Effective teachers have a gift for noticing what one researcher calls "withitness."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true

by robg • 18 years ago

57 66 18 years ago

dhimes• 18 years ago

“Mind you, that’s not great feedback...The perfect way to handle that moment would have been for the teacher to pause and pull out Venisha’s name card, point to the letter “V,” show her how different it is from “C,” and make the class sound out both letters."

Unless, of course, all the other kids start calling out their own names, then other words, and she does lose control of the class.

It's an excellent article. But the problem I've always had with the kind of analyses portrayed by the UVA team is that it's too easy to sit there and sound smart by making these kinds of criticisms. Similar criticisms could be made about the math teacher, whose style is more like mine was in the community college physics classes I taught, but I'll spare you, dear readers of this comment.

I think that it's better to think of teaching like trying to find the best-fit line through a cloud of scattered points. You can stand there and say, "the shortest distance to the next point is actually over here..." but completely miss the idea that if you are trying to maximize a long-term result, you may not want to draw your line in that particular direction.

jerf• 18 years ago

I remember being asked to "criticize" papers in college. These papers were always classics in the field, in many cases standing up for decades. It always made me uncomfortable, though I eventually settled into a rhythm of simply automatically and mindlessly "criticizing" that "they should have done more". Dress that up in three paragraphs and you're done.

And this is the same thing. Criticizing that somebody should have done more is a null criticism. What needs to happen in any environment where you have limited resources (limited pages the journal will publish, limited time with the children) is that if you're going to say somebody needed to do "more", you need to also criticize what should be removed to make room for this "more".

By that standard, I doubt this teacher could have done much better. There's a balance to reacting to the kids, but you also need to get through the curriculum, which ultimately is there for a reason. (Most of us would probably agree there's too much emphasis on curriculum today, but the solution is not to completely ignore it.) Reacting endlessly to the students comes with its own problems.

I should have been nailed for my formulaic criticisms. But then... students "criticizing" the top 0.01% of papers shouldn't be expected to produce useful results anyhow, any more than this criticism of the teacher does. There's only so many pages and so much time.

Tichy2• 18 years ago

I must admit the part about those people criticizing the videos really doesn't sit well with me. Do they assume there is one perfect way to teach? Are they working towards establishing the "fascist" school of perfect teaching, that all future teachers will have to rigidly adhere to?

Maybe pulling out the letter V would have distracted too much from the letter C, or whatever. I am afraid such people are just parasites to society, somehow they managed to tap into tax payer money and get paid for just sitting on their ass all day talking bullshit. Probably standing in front of a class directly they would be miserable failures. Sorry for sounding so harsh, but my spouse is a teacher, so I guess I am a little too emotionally involved...

pchristensen5• 18 years ago

They're trying to systematically determine what works and what doesn't. They've got to review a lot of different teachers in the same and different situations. A teacher who wants to do better would greatly benefit from specific, actionable recommendations. Creating tools that can be used for deliberate practice is useful work, especially if the results can be widely distributed.

mattmaroon12• 18 years ago

As usual, Gladwell is cherrypicking data to display something unrelated to reality. Let's look at the first QB picked since 1999.

2000: Chad Pennington, this year starting qb for the Jets, doing well.

2001: Michael Vick, who was one of the top few QBs in the league. Of course talent scouts can't predict animal cruelty.

2002: David Carr: Playing backup to Eli Manning. Started for 6 years until an injury sidelined him. Not a McNabb, but far from a Tim Couch

2003: Carson Palmer: 2 pro bowls with the Bungles.

2004: Eli Manning: Superbowl MVP

(here's where players are still too new to tell much about)

2005: Alex Smith: that one hasn't worked out yet and may never.

2006: Vince Young: Promising backup on the Titans.

2007: JaMarcus Russell: Starting for the Raiders

2008: Starting for the Falcons.

Either way, in any non-Gladwellian universe, I'd say college QB scouts are doing pretty well.

twampss3• 18 years ago

Bungles. I see what you did there... ;)

mattmaroon12• 18 years ago

I'm from Browns territory, sorry.

utnick3• 18 years ago

A better test of if QB scouts are doing well is if the #1 QB pick turns out to be the best QB in the draft.

In most of those years you listed, there was a better qb left on the table after the first qb pick.

breily2• 18 years ago

Out of the 9 years listed it really only happened 3 times that a better QB was left - 2000 (Tom Brady), 2002 (David Garrard - debatable, but he's starting and Carr isn't), and 2005 (Aaron Rodgers). So 6 times out of 9 the best one was taken first - that seems pretty good.

