Teach This...

A few months ago my high-school program called PACE (Program of Additional Curricular Experiences), started a facebook group that has been growing steadily since its inception. Even though it was at a public school, its one of the most distinguished and results-producing programs in the country.

After my first month in college it was apparent how solid this program was. I seemed to be more prepared for college than most of my peers.

This Malcom Gladwell article from the New Yorker is being commented on a lot in my online circles, and a quote from it half surprised me and half didn't:

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile. And remember that a good teacher costs as much as an average one, whereas halving class size would require that you build twice as many classrooms and hire twice as many teachers.

Mr. Garretson exuded the qualities of Gladwell's "Good Teacher." He taught so well that I can still recall the illustrations and phrases he used to teach the law of diminishing returns (the jelly doughnut law--say you purchase a dozen jelly doughnuts; you eat one jelly doughnut and it's amazing, the second one tastes good but not great, by the fifth one you're ready to throw up).

The article explores the challenges of selecting people who are 'good' at teaching and playing NFL quarterback. In both professions previous aptitude rarely predicts future success.

Full-time ministry proves equally challenging in predicting one's future success based on current or previous aptitude. A high emphasis on knowledge and skill definitely factors into this. In my experience, these two things allow someone a solid head start in ministry, yet most seem to fizzle once they encounter a great deal of stress, either personal, interpersonal, or situational.

I wonder if this high skill, low capacity dynamic plays out in teachers and NFL quarterbacks. I can definitely see it in NFL quarterbacks, but less with teachers. In my time here at Chico State, I have tried to select student leaders based more on capacity and less on skill or knowledge. These students have started slower than high skill/knowledge students, but over time become significantly more effective leaders, both in terms of their skill and capacity.

It's hard to not focus on the super-star students that seem outwardly to have it all, but experience has taught me that the students best fit for leadership often have slightly lower skill, but the heart and character to develop into high capacity/high skill leaders.