Blog Posts

school yourself

7/14/2016

The Biggest Obstacle Isn't a Reality: It's a Dream
Here's the old model, the time-tested, incredibly persistent concept of "school:"

The teacher teaches the student.

It's simple, easy to understand, and has the ring of truth. We say things like "he taught me so much!" or "I learned so much from her." The teacher is a vending machine, a talking textbook, a knowledge dispenser. We keep the wisdom and dole it out.

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

As a teacher, I can tell you: this model works-- less than half of the time. The days it works are sublime: you lecture, digress, and expound. Your students sit in the glow of your brilliance, they eat it up, light bulbs go on, and the music of instruction plays like a street fiddler in the square. You make the magic.

But when that ain't working for you, when the students are bored, lost, or detached-- these are awful teacher moments. Your students loll in the harsh light of your artificial sun, they list in their seats, darkness pervades, and the clatter of the lecture plays like a rusty chain on the pavement.

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

The Great Teacher Fantasy
Often, teachers of teachers claim to want to debunk this model. The better part of professional development that I have seen in the last 10 years as a teacher seems to be grounded in the idea that the teacher should not be the "Sage On the Stage." But I don't believe we actually want to debunk this at all. When we talk about a great teacher, we often talk about this brilliant genius around whom the classroom orbits.

This old model IS the problem, of course. We love the fantasy that teaching is simply imparting wisdom. The best teachers are ones whose kids learn the most from him, we think.

We live in a "Guru culture." To be a "great teacher," you just have to be a respected resource of knowledge or skills. Anyone can teach, we think, as long as a person has content mastery. Are you a great chef? Then you can teach cooking. Are you a professional baseball player? You'd be a great coach. Are you a great surgeon? You'd be a great science teacher. We've even created our computer models around it. Data is "downloaded" from an original source. It's "copied." Knowledge is not mastered-- it's copied and pasted.

The ramifications are enormous. We have come to think of teachers as simply "info and skill distributers." Our whole student testing and teacher evaluation model is based on this presumption. Our cultural conversation about teaching isn't based on teaching; it's based on a fantasy of teaching.

What Teachers Actually Do
Student teaches herself. Teacher teaches student to teach herself.

Our fantasies about being a great teacher hide what great teachers do. Great teachers don't teach anything; they teach learning. First time parents have no teachers. Nobody could teach Mick Jagger how to sing, Warren Buffet how to invest, Oprah Winfrey how to produce, Michael Phelps how to swim, or you how to do whatever it is YOU are good at. Of course, teachers helped Mick and Warren and Oprah and the rest-- but no one taught them-- at least, not in the traditional sense. They taught themselves. Their mentors/teachers taught them (and you) not WHAT to do but, rather, HOW to do it. As have all the great teachers in your life.

Heck, you taught yourself language. How to walk. Do you ever think about how your brain must worked for that to have happened? For it to happen to everyone, everywhere, in every culture around the world? Great teachers know that students HAVE to teach themselves.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

The fantasy model needs a real challenge, especially as our cultural and political conversations about good teaching begin to gain more and more traction. How can we attract great teachers when we don't even talk about what a great teacher does?

When on the job, the best teachers are barely there. They elegantly and efficiently drop in and out of the learning process. Doing this is complicated and requires extraordinary awareness. It's a profession that is all about "how," not "what."

Great teachers aren't vending machines. They are catalysts, context makers, inspirers, models, and value multipliers.

It's why I say teaching is like entrepreneurship: it's about engaging others in answering a question or solving a problem. It's why it's the most important profession in the world. Teachers impact every market and every other profession. How we think about teachers impacts everything.

This is not a moral argument. It's an economic one.

This article originally appeared in iBlogAmerica on January 20, 2013. Mike Kleba has revised and reprinted his article here.

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You're just hydrating

3/6/2016

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TIP: you can hide so much water in a gin bottle

Hello from SXSWedu2016 in Austin. Everyone calls this the best education conference in the country and yet my crystal ball mostly predicts tacos, beer, and bbq.

I'm here with my good friend Josh Timlin and we're looking for seminars that don't suck. You too?

I'll be posting some of the sessions we'll be attending for the next week-- stuff that looks sexy and yet, sexy, too. And, by that, I mean, "good." I expect it to be a target rich environment.

In the meantime, you looking for a good time?
Try "Unsanctioned Professional Development," our session on Tues 11am at the Hilton, Salon A.

