What do you think of the findings Bill Gates is presenting at 11:16 in this video regarding teaching?

I freaking love Bill Gates. Incredible man.

Very interesting. Public education could really use some good teachers.

It is interesting, it is true and it would be nice. But it cannot work in practice. It is like saying “if we don’t spend anything on weapons for a year we could afford to build 100,000 hospitals”. Statistically it is true, but in reality things don’t work like that.

The “best” teachers are best within the specific group, for a variety of reasons that can not be reproduced. Maybe they are talented or intelligent, and you can’t force everyone to be like that. What you can try is to make the not-so-good ones better, or replace them with better ones. The average performance will then rise, but only slightly. And it will take years to see the results.

The rest is just wishful thinking.

It seems to me that some of the “best” might not get the chance to be so because of the current structure though.

Also, I don’t believe that the success of the “best” cannot be reproduced. I think it depends on a great many variables as to the success you will have and you may have to adapt depending on the circumstance but I think it is a more logical system and place to start give what the data shows.

sorry, my sentence was wrong. I should have said “a variety of reasons, some of which cannot be reproduced”. Of course you can make teachers better. What I mean is that it takes time and resources, and cannot just happen overnight.

Oh, I totally agree. You have that right.

One of my best friends is truly creative; he is doing things with second graders in a NYC public school that stimulate me. But he is drowning in increasingly complicated paper work, more bureaucratic demands, and parents who feel that their kids are entitled to special treatment and no structure..

Now he just learned that next year his classroom goes from 28 students to 32. Even with an assistant, he will be further stretched.

That is something that I wasn’t addressed in Bill’s speech but is a problem in some areas. Teachers are not substitutes for parents. We need to help. We need to invest ourselves in our child’s education.