get much support to improve instruction from either their principals or the textbooks they use.
The article — adapted from Elizabeth Green’s forthcoming book — is shaped around a discussion of Common Core math standards, but it is really about how we think about teaching. She contrasts the way American teachers work with the way Japanese teachers continually observe each other’s lessons, talk through problems of instruction, and even do play-by-play commentary of children’s misunderstandings and how they can be used to propel learning. Through this process, she relates, math instruction has been transformed for the better in Japan in just a couple of generations, while we are still mired in decades-old disagreements about how to teach it.
Most policies aimed at improving teaching conceive of the job not as a craft that needs to be taught but as a natural-born talent that teachers either decide to muster or don’t possess. Instead of acknowledging that changes like the new math are something teachers must learn over time, we mandate them as “standards” that teachers are expected to simply “adopt.” We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that their students don’t improve.