This hilarious commercial will tell you everything about dope teachers doing dope sh*t. Just like Kanye, only as public school teachers who eat school lunch.

Here's the pitch:
Lots of professional development turns teachers off: it’s boring, management-centered, and transactional. It's "paint by numbers" learning, where teachers attend most seminars and meetings because they are required to.

The problem? Teachers, fatigued by "proving" they are learning, lose interest in their own professional development. But most teachers actually want to learn and grow as professionals. Educators must also evolve and to hone their craft in this ever-changing landscape, but how? Join two teachers discussing UPD, a tool kit of techniques that puts teacher curiosity at the center of a teacher's growth. UPD helps equip (& energize) teachers to learn what they want, how they want.

See you on Tuesday and everywhere before and after.
And now? Pork in some form.

Let's get out there and change the world.
@mikekleba

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Was Your Teacher a Fashion Icon?

7/14/2015

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Yesterday, the cozy village of Manhattan witnessed the opening of the first ever New York Men's Fashion Week.

In an age of style-savvy rappers, red-carpet-swagged celebs, and bespoke-suited NBA stars, how is it possible that 2015 is the first year for NYMFW?

Even the men running for president are getting checked for freshness. So how is this first time for Fashion Week to go Dude?

More importantly, what the hell does this have to do with teachers or education?

Tyson Beckford attends the 2015 amfAR Inspiration Gala New York at Spring Studios on June 16, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

like teachers,
designers help others develop a point of view

See the World; See Yourself
Everyone has a style. Each of us has a wardrobe, no matter how casually curated. Even your most fashion-careless friend has a collection.

We all have a point of view.

And while very few of us ever attend a fashion show (let alone fashion week in New York City), we all witness the parade of style around us every day. Again, the most fashionably-tragic people have a sense of this. I know you're probably thinking about your dad, who cynically asserts that he wears the same khakis at least 3 times a week. The man cares about fashion: he just cares about not caring.

And that's the deal. Creating your style is personal. It takes time, experience, and relationships. And, to develop it, you need mentors.

Now take a fashion show like NYMFW. To be clear, a fashion show is a business convention at its very core. This is New York, baby. It's an arena for scrappers, innovators, and startups.

But fashion shows are more than a market place-they serve to direct and instruct. Fashion shows reflect and articulate cultural tastes; designers start trends,
shape trends, and cultivate trends.

Like educators, designers help others create and articulate a point of view.

Many fashion brands are named after people for a reason. In a world where stadiums, stores, and skyscrapers
are named after companies, this is worth noting. The fashion industry knows the power of a personal connection. We want to model ourselves after people we admire.

Teachers know this, too. You can remember the style of your favorite teachers-- whether it was way they dressed, talked, or thought about things. Damn, they were cool, right? They didn't teach you WHAT to think; they taught you HOW to think. The point: we need someone else's point of view to develop our own.

And that's why Fashion Week is also Teacher Week. It's all just teachers and students, son. And, speaking of school...

Public School, you can make it easy for yourself and just tweet my VIP pass to your show to @mikekleba. I mean, we should be hanging anyway, you know what I'm saying? #educatorsunite

Public School designers Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow

We need to know someone
else's style
to develop our
own style

photo credits:
-Albert Einstein, courtesy of Mental Floss. http://www.businessinsider.com/biography-of-albert-einstein-2013-1
-Public School, photo by Public School

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Teachers are Fast Companies

4/10/2015

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Teaching science isn’t just a science. It’s an art.

Everybody knows that science and science education are hot these days. The Oscars (and tons of ticket buying audience members) loved this year's nerdpics The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game. Whether it’s on TV (with PBS's Neil deGrasse Tyson or AMC's Breaking Bad) or on YouTube (with Bozeman Science or AsapSCIENCE), science is dope. Science sells-- and the audience is growing.

Like with a startup in any market, whether it be a taco truck or a new app, being hot can turn into success fast- especially in schools. Teachers who know how to gather, focus, and replicate this kind of interest can build a program that can last for years. It's entrepreneurship at its most fundamental.

This is no small feat in a culture always looking to save money by cutting programming in schools. I often read how difficult it is to launch a winning company.

Try launching a winning (and challenging) program in a school. Especially in the field of science.

