But, I think teaching skills, juuuust like any other skills can be taught and improved. So if we want good teachers and educators we need to build them up, not just relie on a few good ones to carry the day.
I personally reject the notion of competency in this as a matter of "giftedness", as something you either have or don't have. I think it's something you cam build. It's something you can teach. But you need to specifically aim for it.
…yes, but it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here.
> No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence
What are you talking about? Students are extremely invested in whether their teachers have attained objective competence. If all teachers suck equally, that is very bad for me as a student. If I'm rich, my parents can probably hire me tutors or take me to a private school. If I'm naturally talented, I can teach myself. Otherwise, I'm totally screwed.
So, yes, objective competence matters. It's extremely silly to pretend otherwise.
I doubt you can pull this off unless you’re willing (and able) to fire at least 25% of teachers who appear not willing (and under strong unions cannot be required) to outperform the current 90th percentile teacher.
There are great teachers; there are also entirely lazy/entitled teachers who will never willingly be at the performance of the current top 10%.
Yes? I don't understand what you're trying to argue here. Rising standards does shift expectations. But this all sounds good. So I really don't understand what you're trying to get at.
> if you believe that teacher performance is at all linked to student performance, then improving student test scores ought to draw from teachers getting better too, but that's not good enough
There are several confounding factors. It might be that teachers getting better led to better students, it might be that universal access to information led to better students. I think you're overreaching with the claim that if students get better, it means instructors got better. But, sure, let's imagine I agree. So? I am of the belief that there is a ton of room for improvement.
I think that your post stems from the belief of 2 things. That education is zero sum. And that education has a filtering function not a quality improvement function. Both of which, I deeply deeply disagree with.
I do agree in the abstract that the "human social ranking" will be just as stratified as today. But that does not preclude many many classes of improvements.
Again, sorry if I am reading too much into your position, but I feel as if you run on a set of assumption here that you expect I share with you and that to me, feel alien.
If the really gifted are documenting their lessons and publishing the framework other really good teachers can pickup where they left off.
Having those curriculums in a standard format would go a long way to making components interchangeable and remixable.
Obviously, this starts mattering with more advanced education — not sure I can offer good insight for early education though :)
But I believe your point is great — we usually focus on average vs non-average student, and you are absolutely right that we need to focus on an average teacher just the same: what is the most effective way for a possibly non-motivated, less capable teacher to provide instruction with?
you either struggle to pay the bills and teach -- a thankless job, often -- or you take those gifts and double your pay working in industry.