by Nick Ferentinos
JEA Mentoring Committee
Nick Ferentinos
This story from The New York Times Sunday Magazine (March 7), Building a Better Teacher, is worth a read. Written by Elizabeth Green, an education reporter and editor of gothamschools.org, she is the Spencer Fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School. The article looks at the efforts of one educator, Doug Lemov, to determine just what good teaching looks like. To that end, he develops a taxonomy of 49 teaching practices, only a few of which the article addresses. Here’s the link to Lemov’s Web site and book: http://uncommonschools.org/usi/aboutUs/taxonomy.php
Those of us interested in supporting new teachers have long discussed what good teaching looks like and explored the question if effective teaching is something that can be taught. Lemov’s work is worth examining.
My only complaint is that Green’s article fails to explore the growing movement to mentor new teachers, a support service the New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz, Calif., says is now offered to around 80 percent of novice teachers.
The article has the distinction of currently being the most e-mailed on the Times’s Web site.
Check it out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?ref=magazine