The complexity of what teachers do is incomprehensible to anyone who has not lived the experience. If one examines, in detail, the multi-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-faceted acts that a teacher performs each teaching day, it almost defies belief for it is beyond heroic. Done well, the impact is to influence students for all the days of their lives. Done well, it leaves students altered for the better. It takes a trained observer to perceive and comprehend the various acts, both overt and subtle, that a teacher carries out during the course of a school day.

This is the onus of this book – to make explicit the professional tasks of a teacher in today’s fast changing world, where technology is rapidly replacing human interactions, where disinformation is daily fed to a gullible public, where funding and professional resources for schools are never enough, where students come to school carrying physical and emotional burdens that would daunt most adults, where the tasks of teachers are more demanding and more heartbreaking than ever before. How a teacher gives his or her all, and yet, manages to keep at the job without burning out is a significant feature of this book.

Not only are these professional tasks identified and explained, but suggestions are offered for how new and practicing teachers may further hone those skills that each task demands. Knowing the tasks is not enough; learning to apply them successfully is the key to becoming that master teacher.

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Scenes from a Classroom

The Teacher as Decision Maker

Beginnings: Some Advice for New Teachers

What’s Wrong with Teacher Education?

Some Advice for “Noo Teechrs”

Last Words

The Professional Tasks of the Teacher

The Development of an Assessment Instrument to Evaluate Teaching Competence

Profiles of Teaching Competency

Categories of Teaching Competency

Teacher as Person

Growing Teachers

Being Clear About What’s Important

Sharpening Your Problem-Solving Skills

The Importance of Being Real

Developing Confidence in Self

Taking Care of Yourself

Conclusion

The Teacher and The Kids

Teacher as Diagnostician

Identifying Students Showing Extreme Emotional Needs

Teaching Strategies for Dealing with Emotional Needs

Identifying Behavior that Relates to Lack of Experience with Thinking

Teaching Strategies for Dealing with Lack of Experience with Thinking

Other Behavior Impediments to Learning

Conclusion

Teacher-Student Interactions

It Starts with Listening, Attending and Apprehending

Choosing the Right Response

Basic Reflective Responses

Responses that Call for Analysis of Ideas

Responses that Challenge

Responses that Address Students’ Expression of Feelings

Mastering the Art of Teacher-Student Interactions

Conclusion

The Teacher and the Curriculum

IT and the Curriculum

A Few Examples of Existing School Programs Incorporating IT

What Can a Teacher Do?

Putting the Teaching for Thinking Curriculum Framework into Practice

Why Do These Students Love School?

Evaluation as a Tool for Improving Learning

Creating More Effective Assessment Tools

Diagnosing Students’ Difficulties

Giving Evaluative Feedback

Students’ Self-Evaluations

Reporting to Parents

Conclusion

Teaching as a Courageous Activity

The Closed Classroom Door

Teachers Who Dared

What’s the Pay Off?

Endpaper: In Retrospect

A Personal Journey

Appendix: Profiles of Teaching Competency

References

Index

About the Author