Yetta Goodman On Testing Pressures & Professional Motivations

 

 

I think that what I was saying {in earlier posts} link here about the teacher who knows a lot about reading and learning and who has a strong belief system also goes for teachers who have other motivations like:

"I need to stay in this classroom because this is my job and I have to work so I'm going to do what I'm told to do. I'm not going to question very much.  If somebody gives me a text book and tells me that somebody at the university of Oregon wrote it, I'm going to assume that it's a good textbook and I'm going to use it."

And that becomes a strong belief system too. So these teachers come and they do what they're told and they don't talk very much or they don't ask questions very much. You see, I happen to believe that we all learn basically the same way: Our brains.  We are all one species of animal. Our brains are the single brain the same brain for everybody and it learns the same way for everybody; that's true of a five year old and it's true of an 80 year old.  However, it's influenced by all of the social experiences going on around it.

So if keeping a job, having high test scores because my principal tells me what a good teacher I am, if these beliefs become your focus point then you're going to move in that direction. But your brain is still learning, and if it is learning in the same way as another teacher who says: I know that the most important part of reading is to make sure my kids have lots of things to read, and I can choose reading materials that are good for them and their learning experiences because I know my kids, well that's another belief entirely.