The Teacher as Quarterback

An interesting article in this week’s New Yorker magazine by renowned writer Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, the Tipping Point) called “Most Likely to Succeed – the Trouble with Spotting Talent.”

Gladwell takes us through three occupations: the quarterback’s position in American football, teaching and the financial advice field. In short, he “proves” that it is impossible to predict success ~ at least in these fields of employment.

The most interesting scenario is the quarterback (although I toil away in the area of education myself). Gladwell cites the case of pro scout Dan Shonka who sifts through 1000s of hours of films, tapes and reruns trying to spot the “top of the class” college talent. He attends the most important games. He analyzes all the data. But he often gets it wrong. Why? College football is simply not professional football and there is really no predictor of success – even with the most talented of college quarterbacks. The skills don't always transfer to the pro game.

As for teaching, Gladwell states that a good teacher is worth his/her weight in gold. He cites some recent research, “students in the class of a very good teacher will learn, on average, a year and a half worth of material. Teacher effects dwarf school effects and it is almost better to have an excellent teacher in a bad school than a poor teacher in a good school.”

Encouraging or discouraging? Here is his conclusion regarding teacher potential: after years of worrying about issues like funding levels, curriculum design and class size, many reformers have come to the conclusion that nothing matters more than finding the people with the potential to be great teachers. But there is a hitch – no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like! Schools have a quarterback problem.

More thoughts on this later.