Subject: Symptoms

Posted by Richard Turnock on 1/8/2010

Message:

Here is another example of symptoms and non-systems thinking.
Recent posting by Chalkboard Project in Oregon from email.

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Report by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality entitled, "America's Opportunity: Teacher Effectiveness and Equity in K-12 Classrooms."

Chapter 4 of "America's Opportunity: Teacher Effectiveness and Equity in K-12 Classrooms" includes a section called, "Defining Teacher Effectiveness." The chapter makes the case that "without a working definition of teacher effectiveness, there will be no way to measure outcomes and thus no way to determine if efforts are successful."

The chapter presents a five-point definition of an effective teacher from Goe, Bell and Little (2008):
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My opinion:

All of the items listed for the definition of teacher effectiveness are symptoms of the effectiveness of the school/district as an organizational system. A teacher’s behavior, or any employee in any organization, is determined by the structure of the system they work within.

Why? The teacher is not the worker in the organization. The teacher is the leader and supervisor. The students are the worker. The students produce learning. When students are not effective learners the teachers get blamed as not being effective. The organization as a system needs to improve.

Richard

Follow Ups:

Symptoms - Steve Crowley 1/8/2010 
Symptoms - Zachary Lawrence 1/10/2010
School as a System - Richard Turnock 1/8/2010
Symptoms - Bill Braun 1/8/2010