Last Friday night, the reality TV show Teach aired. Tony Danza “stars” (if one can star in a reality TV show) in this program as a first-year 10th grade English teacher at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. The premise of the program is simple: Danza, at one time, wanted to become a teacher (majored in History Education), but he became famous as an actor. Life moves on, and he decides to explore a path he had not taken, so he pursues this path–being a teacher–and puts the whole affair on national television.
Easy enough. Maybe.
When I first heard of Teach, I thought the reality TV show phenomenon has reached a new level. “Who is this clown dressing up like a teacher and ‘performing’ for students?” “What could he possibly ‘teach’ them?” “What kind of training could he have?” “What about the kids?!?!?!” my idealist self wailed.
After watching the first episode last week, I find that I’m surprised at my reactions. Yes, some of it appears to be staged and quite cheezy. (Danza crying in the Principal’s office before school has even started? Oh, give me a break.) But. But there is something genuine about it all, something honest about Danza’s desire to be a teacher.
Moving through the first episode, we see Danza nervously greeting his students, trying to learn their names, talking with them about the rules of the class, and we see him struggle. He knows the pedagogy, to focus his attention on his students and their stories, but he finds himself talking about his move from acting to teaching; his monologues come all about him. In his nervousness, he moves from the role of teacher to a role that is comfortable to him, that of an actor. It’s a trainwreck. And we get to watch.
The reality show Teach has some problems, but it does demonstrate how important teaching is and how difficult it can be. Not everyone is cut out for this work.
As I viewed the episode, however, in between judging Danza and laughing at his exploits, I was embarrassed to recognize myself in his actions. I realized that I had made the very mistakes Danza makes in the program and that students probably looked at me with the same skepticism and disdain they looked at him. But when that happened to me, no one else was watching.
What would happen if our university courses were filmed–not for a reality TV series–but for our own (and our students’) edification. What could we learn about pedagogy, the profession, students, or ourselves? I have filmed myself teaching, but I planned the lesson and knew when it was going to happen. I was prepared, and I probably “acted” my way through that lesson. What if that filming happened on some random day that we could not control? What would the film capture? It would certain capture the reality of that day’s teaching, good or bad.
And look at what could be learned from that activity.
How about you? How have you used film to improve your teaching, your pedagogy? Please leave thoughts or suggestions in comments below.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by John Haslam.]
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12 Responses to Classroom Pedagogy: The Reality TV Edition
millerhd - October 6, 2010 at 10:56 am
I’m too scared to watch myself teach on video. I’m afraid of what I’ll see.
flmontabon - October 6, 2010 at 11:05 am
I have had myself recorded while teaching. I find reviewing the video to be tremendously helpful in improving my teaching.A running joke amongst my colleagues is that a reality show about day to day life among professors would never work because no one would believe it. Truth is stranger than fiction.
onlineasllou - October 6, 2010 at 4:09 pm
I teach a “teletechnet” course. As I lecture into a camera (to students who are watching at distance teletechnet sites and videostreaming from home), there are only 1 or 2 students in my physical classroom. Directly in front of me is a large TV monitor where I see what the students see — usually me and/or my slides. To say that it can be disconcerting is an extreme understatment.I notice my hair, my assymetical smile, my clothes, etc. I know that it is all being recorded and will be available for viewing later by me, my students, the program director, etc. I would teach better if I could just focus on meeting the students’ needs and not so self-conscious of the “representation of me” that is being broadcast and recorded.
bergtrom - October 7, 2010 at 7:45 am
Just an opinion: In most college classroooms teachers are the actor, the “sage on the stage”. Students are extras, walk on (sit-down?) performers at best. No wonder we fear exposure of an assymetric smile, the misplaced harrumph or cough, a voice too high pitched…! I know. I have these foibles. In a Hollywood production, flaws of personal habit or appearance are either used to good cinematc effect or ignored because the drama and acting are so good. Could we teachers see past our vanities and identify failed classroom pedagogies? I think I’d like to see and learn from a documentary film about a university classroom where students lead the action and interaction with the support of the teacher.
jabberwocky12 - October 7, 2010 at 7:57 am
As part of my teacher training, we had to prepare a 5-minute lesson, and teach it to our fellow students. It was video-taped, and we were permitted to watch it as often as we liked. I could handle watching mine only once, but I learnt tons from it.I’ve often though that this is something teachers (at all levels) should have to do on an annual basis – no external judgement, no broadcasting, just take the tape (disk) home, and watch it by yourself. Then crit the teaching based on what you know you _should_ be doing.
illinois1 - October 7, 2010 at 8:08 am
I would like to see students videotaped in the classroom. The video would show how distracted they are and how little responsibility they take for their own learning in the classroom. I think the students really make it easier for faculty by not challenging statements or asking more questions. Maybe if they could see themselves, they would realize that they are not making the most of this opportunity.
