tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4698774596246611749.post3064361625516092389..comments2023-03-30T15:56:50.994-04:00Comments on Education: In Search of Reason: The Gathering StormJason O. Braiman, Esq.http://www.blogger.com/profile/13127952576066942139noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4698774596246611749.post-24454405870144098002010-02-17T09:04:46.161-05:002010-02-17T09:04:46.161-05:00I take your point, and I agree with most of what y...I take your point, and I agree with most of what you wrote about the "myths." Indeed, I think your article demonstrates the main point of mine. <br /><br />Most of the "myths" you describe and characterize as "myths" are the very things that I and my colleagues were being told by our supervisors over the past year and a half, and that we were, inter alia, criticized for not doing. The problem is that DI is so difficult to understand because it's not intended to be "easily-identified [or] monolithic." More importantly, it's not intended to create a purely binary conceptual framework by which supervisors can come into a teacher's class and declare that the lesson is "differentiated" or "<i>not</i> differentiated." <br /><br />The greater problem, which I discussed in my comment, is that when supervisors develop a cult-like devotion to an ill-defined and ill-understood concept like DI, they use it as an excuse to go after teachers they may not like for other reasons. Your article reinforces my basic contention that taking any given lesson in any given class on any given day, the teacher could make a plausible argument that the lesson and the class are "differentiated" while the supervisor could make a plausible argument that it's not. <br /><br />I've already been run out of one school because I had a supervisor like this (granted, he was a sick, evil, demented sociopath, and he and the school were corrupt to the core), and my last post-observation conference at my immediate former school had some of the same disturbing undertones. <br /><br />Ultimately, I think the point is that the <i>proponents</i> of differentiation need to read and understand your article more than its <i>op</i>ponents do. I opposed it because of the danger we face when supervisors take the "myths" you point out and treat them as gospel.Jason O. Braiman, Esq.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13127952576066942139noreply@blogger.com