Getting Past Futile Pedagogical Wars

Abstract

Ever since America got into the business of public schooling, there have been debates over what is the best way for teachers to teach. After researching 100 years of classroom instruction, Mr. Cuban calls for a truce in the wars, arguing that teachers regularly incorporate different instructional approaches into their teaching. FOR THE past half-century, reform-minded critics have scolded boards of education for low-performing public schools and condemned inept school bureaucracies for blocking change. In criticizing teachers, however, these would-be reformers have been caught in a bind. They see too many teachers thwarting necessary reforms but know that these very same teachers--three million strong--are gatekeepers to school learning and crucial to the well-being of 50 million children and youths. As important as it is to improve school boards and bureaucracies if we are to get better schools, student learning depends on what teachers do in classrooms. Inevitably, then, teachers are also part of the solution. Seeing teachers as playing a major role in both the problem and the solution says little about what they do in classrooms once they close their doors. How teachers actually have taught has remained largely a mystery, even though nearly all Americans have sat across from teachers' desks. But it is crucial to find out what happens in classrooms, rather than depending upon teacher surveys or stories heard from parents and students. In today's policy arena, local school boards, state legislators, and U.S. Presidents say again and again that, without good teaching, students will fail to learn and the nation's economic competitiveness will suffer. Furthermore, policy makers believe that improved literacy is the key to reducing the student achievement gap between middle-class white students and low-income minority students, a gap that has existed for decades. Thus parents and policy makers believe that getting the right teachers into classrooms can boost the academic achievement of low-performing students and can make the difference between students' dropping out of high school and getting trapped in low-wage jobs or entering college and eventually snaring a high-paying job. For those committed to improving schools, then, how teachers teach--their classroom pedagogy--is a powerful tool both for strengthening the nation's economy and for getting students to learn and succeed. So how have teachers taught? PEDAGOGICAL TRADITIONS From the very beginning of U.S. public schools, two teaching traditions have shaped classroom instruction: teacher-centered and student-centered. Within the teacher-centered tradition of instruction, classroom teachers control what is taught, when, and under what conditions. Teachers transmit knowledge, skills, and values to students. Were readers to walk into such classrooms and sit for a few minutes, they would note that classroom furniture is usually arranged with desks and chairs in rows facing the front chalkboard, that teachers talk far more than students, that the entire class is most often taught as one group with work occasionally being done in small groups or independently, and that the class regularly uses textbooks to guide the students' daily work. Scholars have traced this pedagogical tradition back to the ancient Greeks and religious schools centuries ago and have called it by various names: traditional, subject-centered, and tough-minded. The student-centered tradition of instruction refers to classrooms in which students exercise a substantial degree of responsibility for what is taught and how it is learned. Teachers see children and youths as whole human beings with an array of physical, psychological, emotional, and intellectual needs that require both nurturing and prodding. Were readers to walk into such classrooms and sit for a while, they would see that the furniture is frequently arranged to permit students to work together. …