers. I do want to point out there are probably tens of thousands of teachers who aren't great at classroom management and think writing objectives on the board is dumb. I know plenty. These are not takeaways from your book, rest assured I have had mediocre classroom management for twelve years and have never been much for writing objectives.
Here's my attempt to encapsulate your thesis: "Education keeps coming up with new ways of teaching that just make things confusing. Good teaching hasn't changed much in decades; the "traditional teachers" still doing the same thing they were decades ago are often doing the best job. Shut your door, focus on your students, and stick with a traditional approach." It seems like you identify as a contrarian and enjoy bucking the conventional wisdom. While your advice might be helpful in some situations, I think a heuristic of "traditional teaching is good; shut your door and do your thing" isn't a helpful approach to teaching. While teaching hasn't changed as much as some highly-paid consultants would like us to think, there are plenty of newer practices worth learning from. I'm working on a post right now about variation theory, an approach that has become more popular in the last few years that I find really helpful. I could give plenty more examples. Similarly, I've learned a ton from observing other teachers and picking up little tips and tricks. Even teachers who teach very differently from me often have thoughtful ideas and perspectives.
To summarize: there are plenty of good nuggets in your book and things we agree on, but I disagree with the overarching themes and that motivated my review.