The Consulting Teacher in the Context of Educational Reform

Abstract

Consulting Teacher in the Context of Educational Reform In her article The Consulting Teacher Model: Risks and Opportunities, (February, 1988), Dixie Snow Huefner makes some important and timely distinctions between the roles of resource teachers and consulting teachers and identifies critical issues related to teacher preparation and program evaluation this model. However, with respect to the literature of general reform and that of reform in teacher in particular, I believe her anlysis is flawed and is illustrative of misinterpretation within the special community regarding the meaning of reform and the potential role of special consultation. My purpose in writing this commentary is to examine (a) contradictions between the concept of the consulting teacher as master teacher presented by Huefner and the concept of master teacher as represented in the reform literature, and (b) contradictions regarding the role of the consulting teacher itself. two points are necessarily related. Proposals career ladders are a hallmark of both the Holmes Group (1986) and the Carnegie Forum (1986) reports on the teaching profession. According to these reports, career ladders, through advancement within the school, encourage capable teachers to remain in classrooms and discourage them from moving out to administration. Holmes Group (1986) described career professionals as teachers who combine outstanding teaching of children with outstanding work with adults in education (p. 96). Career professionals be capable of assuming responsibility not only within the classroom but also at the school level (p. 65). Using the term lead teachers, the Carnegie Forum (1986) stated that those who are most experienced and highly skilled play the lead role in guiding the activity of others (p. 58). Lead teachers also take collective responsibility helping colleagues who were not performing up to par by arranging coaching, technical assistance, course-work, and other remediation that might be called for (p. 59). Clearly, the experiential basis these master teachers is successful teaching in the general environment, combined with additional, specialized, graduate-level training. Although the concept of the consulting teacher appears to be consistent with the general idea of differentiated staffing, the preparation and certification structure proposed by Huefner represents a departure from the assumption in these reports that master teachers would come from the ranks of experienced classroom teachers. Dual certification is correctly proposed as the basis the consulting teacher, but 2 to 3 years of experience in a general or special classroom is suggested. assumption here is that, should a consulting teacher choose (or a state mandate) special experience, preservice preparation alone in general is sufficient as a basis consideration as a master teacher--one who be expected to improve the educational effectiveness of their colleagues as well as their students (Huefner, 1988, p. 413). Further, such master teachers would be asked to perform both regular and special functions (p. 413). With their emphasis on the professionalization of the classroom teacher, it is difficult to imagine that the architects of reform had in mind a narrow band of special experience as the foundation the highest rung on proposed career ladders. Yet Huefner's interpretation, I believe, is not atypical of special education's stance relative to reform in general and is based on teh acceptance of traditional special techniques as the primary source of appropriate remediation the majority of classroom and classroom teacher problems that consulting teachers would face. She enumerates the following techniques: task analysis, behavioral management, diagnostic assessment, curriculum adaptation, and continuous measurement of progress. …