TWENTY CLASSICAL TEACHING MISTAKES

  1. Guess What’s In My Mind. As a student this one drives me nuts. Recently I heard a renowned educational speaker break from his lecture by asking questions and actually taking answers from his audience. I liked the idea of asking us questions, only really what we were supposed to do was guess what was already in his mind. He asked us the three fears people had which kept them from succeeding at computers. The moment I heard him use the word "three" I knew he didn’t really want to hear our answers. I, myself, knew there were really four reasons, not three. More venturesome members of the audience played along and gave their own ideas. The speaker then deftly reinterpreted the responses into his three answers. He was playing "guess what’s on my mind." And when the audience didn’t guess too well -- he told us the three reasons.

  I consider this game dishonest. If you ask a question, you should care about the person’s answer. The best questions (unless it’s a review for a test) are those the speaker does not have a definitive answer to. If you find yourself asking others to guess what’s in your mind, I think the most obvious thing to do is to tell your audience to guess what’s in your mind or to give them the answer and move on.

  2. Poll Taking. Virtually every teacher I have observed makes this mistake frequently. They ask "does everyone understand?" or "can we go on?" or "do you remember that?" And three "smacks" who always nod their heads affirmatively nod their heads affirmatively and the teacher assumes these three speak for the entire class and continues. If you want accurate class feedback to an important question, you should take a quick, but accurate, person-by-person poll.

  3. Competing with self. This mistake is almost as ubiquitous as the previous two. Its most frequent manifestation is that the teacher has already passed out the worksheet and now s/he is trying to make some unrelated point to the entire class. A variation is passing materials throughout the class to see and touch while trying to lecture on said materials. A classic case I recently saw was a music teacher passing musical instruments around the class while trying to lecture on the different kinds of instruments. Don’t compete with yourself by trying to talk over something else you have caused the class to attend to. It just wastes energy and causes frustration.

  4. Arguing with kids. Don’t "argue" with kids. Especially in front of the class. I observed an English teacher pass out an article by the Encyclopedia Britannica. The article had five points and one precocious student complained about the arbitrariness of the article. The teacher got into a prolonged argument with the kid. On one level the teacher won the argument. The student acquiesced. But the other students watched with some frustration as the teacher "sank to their level." In private you can have honest discussions with students, but "arguments" in front of the class harm the integrity of the professional role. "Let’s talk about it after class" is a much safer out.

  5. Disciplining a student in front of peers. I have never had a student who was a discipline problem when confronted alone. I have never found a "safe" discipline problem when confronting a student in front of his/her peers. My rule is "divide and conquer." How I follow that rule usually is to ask a student to step outside so that we can discuss his issue privately as soon as the class is in a situation that will allow me to also step outside. Outside, I have always found students willing to be reasonable, even contrite. Inside, students have to play to their audience. Don’t put them in that predicament of being "cornered."

  6. Apologizing Don’t ever apologize. And I mean by that don’t ever make excuses in front of the class. "I forgot the worksheet." I couldn’t get the movie projector." "I wish I’d had more time for this." Regardless of your sincere intent, students hear you as being defensive about being ill prepared. And ill prepared means unprofessional. Brazen it out. The lesson may very well work anyway. Often your lessons with everything completely fail for whatever reason and you are stuck with the blame. Sometimes the lessons with missing components work for no explicable reason. So don’t apologize, justify, defend. No use making things even worse.

  7. No wait time after questions. I think every teacher makes this mistake every class. The research shows teachers almost never wait even three seconds when there is a pause after their question. The same research shows that even a three-second pause will yield better, more thoughtful student responses. But teachers just don’t wait. If there’s a pause, they answer the question themselves, or ask yet another question even less likely to generate a good answer. It’s okay to wait at least ten seconds so students learn you are serious about soliciting good answers.