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

“Well, we started the year with some kids assuming leadership positions. But they didn’t stay in them,” Steve Peroni tells me. “The students who worked the hardest took over. Which is how it should be. I named a new captain for the national competition the day after we won regionals.”

Peroni, along with Sara LeMar, coaches North Shore High School’s Robotics Team, located on the coast of Long Island, NY. A couple of weeks ago, their team, RoboGym, won the county regional title. It's a first-time championship for a team in only its fourth year in operation.

“A lot of kids want to be involved in Robotics, especially now that the team is having some success. I tell them that nothing matters more than being here and doing the work,” says Peroni, sounding a lot like anybody running a hot new startup.

Peroni and LeMar have one of the toughest jobs in a high school: teaching Physics. Physics isn’t hard to teach because the work is empirically more difficult: it’s harder because it flies against a cultural tide of habits. We want things fast and we want it simple—physics is rarely these things. Physics requires time and repetition to comprehend and employ fundamentals, similar to learning to play the piano or to be a great swimmer. It's not for those who dabble.

Make no mistake: students hunger for these sorts of challenges. It’s just that our culture typically swings toward behavior with a faster payoff.

So, when science gets hot, teachers like Peroni and LeMar jump to capitalize- this time with an after school program. These teachers’ battle lines are the same as those held by any who run a company. It takes leadership, hard work, a propensity for risk, and the desire for big payoff. You have to know your market, develop your team, leverage resources, and struggle through challenges. Running a business is a science, sure. But, like teaching, it's also an art.

If student interest were measured in investment dollars, RoboGym would be a venture capitalist's dream. Watching Peroni, LeMar, and their team, first place medals around their necks, swaggering down the hallway, you don’t just see a program led by kickass teachers.

You see a company led by kickass entrepreneurs.

images from
Focus Features, The Theory of Everything

http://www.murraymitchell.com/2013/01/breaking-bad-split-face-poster/

http://www.northshoreschools.org/15April/hs-robotics-win/index.html

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

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surf school

3/3/2015

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it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

Surf school starts in the sand.

To be clear: it starts when you hump your 35lb board over half a sandy mile from the surf shop to the surf line. I’m not saying that the board was heavy—it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs and, let’s be honest: I’m determined to sound very cool while I describe my first time surfing—but I am saying that the sand was hot.

Crazy hot. Cook an egg hot. Motorcycle muffler hot. Erase all creases in your feet and leave your footprints untraceable by the FBI hot.

“I pray thee, good Mercutio the day is hot” hot.

So, yes: surf school starts in the sand. And, after schlepping my board across the blazing beach in Salyulita, a Mexican town north of Puerto Vallarta, I am ready to be in the water. But first: a tutorial-- in the cool sand, thankfully under the shade of a gathering of palms in the midafternoon sun.

“Put your whole body on the board—just lay down and let your feet hang off the back,” Gary from France tells us. “Feel the board with your body.” He’s the fit, charming instructor who gets immediately down to business, his accent both softening his direct orders while also completely melting girls in our group and, Jesus, me, too. “You’re too far forward,” chirps Dana, our other instructor, a super fox from the Czech Republic who calls a spade a spade. With their deeply bronze tans, white flashing smiles, and ripped physiques, our instructors had us mesmerized. We hung onto every word (why are surfers such hotties? Because they work their bods, I learn later, my whole sore body barking angrily at me during margarita medication time at dinner).

In the dappled shade, we stretch, boards beneath us, practicing our strokes. We are told to pop up on both feet and to be aware of how being too far back on the board will apply the brakes while being too far forward will bury the nose. We get safety tips: Dana tells us to keep the board between us and the beach. Gary warns us to keep the tether from our ankle to the board clear of our other foot. “You don’t want to be under a wave with your legs tied together.” Sounds like good advice.

And, in about 7 minutes, our instruction on land is over.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf—and, the newbs that we are, simply walk behind them. And, within 15 minutes, everyone has gotten up and surfed at least one wave. The whole lesson took fewer than 25 minutes. Announcement: I am a surfer now. A surfer who surfs.

And that’s what I call good game.

These surfing instructors put on a teaching clinic that morning. It was goal oriented, student centered, and teacher led. It had authentic assessment, practical applications, and demanded performance from every pupil.

