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Thursday, September 29, 2011

NYC Educator: What If We Taught for Tiffany?

NYC Educator: What If We Taught for Tiffany?:

What If We Taught for Tiffany?

That's the question that Robert Pondiscio asks in his most recent post at the Core Knowledge Blog. Tiffany Lopez is a former student of Robert's, a young woman who, despite the challenges she and her peers faced, is nevertheless bright, eager, and very capable. She sounds like the kind of young woman who we secretly (or not-so-secretly) wish constituted the entirety of our student bodies. Robert's point is that, far too often, we're not actually teaching Tiffany. Because of a (well-intentioned and much-needed, certainly) focus on the lowest achievers, we've forgotten that our schools are also hosting highly motivated students who are or would like to be high achievers.

After reading Robert's post, I wondered what my teaching