How English Teachers Get Taught

I really enjoyed reading How English Teachers Get Taught: Methods of Teaching the Methods Class by Smagorinsky & Whiting (1995). It is interesting to think about how teachers learn to teach but at this point for me, even more interesting to think about how methods course professors learn to teach teachers.

I strongly agree with Smagorinsky & Whiting that the methods class needs to be theoretically informed. Coming out of college, I did not feel like I had this theoretical background; I knew of quite a few activities to use in the classroom, but it was not until grad school that I started reading about the theories behind those approaches. I have always liked to know the why behind things, so I wanted to know why certain classroom strategies were better than others--I wanted to see the big picture. I do think that too many teachers go into teaching with a "bag of tricks," while they need to have an "understanding of teaching and leaning that can inform their decisions" (p.18) and not know only how to use the "tricks" in their bags, but also why and when. I agree as well that students need to read the theorists themselves rather than other authors' summaries (p.109). Teachers need to have this professional knowledge to be informed practitioners who are engaged in inquiry and everyday learning and research.

I also like the idea of including conflicting theories in the methods class but making those contradictions clear and explicit.

Another piece of the methods class that I believe is essential is the synthesis of knowledge. Planning individual lessons is a helpful skill, but students must learn how to organize larger instructional units. I think that students even need to plan semesters or years so that they learn how to see an overarching plan, a big picture, a larger purpose for each unit and day of instruction. Teachers need to know where they are headed and know their own big goals for themselves and their students (these should also be informed by theory and teaching philosophy). 

A piece of teaching that I think may sometimes be left out of methods classes is assessment. I know that my classes focused on setting up instruction and carrying out those plans but did not spend time on how to assess student learning. Assessment is such a tricky topic that I can see why it might be avoided; however, it is for that reason that pre-service teachers should read and talk about it.

One question I have is how much do we prepare students for the system that is and how much do we prepare them to change or subvert that system? If we take on a Piagetian approach that works from the assumption that the teacher is not a diagnostician and remedialist, what will happen when our students go into our standards-based schools in which they are expected to diagnose and remediate?