11291652 - October 7, 2010 at 8:22 am
Some years ago as part of a small group of faculty chosen competitively to participate in a program on our campus called Teacher-Scholar, I engaged in an activity with a small group of colleagues where we each video-taped our classes and then as a group we critiqued what we saw. As a follow-up we exchanged classes and each did a group interview of the other’s students and reported back one on one. That, along with other activities provided an unequaled opportunity to engage in reflective teaching. It was informative and useful, and also exciting and refreshing. Despite the support and participation of some of the most engaged faculty on campus, the program lost its funding. Our current professional development program consists of workshops on effective power-point and other essentially technical and basically interesting topics.
jrlupton - October 7, 2010 at 8:39 am
This is a little unrelated, and probably obvious, but I had to share: yesterday in my Design Writing class I conducted a Skype interview with David Barringer, an author of indie fiction and design criticism whose work we had been reading that week. It struck me while I was preparing the lectures that David was at the point in his career that he probably wouldn’t mind talking with a group of 80 English majors interested in everything literary, digital and visual. And I was right; he was extremely gracious and accommodating, and the students got a huge amount out of the opportunity of speaking with him. Since the vast majority of my teaching concerns Shakespeare, I am not sure how often I can avail myself of this technology, but i recommend it to anyone out there who is teaching contemporary fiction or literary journalism. To me, this is what instructional technology is all about: not distance learning but proximity learning! A form of reality TV?
drjeff - October 7, 2010 at 11:21 am
During my first semester of teaching (high school), I participated in a study: the department chair and a professor from the Dept. of Science Education came in a taped a full class, every 2 weeks, then taped my meetings with my mentor teacher. The idea was to see if the effect of his advice was evident in my classes. I don’t know how many people they did this for, or what their study results were, but I know I gained a lot from looking at 10 – 15 minutes of each tape.The #1 thing I got was how much more effective I was when I spoke s-l-o-w-l-y when presenting new material that the students would be responsible for knowing. Not only did that make it easier for them to understand and grasp it, but after a couple of weeks, they took it as their cue to pay attention.One of the surprising results I got was that I could see (and they commented on) the visible improvement in my comfort in front of the class, and how, as it improved, I spent less time in front of the room and more time moving around. Movement helped the students pay attention, and, in a huge room, made it easier for the ones in the back to hear. No funding for a remote mouse (or even a computer), but I would put 10 minutes worth of material on an overhead, use my laser pointer from the middle of the room, and only return to the front to change the slide or draw something impromptu on the white board.
matt_l - October 7, 2010 at 12:27 pm
sure, its just like athletic training. Watch the film from game day and see the holes in the defence, etc. Watch the film of yourself running on the treadmill and analyze your gate, then change little things to increase stride efficiency. You can do things to improve your teaching performance but it does not necessarily answer the big question: How much of an impact does teaching performance have on student learning outcomes? Which changes are effective over the long run, and what idiosyncracies can you safely ignore. In videotaping yourself, you could tweak aspects of teaching performance like, tone and pace of the lecture (pace drjeff) and find a direct correlation. But learning to smile symetrically might not have the same payoff. This would be a lot like filming a runner’s gate, but you are only dealing with half the equation in the classroom, the instructor.I think filming the whole class, instructor and the students, as illinios1 suggests would be more useful. Its analgous to the game film from football or soccer (the other football). How well is the whole team working together? What individuals need to step up and imporve their performance? How can the team support that? This would be more focused on student learning, less on the instructor’s technique in isolation. Learning is a team sport.
billiehara - October 8, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Thanks for all the great comments! I like the analogy to athletic trainer or athlete, watching the films to improve performance. Serious athletes do this all the time, but these films can be difficult to watch…especially if we aren’t trained In the art of self-critique. That’s one thing I appreciate about the reality show, Danza’s willingness to put himself “out there” where we can all critique him. I wouldn’t want any of you critiquing me. ;-)I wonder if filming of class instructors, professors, AND students (thanks @Matt_l!) couldn’t be services that faculty development centers could offer for faculty. Along with filming, professional development opportunities could be available in how to read critically (and unself consciously) those films.
yeidel - October 21, 2010 at 4:04 pm
The way to de-emphasize the “sage on the stage” is not to point a video camera at him or her. The notion of filming the students is more on-track (props to @Matt-l), but only if the students are active — filming students who are primarily an audience is prone to many abuses.
A number of years ago I was part of a group that designed a new classroom to explicitly support student team collaboration as the primary pedagogy. We specified multiple (very visible) video cameras and microphones for each team station to record the team’s _process_, because we felt that would yield the best evidence to support improvement, both for instruction and for the teams themselves. What we did NOT specify was a teaching podium.
As you might expect, when the proposal was funded, the cameras and microphones were OUT and the podium was IN.