That’s a quote from Geoffrey Canada. He also says that some teachers can’t teach.
Yes. And. Yes.
Here’s the video where he says those things. It kept stalling for me, I hope it works better for you :)
If you allow excuses in this business you will fail
Comments
2 responses to “If you allow excuses in this business you will fail”
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Thank you so much for posting this! I’ll be stealing it!
Though i do believe that some teachers can’t teach, I think that teachers who are failing do have the ability to teach and need to learn to do so. Sometimes it’s just one or two major things, like classroom management, that keep them from moving from okay to great.
With the pool of teachers here in NYC, it’s impossible to simply fire teachers who are bad and move good ones in. It just won’t happen. These schools would be better off keeping teachers – especially new ones – and having them trained by those veterans who know what they’re doing. After that, it’s just about retention. How to do that, I have no idea. The principals have so much pressure to produce results and are judged on them. Food for thought.
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@Topher, Steal away!
“I think that teachers who are failing do have the ability to teach and need to learn to do so. Sometimes it’s just one or two major things, like classroom management, that keep them from moving from okay to great.”
This is great. Professional development so often (ok, just about always) focuses on the newest fad in teaching. PD needs to go back to basics and I think that developing a mentoring system is a wonderful way to do that.
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