This is so well-said spot on: “The big radical ideas get digested by the teaching profession until all that’s left are those catnip practices. In thirty years, BTC will be unknown, but there will still be schools that swear by vertical non-permanent surfaces. It’s just how it goes.” So is it that teachers love theories or that the grand theoretical claim is what’s necessary for the practical hacks to get adopted?
It's a great question. I think it's really messy (which is probably the tension in the essay you're picking up on). Partly I think there is a strategic ambiguity that is really effective for these ultra-popular works. People can shift between unbriddled enthusiasm for the whole thing, pragmatic adoption of their favorite parts, or maintain a middle position where the practices stand-in for the whole.
I think it's natural that over time the more radical claims get softened because, I mean, they don't end up working out. (Even good radical ideas struggle to thrive in teaching.) So things are going to end up moving theory --> hacks. But I think the initial enthusiasm for theory is real.
Honestly, it reminds me of an old Jewish folktale about a woman who steals another woman's prize recipe, only to gradually change it to make it indistinguishable from her own. Teachers likely already have a recipe that works for them and just want an extra boost or something, not a totally new recipe.
We have a number of pathologies as a profession that get us into trouble over time. It's why you see so many ideas that are simply reframed, reworded or re-legislated ideas from previous decades. Of course, all that revision is often rolled into the discourse as a way of justifying the resurrection of these ideas. Partly that's a natural consequence of the way education works, but it is not necessary always beneficial :)
Earlier this week on twitter Ben Newmark made a point very similar to yours. He suggested that most educational books were a lot of padding and that the valuable ideas for a jobbing teacher are really only a blogpost long. I have sympathy for that viewpoint and I think it ties in to what you are saying. I also wonder if part of the issue is a mismatch behind why most people write edbooks and what teachers are capable of applying. Most authors have worked hard on developing an idea and all the mechanisms that go with it. Their new silver bullet needs to be implemented with complete fidelity and all these strategies and tips are connected. Problem is as a teacher we are not often in aa position to implement everything. Time gets in the way; administration gets in the way; lack of resources and competing priorities. So we jump at the mircro-strategies and stick them in. We have made it better, even if not completely, haven't we? And if it starts to work we are of course happy and so it becomes part of the repetoire. We probably get better and better at it, understand it more deeply, more intuitively and so are more comfortable with it. Then when somebody else later on says 'hold on, this is better' we naturally, and quite logically, dig our metaphorical heals in.
It's hard being a teacher, isn't it? Then why am I so pumped to start work next week?!
I tried BTC last year and can relate to the idea you express about padding ed books and practical constraints that make total revolutions very difficult to initiate and sustain. I’ve read a little more about concerns with BTC this summer that kind of corroborate the struggles I was having. But I’m getting a big new whiteboard in my room anyway because I do like the piece of collaborative work on vertical surfaces. So alas, I’m just keeping the catnip after all.
Though in my experience there's a lot of crowding involved around the blackboard. You probably can't get the whole class up there, and group work would be a mess. It seems to me that in fact having wall-mounted whiteboards spread out around the room is at least a modestly innovative practice.
But in this specific case, isn't it just that teachers have correctly intuited that whiteboards are a good formative practice, and that the rest of BTC is nonsense?
The book is staggeringly unconvincing regarding its main premise. If I were being made to read it for professional development, I think I'd say "Can I just do the whiteboards?" too.
I'm not sure. What I observe is a number of teachers who are deeply committed to whiteboards and would describe themselves as feeling as if they are doing the full BTC, but in a compromised fashion. Of course, some people have the pragmatic attitude that you describe. But many embrace the theory but in practice only one or two of the actual prescriptions.
This is so well-said spot on: “The big radical ideas get digested by the teaching profession until all that’s left are those catnip practices. In thirty years, BTC will be unknown, but there will still be schools that swear by vertical non-permanent surfaces. It’s just how it goes.” So is it that teachers love theories or that the grand theoretical claim is what’s necessary for the practical hacks to get adopted?
It's a great question. I think it's really messy (which is probably the tension in the essay you're picking up on). Partly I think there is a strategic ambiguity that is really effective for these ultra-popular works. People can shift between unbriddled enthusiasm for the whole thing, pragmatic adoption of their favorite parts, or maintain a middle position where the practices stand-in for the whole.
I think it's natural that over time the more radical claims get softened because, I mean, they don't end up working out. (Even good radical ideas struggle to thrive in teaching.) So things are going to end up moving theory --> hacks. But I think the initial enthusiasm for theory is real.
Honestly, it reminds me of an old Jewish folktale about a woman who steals another woman's prize recipe, only to gradually change it to make it indistinguishable from her own. Teachers likely already have a recipe that works for them and just want an extra boost or something, not a totally new recipe.
We have a number of pathologies as a profession that get us into trouble over time. It's why you see so many ideas that are simply reframed, reworded or re-legislated ideas from previous decades. Of course, all that revision is often rolled into the discourse as a way of justifying the resurrection of these ideas. Partly that's a natural consequence of the way education works, but it is not necessary always beneficial :)
Earlier this week on twitter Ben Newmark made a point very similar to yours. He suggested that most educational books were a lot of padding and that the valuable ideas for a jobbing teacher are really only a blogpost long. I have sympathy for that viewpoint and I think it ties in to what you are saying. I also wonder if part of the issue is a mismatch behind why most people write edbooks and what teachers are capable of applying. Most authors have worked hard on developing an idea and all the mechanisms that go with it. Their new silver bullet needs to be implemented with complete fidelity and all these strategies and tips are connected. Problem is as a teacher we are not often in aa position to implement everything. Time gets in the way; administration gets in the way; lack of resources and competing priorities. So we jump at the mircro-strategies and stick them in. We have made it better, even if not completely, haven't we? And if it starts to work we are of course happy and so it becomes part of the repetoire. We probably get better and better at it, understand it more deeply, more intuitively and so are more comfortable with it. Then when somebody else later on says 'hold on, this is better' we naturally, and quite logically, dig our metaphorical heals in.
It's hard being a teacher, isn't it? Then why am I so pumped to start work next week?!
I tried BTC last year and can relate to the idea you express about padding ed books and practical constraints that make total revolutions very difficult to initiate and sustain. I’ve read a little more about concerns with BTC this summer that kind of corroborate the struggles I was having. But I’m getting a big new whiteboard in my room anyway because I do like the piece of collaborative work on vertical surfaces. So alas, I’m just keeping the catnip after all.
Re. "In thirty years, BTC will be unknown, but there will still be schools that swear by vertical non-permanent surfaces."
In the olden days, we used to call this, "Getting kids to do work at the blackboard."
Haha, true!
Though in my experience there's a lot of crowding involved around the blackboard. You probably can't get the whole class up there, and group work would be a mess. It seems to me that in fact having wall-mounted whiteboards spread out around the room is at least a modestly innovative practice.
Great post.
I think I agree with the broad point.
But in this specific case, isn't it just that teachers have correctly intuited that whiteboards are a good formative practice, and that the rest of BTC is nonsense?
The book is staggeringly unconvincing regarding its main premise. If I were being made to read it for professional development, I think I'd say "Can I just do the whiteboards?" too.
I'm not sure. What I observe is a number of teachers who are deeply committed to whiteboards and would describe themselves as feeling as if they are doing the full BTC, but in a compromised fashion. Of course, some people have the pragmatic attitude that you describe. But many embrace the theory but in practice only one or two of the actual prescriptions.