  8. Not circulating throughout the class during seat work. I know why teachers don’t circulate much during seat work and why they don’t like to do so. Often teachers give students seat work so they can get a rest. And they often also don’t like the hassle of personally encountering students who aren’t doing the assignment, or aren’t doing it very well. But such reluctance to circulate is always short sighted. The student not doing the assignment while the teacher is buried at the teacher’s desk create discipline problems increasingly difficult to handle. The students who do the work wrong from the start take even more teacher time to straighten out. In sixty seconds you can monitor the entire class. Entering each student’s space tends to get them on task at least for the moment. And short friendly words, or clarification, or encouragement are often worth more than fifty minutes of directions to the whole class.

  9. Inappropriate expectations. Ironically the tendency is to overestimate what students can do and underestimate what they could do. High expectations tend to be correlated with high achievement. I am impressed that excellent teachers set high goals. But I am also impressed mainly of these same teachers try to start with students at too high a level. Students need to be successful early to reach high standards later.

  10. Attention reinforces negative behavior. This past summer my neighbor’s dog was locked up in a side yard while my young daughter swam. The dog tended to knock kids over. The dog managed to get out after we had gone into the house. He made a bee-line for the slightly open patio door only to bump harshly into the screen door. My mother-in-law, legitimately concerned about the longevity of her screen door, yelled at the dog and went outside to catch him. She managed to chase him, but not catch him, as he dashed about barking eagerly. Finally, my mother-in-law went back inside only to hear the dog rush once more eagerly into the screen door. Once again he got a similar reaction. My mother-in-law yelled and gave chase. Her intent in yelling and chasing was to sanction the dog’s behavior. By the time this scenario had happened the fourth time. It became apparent the dog loved the scolding and chase which had been meant to be negative reinforcement. Very often the class disturber gets the attention s/he seeks thus reinforcing rather than extinguishing the behavior. As much as possible, ignoring the negative behavior and reinforcing other constructive behaviors works more effectively.

  11. Teaching stuff you wouldn’t learn. One of my student teachers, who was struggling with a difficult class, was, among other things, trying to teach her tenth grade students reflexive pronouns. I have a Ph.D. from an accredited university and I have to look "reflexive pronouns" up to make sure I remember what they are. So should they be taught to tenth graders? I’m "reluctant" to teach material I never found sufficiently important to have ever learned.

  12. Writing test items that are easily written rather than measuring what was actually taught. Although I generally use essay tests. I recently wrote an hour’s worth of multiple choice items for a two-hour college final for an educational psychology course. We spent about 20 percent of our time on evaluation. But I had so much fun writing evaluation question (which turned out to be the easiest items for me to write) they ended up being 33 percent of my list of final questions. I reduced the worth of each of the evaluation questions to bring them more in line with the emphasis I had actually given them in class. One of the reasons I am so conscientious is in deference to the many inane and, to my mind, unfair tests I took in school that ironically led me to pursue a career in education.

  13. Ironclad point standards for grades. I recently had a student tell me she had missed an "A" by .5 of a point. Her "C" on the very first test of the term, followed by a "B: and then all "A"s had cost her an "A." The teacher lamented with her that she had missed an "A" by so little. That’s CRAP! The teacher decides what grade goes on the report card. Evaluation is an inexact science. The statistical concepts of true scores and of standard error of measure give us tools that allow us "confidence bands" instead of arbitrary distinctions like 70-C; 80-B; 90-A. Students deserve the benefits of serious doubts. One test that’s anomalous may reflect more about the test than the student. To tell a student they missed an "A" by .5 of a point is simply wrong. You can review their work and consider it "B" or "A" work, but it is absolutely wrong to blame the lower grade on a .5 of a point.

  14. Overcalling the name of a student you are worried about. I recently observed a truly exceptional P.E. class, but his near flawless teacher called one name, "Anthony," over half the times a student’s name was called. In my opinion this student’s behavior did not warrant over half the times the teacher sanctioned a student by calling his/her name. But if the self fulfilling prophecy becomes operative here and Anthony is much more likely to confirm the teacher’s expectation and actually misbehave. Just this past term I found myself calling on one particular student too often. I realized I had expected some "problems" from this student and had in fact invited rather than discouraged interruptions through my "preferential" treatment.

