I have enjoyed reading Holding on To Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Thomas Newkirk. He writes a comparison of ER nurses and teachers. An experienced ER nurse/doctor can make a diagnoses within minutes of seeing and speaking to a patient, they do not hesitate. Newkirk quotes Lee Shulman who has studied both medical and educational decision making. "The practice of teaching involves a far more complex task environment than does medicine. The teacher is confronted, not with a single patient, but a classroom filled with 25-30 youngsters. The teacher's goals are multiple; the school's obligations far from unitary. Even in the ubiquitous primary reading group,the teacher must simultaneously be concerned with the learning of decoding skills as well as comprehension, with motivation and love of reading as well as word attack, and must both monitor the performances of six or eight students in front of her while not losing touch with the other two dozen in the room." (2004, 258) (Newkirk pg. 28).
With all of this then why is it that educators are still being micromanaged?
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