If you go back even further I'd imagine this trend would continue - even Gladwell's main example (Ryan Leaf) was taken second to the best QB playing today (Manning).

robg8• 18 years ago

Hmmm, who's cherrypicking data? ;)

2000: Chad Pennington, Pick 18, Career Rating: 89.7; Marc Bulger, pick 168, Career Rating: 85.7, Tom Brady, Pick 199, Career Rating: 92.9

2001: Mike Vick, Pick 1, Career Rating: 75.7; Drew Brees, Pick 32, Career Rating: 89.1

2002: David Carr, Pick 1, Career Rating: 74.6; David Garrard, Pick 108, Career Rating: 85.4

2003: Carson Palmer, Pick 1, Career Rating: 88.9; Tony Romo, undrafted, Career Rating: 96.6

2004: Eli Manning, Pick 1, Career Rating: 76.4; Big Ben, Pick 11, Career Rating: 89.9; JP Losman, Pick 22, Career Rating: 76.9

2005: Alex Smith - Noted; Aaron Rodgers, Pick 24, Career Rating, 89.8; Jason Campbell, Pick 25, Career Rating: 80.5; Matt Cassell, Pick 230, Career Rating 84.2

2006: Vince Young, Pick 3, Career Rating: 68.6; Jay Cutler, Pick 11, Career Rating: 88.6

2007: JaMarcus Russell, Pick 1, Career Rating: 67.5 - uhhh, "top" QB

2008: Matt Ryan, Pick 3, Career Rating: 92.0 - very good - so far

So, of the last nine years, the top QB taken has turned out to be the best QB of that year, maybe once. Russell just isn't good. He won't be starting for long. And Ryan, it's too soon to really tell. Meanwhile, QBs taken, sometimes very, later have often been as good, if not better, than the top QB's in 6 of the last nine drafts you cite. There are just as many guys like Brady, Bulger, Garrard, Romo, and Cassell (picked well behind "names") as there are top picks that have panned out.

EDIT: Forgot Romo.

lief79• 18 years ago

You might as well add Flacco to 2008 too. He's doing fairly well starting with the Ravens.

-- Delaware alumni

mattmaroon12• 18 years ago

I didn't cherrypick, I simply pointed out that the QBs scouts rate the best generally perform very well. Every now and then a Tom Brady or Kurt Warner sneaks up out of nowhere, but for the most part almost every starting QB was first round drafted and often first overall.

Also, don't confuse best passer rating for best quarterback. All sorts of things factor into the QB's passer rating, such as the quality of his receivers and offensive line, his team's style, etc. Those numbers aren't very meaningful.

Nobody would ever suggest that scouts could get it perfectly, or near perfectly, in order, but they do a pretty fantastic job. You can cherrypick data to show a few black swans, but for the most part they're highly accurate.

lacker3• 18 years ago

You are cherrypicking even worse. Just because the highest rated QB was not the top QB does not mean the top pick is not the best. You should at least consider all the terrible quarterbacks picked in the later rounds.

Plus, the top pick always goes to the worst team in the league the previous year. I am more impressed that Carson Palmer has managed an 88.9 rating with the Bengals than I am than that Big Ben has managed an 89.9 with the Steelers.

thomasmallen• 18 years ago

Gotta correct you on Young. He was a promising starter who many, including myself, thought could make the Pro Bowl very soon (especially if he played with wide receivers). Then he became a head case and lost his job to a mediocre Kerry Collins.

Also, I think you should include the second and third quarterbacks taken to round out your stats...that might be interesting, with stars like Ryan Leaf :^)

fallentimes• 18 years ago

What's also interesting is how having the top pick cripples the drafting team due to the ridiculous salaries given to unproven talent. If I had the top pick, I'd trade it every time. 50/50 chance isn't good enough for allocating 8 figure salaries. The NFL needs a rookie scale like basketball.

dpapathanasiou5• 18 years ago

While I'm not a fan of Gladwell's analysis (I agree that he has a tendency to pick data that supports his point, while ignoring evidence that contradicts it), I did like the message of this piece.

I.e., we should let more people try their hand at teaching, with the idea that most will probably not be good at it.

This assumes, of course, that none of the failures are allowed to be tenured, and that teaching can be made an attractive career choice.

newt03113• 18 years ago

Currently the biggest opponents of performance testing of teachers is the teachers union. Good luck getting rid of them.

dpapathanasiou5• 18 years ago

True, it's not likely to happen, given that the union is both politically powerful and responsible for the way things are now.

It would be a worthwhile thing to try, though.

AlexeyMK• 18 years ago

What about variability and stride? A teacher's performance is likely to vary daily, as well between years. How do we know, rejecting a mediocre teacher, that she wouldn't have blossomed into a superstar? How do we know that the trigonometry teacher won't become cynical with age?

The second problem can be solved by gathering data every few years, but what about the first?

eli_s• 18 years ago

I am a high school teacher and I whole heartedly agree with the sentiment expressed in this article. I don't know anything about NFL so I don't know if the comparisons are accurate, however the observations about good teaching are spot on.

There is no denying that those studying under a good teacher learn more than those studying under a poor/average teacher. There has been a lot said about "withitness" in the literature over the years and it is a quality that one either has or doesn't have.

