Solution minded by Matt Bieker
In his new book, a local middle school instructor advises that the best ideas for improving education come from teachers
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s teacher strikes in Oklahoma made headlines earlier this month, a local middle school teacher and author was getting ready to publish a new book addressing some of the issues plaguing American public schools. David Michael Slater is an English teacher at Pine Middle School who’s written chapter books and novels for kids, teens and adults, and his newest book is We’re Doing it Wrong: 25 Ideas in Education That Just Don’t Work—And How to Fix Them. Aside from the book, which has received advance orders from departments at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California, Los Angeles, Slater also produces a podcast of the same name focused on sharing submissions from teachers all over the country. The RN&R talked with him about his motivations behind the book and what some of the problems and solutions it addresses look like from inside the classroom. What was the impetus behind writing this book?
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RN&R
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04.19.18
Photo/Matt Bieker
David Michael Slater thinks of his new book as “a roadmap for improvement.”
It’s my first foray into nonfiction, so there was sort of an interest in giving that a try. When I sat and thought what I could write about, I thought I’d write about what I know: teaching. When I was putting down these short chapters, I’m thinking, “This really just kind of feels like common sense to me, and I don’t know if anyone is going to want to read this.” Colleagues I’ve had my whole life share a lot of these opinions with me, so I started to share [the book] with some colleagues, and their reaction was extremely encouraging. Nobody listens to teachers, so that’s one of the main messages of this book. Once I started to realize what it might be worth to people—especially educators—that became one of my main motivations. One of the main ideas at the beginning of the book is that bad ideas reach classrooms because nobody speaks to teachers, and the people who make these decisions have no training in education. So, in part, this book is my attempt to say, “Why don’t you talk to teachers? We have some good ideas.”