They didn’t overdo the help because they didn’t offer much. Or, at least, not much help that impeded our own process. Sarah and Molly, for instance, just wanted to do it their own way. Chris had some questions about fine points. Scott wanted to jump straight to pulling off 360s. The point is: the teachers weren’t interested in doing anything other than help each of us in the way we needed to be helped.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

Gary and Dana anticipated our questions but left room for our own discovery. They promised us nothing but believed in our reasonable ability to do anything we tried. They seemed utterly unattached to our respective failures but were the first to yell “you look beautiful up there!” or “lean into it, you’re killing it!”

Our surf instructors were great teachers for the most important reason: they didn’t see us as students.

They saw us as surfers.

And we, seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of our beautiful teachers, believed them.

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MAKE SENSE OF WHAT'S HAPPENING

1/3/2015

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HEY, MUST BE THE MONEY

12/30/2014

1 Comment

Have you seen the ExxonMobil commercials about teachers? The adverts remind us that on standardized math and science tests, students in the US are faring poorly against those from other countries.

In response, ExxonMobil has created its own Teacher Academy, fronted by professional golfer Phil Mickelson. Yup, it's a science and math teacher's academy, run by an oil company and named for a golfer.

You do the math.

THE NEW OIL: GREAT TEACHING
Times are changing in education. Those who work in educational policy-- including some of my good friends-- are deeply involved in the political question about WHO should pay for what. It's an incredibly important and vital question. But I contend we keep skipping the question of WHERE the money should go.

The key to better schools and better education is attracting and maintaining great teachers.

Exxon’s point appears to be that we mostly need better training for teachers. They're putting some money into doing it, too, which is commendable, even if you don't like rockstar golfers. But is it how we improve schools?

I have a lot of experience in teacher training: I've been through graduate programs, seminars, professional development, staff meetings... I've seen what people are doing to train us. It is not good. Every once in a while, you actually learn something in PD. But most of the time, it is dismal parody of itself. It's bad teaching about good teaching. It'd be funny it weren't so bloody sad or frustrating.

WHERE ARE THE GREAT TEACHERS?
ExxonMobil, along with the US Dept of Ed and countless teacher colleges want to know: how can you train a person into being a GREAT teacher?

My answer is simple: unless the training is amazing, you can’t. And, frankly, most training sucks.

Yes, you can help a lousy teacher become less lousy. With a lot of work and a great culture, you can take a decent teacher and make them pretty good, certainly. Training IS important-- it's simply not AS important as attracting and keeping talent.

You want people like LeBron James or Phil Mickelson on your team? A workshop once a year is not the ticket.

The notion that anyone can be trained into being a good teacher is a distraction from the ugliest open secret in education: we aren't attracting the best people for the job.

great teachers are any nation's most valuable natural resource.

most teacher training is a parody of itself:
bad teaching
about
good teaching.

WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE TALENTED TEACHERS?

MAKING MONEY DOING SOMETHING ELSE.

So, where are all of the talented teachers?

Well, some of them are in the classrooms where we need them, thankfully.

But there are many more who aren’t teachers by trade. They have taken their talents to other professions. Hell, some of them are in probably in advertising, coming up with stuff like this for ExxonMobil. They’re making money doing something else.

The bottom line is: we don’t have a skill problem. We have a talent problem. Exxon Mobil, I'm glad you want to help out teachers. You guys over at your company know how to attract talent, right?

You have to pay for it. It's not a training problem. Talent is a salary problem.

Oh, and the Emperor is naked. Again.

Click here to learn more about The Mickelson ExxonMobil Teacher Academy.

Photo credits:
-Mickelson ExxonMobile, NYSE. July 26, 2013.
-Toy Cars at the Met, Aug 2014. Mike Kleba.
-LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers shoots a free throw during the game against the Indiana Pacers at Cintas Center on October 15, 2014 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Joe Robbins—Getty Images.

1 Comment

Mad men meets preschool

4/24/2014

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Teachers need Don Draper.

Lost in the hot debate about whether or not preschool helps kids later in life are data-supported findings about the value of great teaching.

A 2013 study of early childhood education, funded by the Foundation for Child Development, has produced “too much evidence to ignore,” according to the non-profit, nonpartisan New America Foundation.

As a part of that research, psychology professor Deborah Phillips, of Georgetown University, found that her seven month study of early childhood education programs in Tulsa, OK exposed what a “model for the whole country” could look like in education.

Phillips, highlighted in an article on NPR, identifies a handful of factors that lead to a successful preschool. The formula is simple:

1.     A well funded program
2.     A low teacher-student ratio
3.     Qualified, supported, and well paid teachers

“The role of the teacher in all of this, researchers say, is the foundation of a high-quality preschool program,” says NPR.

