History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
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Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Is teaching a natural talent?
- 08-26-2011
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Blog by Jay Mathews/Washington Post
Michael Milone, a research psychologist who writes frequently on school issues, called my attention to an odd question — and troubling answer — on page 11 of the latest Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll on American education: “In your opinion, is the ability to teach or instruct students more the result of natural talent or more the result of college training about how to teach?” The poll’s representative sample of 1,000 American adults broke down this way: 70 percent said natural talent, 28 percent said college training and 3 percent said they didn’t know or refused to answer. Milone shares my admiration of the late educational psychologist and press critic Gerald W. Bracey. Bracey often skewered report writers, and journalists like me, who did not think carefully about what they were publishing. This question inspired a Bracey-like rant from Milone: “First of all, they should never have included the question because it is completely absurd. Second, how can that many Americans be that stupid. (more...)
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