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A Consultant's Notebook December
11, 2008 Wanted: Quality Teaching by Quality Teachers 7:30 a.m.: The wind whips through the side entrance door of the Northeastern high
school as red and beige clad students line up to pass through the metal detector on their way to their first class. I slip
past them, zig-zagging through clusters of boys and girls on my way to the room of the first teacher I
will work with today. As the bell rings, the teacher
asks one of the four students in attendance to read the handout, a sample of a problem-solution essay. In a barely audible
voice, the student reads as two other students chat and one puts his head down, seemingly exhausted. When the student finally finishes, the teacher asks the class to answer the questions
at the end of the essay--all questions about the problem-solution text structure. After waiting a few minutes, I walk the
room, peering over shoulders to read answers. Wrong--all wrong! But no wonder. The concepts weren't frontloaded, how to critically
read text to determine the author's purpose wasn't modeled, and the teacher didn't scaffold her instruction. After my initial assessment
of the help the teacher needed, my role today was to model these skills for the teacher and to debrief with her at the end
of the lesson to set goals for future lessons. "I get it," she says as we end our day together. I know it will
take time, but with support, she will "get it," and the students will benefit. At the end of the day, as I push open the heavy side entrance doors to leave, the wind
catches my hair and white flakes hit my face. It's colder than this morning, but inside I am warm and content--I have reached
another teacher.
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