There are lots of conclusions you can draw from observing teachers and it's quite awe inspiring to see a truly excellent teacher do their job.

@Tichy: Nothing in this article had anything to do with 'establishing the "fascist" school of perfect teaching, that all future teachers will have to rigidly adhere to'. The good teacher qualities that were mentioned included questioning, providing direct responses to student questions and treating learning as a team effort (teacher and student learning together). These are qualities that every good teacher exhibits and all poor teachers struggle with.

newt03113• 18 years ago

Interesting article but I wish the author would be a little more concise. Rambling on about football picks when the topic was teaching was a bit annoying even though he tried to tie the two together.

pchristensen5• 18 years ago

The topic was inability to measure and rate people for a given profession. The recent (and ongoing) discussion about why great programmers don't get paid more is equally relevant. It's about information asymmetry which prevents efficient allocation of resources. But my sentence there was nowhere near as entertaining as Gladwell's anecdotal writing.

michaelneale3• 18 years ago

Does it bother anyone else that a researcher has to use "withitness" when other words or definition would have sounded better and read less like pop-psychology noise?

create_account• 18 years ago

He's hoping to coin a phrase like "tipping point" and turn it into a best-seller.

(I don't like it, either, but it does make sense from a marketing perspective)

michaelneale3• 18 years ago

Yes I could see how someone might try to do that. I need to coin something - any ideas?

ig1• 18 years ago

Withitness is actually a standard term in the research it was coined by educational theorist Jacob Kounin in 1970.

jlhamilton• 18 years ago

I like what this guy had to say. http://juggdish.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/how-to-be-as-smart-...

jonknee• 18 years ago

I guessed that this was a Malcom Gladwell article before I clicked on it. He's got a formula.

marvin2• 18 years ago

To the other commenters, this article isn't about college football. Most of the substance here is really obvious to anyone with a modicum of interest in teaching, but unfortunately that is what happens when you deal with politics and bureaucracy. You have to state the obvious, again and again and again.

Teaching is one of my secret passions. I have always been able to make people understand difficult things by talking to them and watching how they respond. When I study, people often ask me for help instead of the teacher/lecturer. I love it.

The thing is, being a teacher would be an incredibly stupid profession for people like me. I will earn twice as much money doing something else, navigating a tenth of the bureaucracy and being able to call the shots without bothering with twenty sorts of political correctness. There is no room in a normal Western school for my style of teaching. I'd be surrounded by imbeciles (imbeciles with authority) and not get paid for my effort.

There is something deeply wrong with our system when it deters people who actually want to do good. There is definitely a business opportunity here if I'd want to start teaching privately or start some private school. Rich people see what's wrong here, and are probably willing to pay to fix it.

Here's what needs to be done: Pay more to the best teachers (at least twice as much as they get today), abolish cartels and unions among current teachers, measure results, remove bureaucratic barriers to alternative styles and techniques, and drop all requirements of political correctness.

Most of these requirements are, for different political reasons, impossible to achieve in a publicly funded system. But if some private school starts to produce much better students than the public system, there will be chaos.

youngnh• 18 years ago

> But if some private school starts to produce much better students than the public system, there will be chaos.

I'm a miltary brat, so I've been in and out of a half-dozen public and private schools in my K-12 education. Everywhere I went there were private schools significantly better than the public ones.

The chaos seems to be confined along socioeconomic lines. The best teachers in the world can't teach kids that don't show up for class, and I'd say America is pretty split as to whether showing up for class is strictly necessary for future success.

marvin2• 18 years ago

I went to a private (school equivalent to) high-school myself..in Norway, and the same holds here. It was about three times better than any public school I'd been to thus far.

swombat• 18 years ago

I'm sure his points are interesting, but I'm inclined not to bother to read an article concerning a researcher who hasn't taken the time to learn to speak English. "withitness" indeed. What about "awareness"?

fbbwsa• 18 years ago

Wow, that is one of the worst articles I have ever read by Gladwell.

I generally think Gladwell is overrated, but at least provides interesting anecdotes. I was sorely tempted to quit reading it about 2/3 through, but then I thought "maybe he'll tie together the 'football quarterback selection' story with the 'teacher selection' story in a meaningful way." But no. This would have been more interesting as a piece about either just college football quarterback selection or just the question of incentivising a high level of primary/secondary school education. In the context of the article, they're really not the same question

I'm not against open ended questions and unresolved endings, but the analogy was strained, lacked interesting content. And I am interested in both college football and the "quality of US secondary school education" debate...

The Gladwell love-fest is getting out of hand. I've enjoyed his writing to date for the most part, despite thinking that it was not quite as groundbreaking as some people seem to insinuate. But now, anyone will publish him just because he's Gladwell.

pchristensen5• 18 years ago

It wasn't really about teaching or football. It was about how being unable to measure performance causes a poor allocation of human resources. Top programmers not getting paid for the value they produce is the exact same problem.

Effective teachers have a gift for noticing what one researcher calls "withitness."

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