Reply #36: Yeah, that's the thing. [View All]

[wickerwoman]

It reminds me of "Waiting for Superman" where there's two white guys who start a charter school and they notice that one of the teachers (a black first grade teacher) was teaching her kids with raps about math. It seemed successful, so they wrote it into the required curriculum.

"Best practice"- except that's not a technique that everyone can pull off. What works for a black woman teaching black kids, won't automatically work for a white women teaching black kids. She would look ridiculous and would lose credibility.

Kids respect teachers who are being real, being themselves. They don't respect teachers who are listening to audio tapes through clearly visible ear-pieces and condescendingly trying to "reach" them through a cultural medium that is completely alien to the teacher. That's why "best practice" in teaching has to be tempered by common sense.