WHAT IS SKILLFUL TEACHING?
Skillful teachers are made, not born. They have learned the skills they use, and others can look at what they are doing in the classroom and say what is skillful about it. Some skillful teachers do not have the vocabulary or the concepts for describing what they already do. They just “know” what to do and do it effort- lessly and naturally—intuitively, some might say. This effortlessness is an un- conscious, automatic kind of knowing—tacit knowledge, Polanyi calls it. The limitation of this kind of knowing is that it is acquired only by a few (not given at birth, we want to repeat) and unpredictably learned over time, in many dif- ferent ways. These teachers cannot pass this “knowing” on to others because they can’t describe in detail what they do.
Being skillful in teaching is the core theme of this book. As we explain this theme, we want to be clear that we are not “walling out” from our conception of good teaching certain other important things. We value teachers who are sensitive, know how to laugh, and know how to love. Being skillful is not in competition with being a thinking, feeling person. But we are focusing in this book on the skillful part of being a good teacher. There is more to good teach- ing than skill, but there is no good teaching without it.
The Skillful Teacher Framework
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THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK