Actors use scripts. Musicians use sheet music. Surgeons follow established procedures. Why are scripts for teachers treated as an affront to professionalism? Emily Hanford explains why Direct Instruction uses them.

@ehanford @apmreports Why might that analogy not be relevant? Main reason is that a lesson/class is not the same as a musician performing a piece of music, nor is it like a surgeon doing an operation.

@ehanford @apmreports Because they’re crap. Because they’re written by people with 0 experience in the classroom. Because they’re unimaginative & geared to below average students. But they earn billions for companies in sweet tax dollars

@ehanford @apmreports Actors improvise. Musicians improvise. Surgeons exercise professional judgement when the unexpected happens. You’ve just made the case for why teachers need autonomy, not rigid scripts. Children aren’t following a script either. 😂

@ehanford @apmreports A classroom is a two way street whereas a musical/theatrical performance isnt. Answers come back from the kids that allow an expert teacher to reshape learning on the spot. Scripts don't allow that.

@ehanford @apmreports Musicians and surgeons practice on predicable and stable domains. Teaching isn’t.

@ehanford @apmreports What a load of bull. Children are living beings with their own quirks and knowledge bases. They are not robots. One class can be totally different from the next one. Good teaching requires knowing your 'audience' and adapting as necessary.

@ehanford @apmreports Idiotic. I bet surgeons adapt if their “established procedures” aren’t working. Sheet music is for a non-living instrument. Actors often go off script. Do you hear yourself?

Pro wrestling is fully scripted and still lives or dies on the performer. Same finish, same spots, and one guy has the crowd on its feet while another loses them. The script sets the floor. Reading the room, timing, and selling it is still the craft. Teaching scripts work the same way, but the script isn't everything; the performer is.

@ehanford @apmreports Let me guess, they'll be given a script but still have to fill out a detailed lesson plan...

@ehanford @apmreports Actors and musicians are performing. Teachers are trying to produce learning. And surgeons? They follow established procedures but adapt when the patient isn't responding as expected. That's professional judgment. Scripts often eleminate that judgement.

@ehanford @apmreports Sounds like someone else in educatio is trying to sell us some more snake oil

@ehanford @apmreports A GOOD TEACHER SHOULD BE MORE LIKE AN ARTIST, SCULPTOR, OR COMPOSER AND LESS LIKE A COPY MACHINE OR 3D PRINTER. BTW . . ACTORS AND MUSICIANS ARE TOLD WHAT TO DO, HOWEVER, THE SURGEON DECIDES WHAT TO DO. . . BIG DIFFERENCE. A TEACHER MUST BE ABLE TO PROVIDE SPONTANEOUS INSIGHT.

@ehanford @apmreports Too many teachers want to opine their pet doctrines rather than use proven, established procedures, and many don't want their teaching measured by standardized testing--they want self-assessment only. That's why they don't get the respect or pay that other professionals receive.

@ehanford @apmreports Actors improv. Musicians jazz. Surgeons adapt. The script is a starting point but not always “the” way. Teaching is an art and you need to know your audience… not just put in a laugh track/applause sign for students to likewise respond as expected rather than naturally…

Because you need to be present enough to read the room and adapt on the fly. Because you need to model thinking, including how to deal with not knowing. Because you're not there to pretend you have all the answers. Because you're dealing with awake, responsive people, not anesthetized patients, and even doctors don't follow scripts when talking to their patients. Because you're not an actor delivering rehearsed lines. You're not there to perform.

@ehanford @apmreports Scripts? In my experience with direct instr, a veteran teacher preps each lesson and creates ordered bullet points with some sketched detail/examples. You need spontaneity and flex. And a textbook, for goodness sake! Yes, I'm old.

@ehanford @apmreports Used to be called…Textbooks? 🙋🏻🤷🏻‍♀️❓

@ehanford @apmreports I’m sorry, Dale but have you ever heard of an actor or musician improvising? Oh wait they never do? The improvision is often in reaction to something else. The problem with scripted lessons is that no script can fully anticipate questions that come up in a class.

@ehanford @apmreports Should we teach children about Brexit, Climate Change and COVID using scripts?

@ehanford @apmreports Because we’re dealing with children, humans. And if there’s one thing children don’t respond to, it’s inauthenticity. They also tend to do, frequently, the opposite of what any well-formed plan would suggest is best.

@ehanford @apmreports Actors also improvise...so do musicians... surgeons have to flex depending on what they find. Scripts are a tool. They aren't the whole tool kit.

@ehanford @apmreports Dale, you are a Communist. It's right there in your profile. "Equity" is simply and absolutely the primary tenet of Communism, which is to bring every down the lowest common denominator of poverty.

@ehanford @apmreports Because actors don't need everykne in the audience to even enjoy the piece nevermind do an test in it afterwards. Actors also get months to learn 2 hrs of scripts instead of a few minites to learn 6hrs of scripts every day. You are not teaching, you are just reading.

@ehanford @apmreports because paper airplanes

@ehanford @apmreports DI is as close to skill development as shop class. The architects of public education circa 1900s specifically and emphatically called out skill development as the worst thing that could happen to a person. They said it would kill the soul of the learner. That's not hyperbole.

@ehanford @apmreports I can tell you in a word: ego

@ehanford @apmreports When I student taught my cooperating teachers said script everything and I still do mentally to this day.

@ehanford @apmreports I can't imagine how maddening it would be for a kid to attend a school in which they listen to their teachers teaching to a script all day, every day.

@ehanford @apmreports

@ehanford @apmreports Because it leads to lower pay with the title ‘instructors’ & less well-qualified people in front of the children. CEOs always looking for cuts.

@MrZachG @ehanford @apmreports But there is no explanation ‘why’ there. Just what they are. Zig Engelmann explained why.

@ehanford @apmreports Employees doing the same thing under one banner is a private school. You are hired under a specific banner. That's the hidden agreement. When admin stands in the hall listening to your lesson and you teach civic curricula ie., any of its forms not academic, you are on notice.

CLASSIC non-teacher take for you to think the scripts are the point. Engelmann was scripting because none of the teachers at his experiment were familiar with his method and they all explained too much and caused confusion in his opinion. Then he kept them so anyone could do DI with no help. Scripts exist in his product for this reason, not because DI is so perfect no one could possibly teach it.