I was doing a little research on effective ways to support educators. On his website, Marzano wrote "...not too many years ago, when they were looking for the highest performing systems/districts in the world, and they looked at the top ten. And, unfortunately, I believe, there were none of the top ten from the United States. But of the top ten, every single one had a focus on good teaching. They were designed to help teachers get better".
So my question to you is....
What is "good" teaching?
and
What experiences or support teacher growth and development?
I think it is very interesting that there were not schools in the US identified. I think that other countries have put more emphasis and perhaps respect to the teaching profession. As a former teacher, I remember how the classes we were taught may not have been as rigorous as they should have been. Yes, teachers do have to jump thruogh many "hoops" to get licensing, but it is still not usually a very rigorous study. I don't mean to offend anyone, but in comparison to other majors it is not one of the more difficult ones. I think to promote good teaching we need to make it more prestigious and difficult to become a teacher. The staff development days need to be more introspective and less new strategies. I think we overwhelm teachers with new ideas constantly that we are not really looking at what works in their classroom.
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