It’s not a moral problem.
It’s a public relations problem.

People will pay for what they want, whether it’s alcohol, gasoline, cellphone service, or dinner. The political debates about education are simply distracting.

Education needs to do a better job selling the most important fact in improving and sustaining education: a great teacher costs money.

And like dental work, the roof of your house, or great seats to an amazing concert, she is worth it.

For more on the NPR article or the study conducted by the Foundation for Child Development, see:
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/22/305692733/for-early-childhood-education-tulsa-okla-stands-out
http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Evidence%20Base%20on%20Preschool%20Education%20FINAL.pdf
further info for this hilariously short article was found at
http://newamerica.net/events/2013/too_much_evidence_to_ignore

Image used without permission. As soon as I start making money, I'll take it down. I swear.

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The Biggest and Quietest Movement in Education

4/12/2014

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"Behold Alex's Cold Smoking Contraption" from HarmoniousHomestead.

"DIY" is really "TIY"
So I want to hardwire a lamp in the bathroom. You know, like a real man. My plan of attack? Youtube.

You see, my dad didn’t show me how to hardwire anything. Sure, he taught me how to put Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage in a bowl spaghetti. He taught me that five Coors Lights is better than three. He taught me that winning isn’t everything—but that it beats the hell out of losing.

But hardwiring a lamp? No. So, back to youtube. Or, if you prefer, what I call the "TIY movement." A movement so big, I guarantee you are a part of it and don't even know it.

#TIY Strong

Ask just about anyone under the age of 40 how to figure out how to change a showerhead, learn a guitar lick of a Rolling Stone song, or how to put filling inside a cupcake, and they’ll tell you to look it up on line.

We call it DIY- Do It Yourself. It’s an empowering idea, one that is about self reliance. It's also a bit punk rock-- "do it yourself" means "you can make it yours." An enormous swath of the internet is dedicated to people showing other people how to do it yourself. I think it’s biggest, least talked about movement in education today.

And it’s got the wrong name.

We should call it “Teach It Yourself.” It’s more fundamental than simply Do It Yourself: You have to teach it to yourself to do it yourself. And that is what so many of us do when we need to do something we don’t know how to do. It’s what I am going to do when I install this f#@$ing light in my bathroom.

It's time for us to have a much better conversation about why DIY (sorry, TIY) is the best example of the “state of the art” of Education today.

The best of "DIY" is really just great teaching.

Fishtail buns and advent calendars from OhtheLovelyThings.com

Instructions Make the Teacher

If there’s something teachers notice about the ubiquitous TIY instructions out there it's how good (or bad) the instructions are. Because great think about instructions all the time- because great instructions allow people to teach themselves.

Anyone who has used an easy to follow instructional video or read a great manual (think workout plans or cookbooks), knows that these instructions can be great teachers, too. Great-instruction-givers allow us to invest in ourselves. It's schooling at it's most distilled: education improves us.

The best of DIY is really just great teaching. And, with the internet, its reach across age, gender, economic and social class, and geography barriers make DIY instructions the most powerful force in Education today.

Want to do what great teachers do? Study what makes instructions easy to follow, efficient, inspiring, and delightful. Look at the wide range of instructions available online and in books. See how directions are put together, how words and images can be used to model and guide. Now that's teacher training I could get behind. Great instructions are encoded teaching.

For my teacher friends and teacher advocates out there: instructions cannot REPLACE teachers, of course. Great instructions are the products and tools of great teaching. And great teaching is teaching other people to teach themselves.

Now, the way to CREATE and DEVELOP good instructions is much more complicated, certainly. For one, it's about knowing and connecting with your audience (students). But getting into that right now will keep me from a delicious meal of breakfast sausage spaghetti washed down with a raft of Coors Lights.

Just the kind of preparation I need to hardwire a lamp.

Images from and thanks to
the awesome blog http://harmonioushomestead.com/2013/08/07/homemade-cold-smoker/
and the fun site http://www.ohthelovelythings.com/2011/12/happy-friday-4-diy-projects.html

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What's a coach worth?

4/6/2014

1 Comment

A great coach can change everything.

A lot of attention has been paid to college sports in the last month. March Madness had people around the country filling out brackets. A court ruling on the potential unionizing of college athletes led by a group of students at Northwestern also got a lot of buzz.

