It’s Time to Let Go of Tired Teaching Habits (REVIEW)

By Starr Sackstein

One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they

have to give up, instead of what they have to gain. –Rick Godwin

Change is the only constant thing in this world. Everything is changed as

well as children that we produce but does education can cope with the 21st century

learners, when our teachers are still hang up in the old traditional way of teaching. Many

people resist to accept change because of some reasons; 1st is because they can’t see

the benefit of it to them, 2nd is they are not risk takers, 3rd is that they cannot let go of

the norms. The last reason is what most of us used as an excuse for not accepting the

change that may be beneficial to us as person.

As change come to the system of education some teachers are not ready

or prepared enough to catch up in this change. The article tells how a lot of teachers still

stick into traditional practices especially in assessing students. Many people are

sensitive when it comes to what they think is right and what is tested. That is why many

teachers didn’t accept criticism when it comes in their ways of teaching because they

take it personally and not professionally. What Mr. Aric Foster felt in the criticism that

the grade guru tells to him; the shocked, insulted, resistant and dismayed. This plethora

of feelings is what we get when someone criticize our way of teaching. According to him

letting our emotion overlap to our professionalism barricades our growth and make us

hold on and retain to outdated practices that we are still using. Letting go of the content

which lead us being more traditional teachers is what this article telling but there is this
thinking that if they are not doing something in the front of the room or telling the

students something, then they are not "teaching." Because we believe that we are the

sole perpetuators of knowledge, that we are the only source of their learning. But he

said, “When our vocation is boiled down to just content deliverers and multiple-choice

question checkers, then a computer or an untrained adult can do our jobs in less time

and for less money than we can.” At the end, passion for learning and compassion must

retain, don’t let content make command to our pedagogical perspective and be

reminded that change cannot be resist and what we need is to accept it and used to

reform education that will be beneficial to our students.

Progress is Impossible without Change and those who cannot Change

their Minds cannot Change Anything, George Bernard Shaw said. As future teachers,

we looked ourselves as trees that produce a good fruit to our consumers. One of my

professor told us that students is a product that teachers will test through years to be

competent and worthy to their community and country. Teachers are responsible to

make sure that they are progressing and may be exceeding the goals that we set. We

can measure this progress in the use of different assessment. This article taught us not

to stick in to quantitatively type of assessment where students evaluated by their scores

in a specific test. In the report What Work Requires of Schools (Secretary's Commission

1991), the Department of Labor identifies a broad array of both academic and

nonacademic competencies as necessary for the modern workplace, including: Creative

thinking, decision making, problem solving, learning how to learn, collaboration, and

self-management. These non-academic competencies will develop student’s social

skills and will correlate to academic competencies that will develop their cognitive

development. Social skills will correlate in cognitive development of a child maybe

enhance more the academic competencies of the students. This supports by Resnick

(1987) according to him, “Many of the tests we do use are unable to measure what

should be the hallmark of a "thinking" curriculum: the cultivation of students' ability to

apply skills and knowledge to real-world problems. Testing practices may in fact

interfere with the kind of higher order skills that are desired.” This also supported by

progressivism educational philosophy stresses that students should test ideas by active

experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners that arise through

experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The learner is a problem solver and

thinker who make meaning through his or her individual experience in the physical and

cultural context. Effective teachers provide experiences so that students can learn by

doing. Curriculum content is derived from student interests and questions.

Progressivism set the role for teacher to act as a facilitator and provide assessments or

activities that will measure not only the cognitive skills but also the social skills that they

can learn by participating and discovering the learning in their own hands which

progressivism want a hands-on, minds-o activities. There are many assessments that

teachers can used to measure the students potential according to Catlin Tucker’s article

“Ditching Traditional Grades & My Online Grade” (2016) she used an assessment he

read from the book of Starr Sackstein which is” Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go

Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School” she found out this “Ongoing Assessment”

where she give an activity that was posted to the Google Classrom and they also give

the freedom to assess and evaluate their own work this teach to students the self-
assessment. These help students to monitor and check their own work to may be

improve it, enhance and fix it. This kind of assessments is helping them to be

responsible and aware to their own progress.

5 issues and concerns that needs to improve by all of the 21st century teachers:

 Holding into Traditional and outdated educational practices

 Teachers stop their own progress in learning their cyclical craft

 Assessments stick to types of pencil and paper

 Take criticism personally

 As years goes by the passion in our crafts faded

Holding into Traditional and Outdated Educational Practices is what most teachers do

especially teachers that teaching for more than a decade they stick to what they believe

is still useful and effective. Teachers have this thought that students still need the

content for them to learn and that is their responsibility as a teacher. But Robin

Pendoley wrote to his article “Learning to Let Go as a Teacher”, Learning is centered in

the learner. No matter how much educators want to structure and control it, no matter

how great the curriculum and standards, learning cannot be given to or imposed upon

students. They have to do it themselves. This will relate to the next issue which

assessments sticks to types of pencil and paper that is also traditional. This also tells

how teachers evaluate the students under traditional practices and that is based on what

the numbers of score a student get. According to The State Press Article “Grades don't

correlate with a student's intelligence” written by Ashley Sutherland “A transcript only

shows a student's motivation, dedication and work ethic — not their personality, humor,
work or life experiences. While grades still matter and students should strive to get

a 4.0, we need to stop weighing our intelligence through grades and instead recognize

that intelligence comes in all forms.” They used Bill Gate as an example an intelligent

and successful person but what we don’t know he drop out to Harvard University and

still become a successful person. This is why teachers also must not stop to progress

their learning in their crafts, teachers must also be competent in this changing system of

education and the diversity of students. Assessment doesn’t only evaluate students but

it is also a feedback to teachers’ effectiveness in their classroom. If the result of an

assessment does not meet the expected goal maybe it is time to ask yourself what is

the problem. Learning doesn’t stop in getting a degree or certification. Educators are on

a continuous path of professional growth to help improve their practice and ensure

student success. Criticism is everywhere, if don’t want to hear criticism to others let’s

take the initiative to criticize our own work. If we want our student to learn self-

assessment, teachers must learn it first. Don’t take criticism personally; don’t take your

emotions over to your professionalism. Accept it and learn from it, there is no harm

taking advice from others especially if they are only concerns in you and your students.

Doing your job is great but loving it has different results. Don’t let our passion to our

crafts fade because what matter most are not us but the success of our students their

success is our success and will also a success of the community that will benefit to

them.

Letting go of Traditional Practice does not mean losing the concept of

teacher centered method of teaching and assessing because there is no doubt that it is
still effective and has advantages. What this article implies is that teachers must take

the first step to have innovation in learning because learning is cyclical and continuous.

It also emphasize that grades is not the basis of students intelligence. Let’s consider

also the non-academic skills that are also vital for facing the challenging world ahead of

them. I strongly agree into this concept and this is also serving as awareness to future

educators and educators today. This article awakens teacher and give them the time to

practice self-assessment and evaluate their work if they are still effective and that is

what this article hope for because this article will be a stepping stone to teachers that is

slowly fading their passion in their craft and the compassion to their students’ success.