[Pibe-division] Comment

Sun Jun 6 17:13:26 UTC 2010

Poor teacher skills ARE directly related to poor student outcomes. I have seen it over and over for the past 20 years as anyone else has in the field who has good skills and see their students exel and others who do not because of the teacher who is teaching them with poor skills. 

You cannot teach what you do not know and students cannot learn what you cannot teach them. You do not need formal research to know this, though it would not be a bad idea to finally put such a foolish notion to rest. But how many teachers with poor skills are going to stand up and say "yes, please test me and show me how poor my skills are and test my students to show everyone how far behind they are compared to a teacher with good skills." 

       Denise 

Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D. 
Coordinator for Blind/VI students at ESD105
Teacher of the Blind & Visually Impaired
509-969-3622

--- On Sun, 6/6/10, Carrie Gilmer <carrie.gilmer at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Carrie Gilmer <carrie.gilmer at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Pibe-division] Comment
To: "'Professionals in Blindness Education Division List'" <pibe-division at nfbnet.org>
Date: Sunday, June 6, 2010, 4:12 PM

Right on Denise, exactly dead on right on. Thank you for not being frustrated, bothered and angry in silence. Carrie

From: pibe-division-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:pibe-division-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Denise Mackenstadt
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 1:07 PM
To: pibe-division at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Pibe-division] Comment

Recently on AERnet I noticed a post that bothered me.  I have responded and I am sending this response to the PIBE list.  Every time I think that we are making progress something like this comment is used to justify not providing for the needs of blind kids. Here is the post and my response:

Recently in response to a question posted by Sheila one of the posts stated "Weaknesses: 1.  still no published research proving or disproving that poor teacher braille skills are responsible for poor braille outcomes for students.  Nevertheless,  we've gone full steam ahead addressing a "problem" that may not exist.  Assertions by advocacy groups are not evidence, nor are gut hunches.  We need DATA.  And thus   far no data exists."  I find it astonishing that an assertion is being made that teacher competency in an essential skill to be taught to students is not relevant to student outcomes.  Lack of Data  cannot   take the place of common sense or best practice.  I cannot think of another subject area, for example: Language Arts, Math, Science or Art, where a decent state licensing entity will not expect an instructor to demonstrate competence.  As a parent I would be very concerned if my child's English teacher could not read or write
 English.  Let us not throw out critical thinking as an alternative to non-existent DATA Collection.  I do not want to say that legitimate research and legitimate data results are not beneficial to best practices.  But let us not sacrifice common sense to the altar of statistics. 

Denise Mackenstadt, NOMC

Mackenstadt Rehab Services

(206)419-9555

cane.travel at gmail.com

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