But I couldn't take my ears off of a conversation on a radio call in show here in New York on station WNYC. "The Brian Lehrer Show" brings in all kinds of guests and puts them on the phone with people listening in their cars and at home and work. Like many shows like it around the country, this call in program is more of a community service than straight entertainment programming. I think Lehrer does a hell of a job.

Anyway, he did a segment on "Coaching" that got me thinking about Teachernomics.

Lehrer asked people to call in about great coaches they had and the responses were telling. We heard folks talking about track coaches, soccer, trumpet, baseball coaches... even life coaches. Nearly everyone who called in told the story of someone from her past who gave never-diminishing advice. Aside from the wise words of a mentor, what other kind of work doesn't diminish or lose its value over time? Invention? Art?

That's got to be the topic for another article.

What got me thinking about the value of a coach, however, had less to do with the lasting emotional/psychological impact on a player or more to do with the actual price tag. How much is a great coach worth, financially?

The answer, of course, depends. Little league coaches often get paid nothing or close to it. On the other hand, college football coaches of elite or enormous schools can get paid millions of dollars a year.

Both render incredible value to their teams. Some of those little league coaches (or middle school or high school coaches) will do the best coaching the players will get their whole lives. Some highly paid professional coaches will be the subject of great derision. Some coaches, no matter the level, will give advice and instruction that will be cherished for decades. Others will be forgotten.

What a coach gets paid will have almost no correlation with their effectiveness.

The point is: we have a huge problem figuring out how much coaches are worth, financially, despite the fact that their players can often easily estimate their impact value on them. Culturally, we don't know up from down on the value of good instruction. Remember that when you hear parties from unions to governments to parents to business talk about the cost of education.

What is the difference between a great coach and a bad coach? Depends on what you mean by "great." For must of us, it's an important personal question that weirdly has no bearing on financial ramifications.

What is the difference between a coach and a teacher? Nothing, of course.

Check out Brian Lehrer's awesome show here
http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-brian-lehrer-show-2014-03-18/

Image from WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show"

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NOBODY influences
LIKE A TEACHER

school yourself

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

You're just hydrating

Was Your Teacher a Fashion Icon?

like teachers,
designers help others develop a point of view

We need to know someone
else's style
to develop our
own style

Teachers are Fast Companies

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

surf school

it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

MAKE SENSE OF WHAT'S HAPPENING

HEY, MUST BE THE MONEY

great teachers are any nation's most valuable natural resource.

most teacher training is a parody of itself:
bad teaching
about
good teaching.

WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE TALENTED TEACHERS?

MAKING MONEY DOING SOMETHING ELSE.

Mad men meets preschool

It’s not a moral problem.
It’s a public relations problem.

The Biggest and Quietest Movement in Education

The best of "DIY" is really just great teaching.

What's a coach worth?

INNOVATOR FEED

Mike kleba

Archives

Categories

NOBODY influences LIKE A TEACHER

what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

Anyone can teach anything, we think. it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects; they teach learning.

it's true in every field: your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

like teachers, designers help others develop a point of view

We need to know someone else's style to develop our own style

BEING HOT CAN TURN INTO SUCCESS FAST IN SCHOOLS

TRY LAUNCHING A WINNING PROGRAM IN A SCHOOL

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.

They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

great teachers are any nation's most valuable natural resource.

most teacher training is a parody of itself: bad teaching about good teaching.

WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE TALENTED TEACHERS? MAKING MONEY DOING SOMETHING ELSE.

It’s not a moral problem. It’s a public relations problem.

The best of "DIY" is really just great teaching.

INNOVATOR FEED

Mike kleba

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NOBODY influences
LIKE A TEACHER

Anyone can teach anything, we think.
it's a simple transaction.

Great teachers don't teach subjects;
they teach learning.

it's true in every field:

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own.

like teachers,
designers help others develop a point of view

We need to know someone
else's style
to develop our
own style

IF STUDENT INTEREST WERE MEASURED in INVESTMENT DOLLARS, ROBOGYM WOULD BE
A VENTURE CAPITALIST'S DREAM

most teacher training is a parody of itself:
bad teaching
about
good teaching.

WHERE ARE THE REST OF THE TALENTED TEACHERS?

MAKING MONEY DOING SOMETHING ELSE.

It’s not a moral problem.
It’s a public relations problem.