  15. Bias in grading tests with names on them. In my undergraduate days I saw a classmate in her freshman year get typified as an "A" student. From my freshman year to my senior year, I knew that she would get a higher grade in every class until Qualifying Exams at the end of the four-year period which would be the first exam graded anonymously. I felt vindicated when on this one anonymous test I received a higher grade. Given all our petty biases and prejudices about race, sex, religion, size, age, party affiliation, etc., I think it absolutely necessary to grade academic work anonymously.

  16. Taking things personally. One of the radical ideas is the old Postman and Weingarten’s book Teaching As A Subversive Activity was that teachers be required to teach outside their specialty. Such a practice would help alleviate the problem of taking things too personally. Teachers have a credential that proves they are highly invested in their subject matter. But by design the overwhelming majority of students will not share a similar interest. Kids intuitively know that school is not only for learning, but sorting and selection. Even most of the kids who "elected" to take music won’t go on to become musicians. So the career music teachers with a passion for his/her field will inevitably be frustrated by both cavalier and callous attitudes toward her/his specialty. Just remember- it aint’ personal. Invoke the serenity prayer: "God help me to change the things I can; accept the things I can’t; and have the wisdom to know the difference."

  17. Red INK. Who decided to use red ink? James Herndon know. It was Noman. Red ink is as indigenous to teaching as unreadable prescriptions to medical doctors. And like unreadable prescriptions, red ink is dangerous. All the research I’ve seen indicate students learn better with encouragement and that red ink is discouraging. I like a fellow teacher and neighbor’s bumper sticker: "Fine the good and praise it." I am indebted to Al Grommon, a former professor of mine, and former president of the National Teachers of English. He taught us to write positive comments in pencil so we could erase them if we found we’d been harsh instead of constructive.

  18. Threats. Many, if not most, books on discipline recommend making conditional statements to students. "If you don’t __________, then I’ll _______." Fill in the blanks. I’m troubled by that approach for two reasons. First, too many teachers learn to make the threat, but don’t follow through. Slow death. Second, as soon as you say, "if you don’t sit down, I’m going to send you to the principals," you’ve backed yourself up against a wall. Now you have to send the kid to the office or lose face. It’s a no-win situation. If the kid is crossing you, you should be real clear with the kid s/he’s crossing you. Those few times a kid passed my line, especially my first year of teaching, I strode sternly to my desk and opened the drawer abruptly. From my drawn desk drawer, I would send a kid to the library; another teacher (by precious arrangement and agreement), the counselor, or by referral to the Dean. ‘Twen’t no business but my own. With the good drama I had created I would still observe the student’s response and still decide how far the student had crossed line and what was fair on my part and what I wanted to do. Or as Teddy Roosevelt used to say, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." No threats.

  19. Asking, "Why are you doing this?" I am amazed how many teachers ask students, "Why are you doing that?" Haven’t teachers read Mad Magazine’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions? Why did you hit Sam? Why did you pass that note? What do you think you are doing? Dumb! I hit Sam because he has an ugly wart on his nose. I passed the note because I need a date now you can’t go. I’m trying to stay awake in class. Each answer may be true, so you can’t get the kid in further trouble. Deal with the behavior, not the why.

  20. Being perfect. I do a rather elaborate oral interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe’s "Telltale Heart." It’s quite popular with kids. My second year of teaching I was asked to do an encore performance after school. I said I would, but everyone needed to be on time. A few minutes past "on time," I locked my doors and started. After I had been started awhile, a student started banging on the door to be let in. I just read louder. Only he just knocked louder. By the end of the story it wasn’t clear who was louder, my reading or the beating of the hideous heart, or the pounding on the door. Exceedingly angry, I then threw open the door (quote the Raven, "nevermore") and gave an unmerciful tongue lashing the student. Humiliated him in front of others. Ironically it worked out best. I had made such a grievous error of judgment. I had a lot to be sorry for the next day regardless of how the student felt about how he’d acted toward me. Without expectations of any apology from him, I sincerely apologized for my behavior. It was the bridge necessary for him, too, as it turned out. I don’t encourage deliberate mistakes. But I’ve found accepting that I’ll make mistakes, and the consequent responsibility for them, to be invaluable in making contact with students. (But I’d sure hate to lose a pennat because I failed to hit the cut-off man.)Back to Teacher's Corner