David Young writes:
About two years ago all the teachers in my school were given the book “Better Learning Through Structured Teaching” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. This book has been a sort of guide for the professional development sessions that we have most weeks. I look at the book at it seems to be mostly a rehash of Madeleine Hunter – lots of talk about modeling and guided instruction. They are big into the idea of “gradual release of responsibility”. I am unable to find any connection to what we all believe are the main things that should happen in a foreign language classroom. This is a book that my school principal bought for us. The past couple of years she has been going to conferences/workshops at the Marzano Center and I assume that this book is one that they recommend. My principal and others like to talk about Marzano. When I first started at my school my principal would love to watch me teach and hear my ideas about language learning but I have noticed that the last couple of years she does not seem so interested in talking about Krashen and having a deep discussion about the needs of beginning language learners. There is a lot of pressure for administrators and especially those teachers who want to be an administrator ASAP to totally embrace a behaviorist approach to teaching and learning and I suspect that my principal has at least partially bended to that pressure. I have heard Krashen quite clearly declare a war on behaviorism and tell everybody what they can do with their ‘Common Core”. I totally agree with him. I have looked all through the blog for references to Marzano and only find a few. It appears to me that Marzano is in the camp of the academic behaviorists but perhaps it is more complicated than that. I would love to hear what others on the blog have to say about Marzano and the book “Better Learning Through Structured Teaching” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. Marzano, as most of know, is a big name in education. One strategy I have is to tell teacher leaders and administrators to show me what relevance this book has to my job as a beginning language teacher, i.e. put the onus on them.
Thanks,
David Young