The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom

The bulk of The Teaching Gap examines the cultural differences among teaching methods, with detailed accounts of video observations of eighth-grade math teachers that were part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS (which Stigler directed). American teachers in the videos tend to emphasize terms and procedures, thinking of math as a set of tedious skills. They try to interest students with praise and real-life problems. In contrast, Japanese teachers are more likely to emphasize ideas, expecting the concepts alone to stir students' natural curiosity. They weave together lessons that have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Teachers in the other countries are more likely to share lessons on what works in the classroom and receive more sophisticated training, the authors found. Only seven out of 41 nations scored lower than the U.S. in TIMSS, placing American eighth-graders with those from Cyprus, Portugal, South Africa, Kuwait, Iran, and Colombia. Without falling into teacher-bashing mode, Stigler and Hiebert insist that reform efforts need to originate with teachers, not university researchers. They call for overhauling the teaching profession with stricter requirements, better peer review, and more demanding academic standards, as well as improved interaction between teachers. Their detailed examination of the study's video observations gets to the heart of the matter and should be worthwhile reading for educators, policymakers, and anyone interested in the condition of today's education system. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

Product Description
Comparing math teaching practices in Japan and Germany with those in the United States, two leading researchers offer a surprising new view of teaching and a bold action plan for improving education inside the American classroom.

For years our schools and children have lagged behind international standards in reading, arithmetic, and most other areas of academic achievement. It is no secret that American schools are in dire need of improvement, and that education has become our nation's number-one priority. But even though almost every state in the country is working to develop higher standards for what students should be learning, along with the means for assessing their progress, the quick-fix solutions implemented so far haven't had a noticeable impact.

The problem, as James Stigler and James Hiebert explain, is that most efforts to improve education fail because they simply don't have any impact on the quality of teaching inside classrooms. Teaching, they argue, is cultural. American teachers aren't incompetent, but the methods they use are severely limited, and American teaching has no system in place for getting better. It is teaching, not teachers, that must be changed.

In The Teaching Gap, the authors draw on the conclusions of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) -- an innovative new study of teaching in several cultures -- to refocus educational reform efforts. Using videotaped lessons from dozens of randomly selected eighth-grade classrooms in the United States, Japan, and Germany, the authors reveal the rich, yet unfulfilled promise of American teaching and document exactly how other countries have consistently stayed ahead of us in the rate their children learn. Our schools can be restructured as places where teachers can engage in career-long learning and classrooms can become laboratories for developing new, teaching-centered ideas. If provided the time they need during the school day for collaborative lesson study and plan building, teachers will change the way our students learn.

James Stigler and James Hiebert have given us nothing less than a "best practices" for teachers -- one that offers proof that how teachers teach is far more important than increased spending, state-of-the-art facilities, mandatory homework, or special education -- and a plan for change that educators, teachers, and parents can implement together.

But, The Teaching Gap has hard messages for those who hope to reform American education. One is that improvements cannot be expected to take hold quickly. Even a ten-year time frame would be too short. The arguments that support this proposition are compelling-that the superior system of the Japanese has taken 50 years to develop; that the history of short-term reform in the U.S. is replete with failures. Another hard message is that improvements have to be realized by ordinary classroom teachers--who essentially have to fix their own work--rather than be fixed by the vast army of experts who currently claim dibs on school reform.

The authors argue that Americans have to shift their thinking from fixing teachers, to fixing teaching. They ground this view on their belief that teaching is a cultural activity, based on the norms and expectations of the society in which it is found. Their cross-cultural research shows that differences in teaching between cultures are much greater than differences in teaching within a given culture. Such a finding might, for example, lead one to conclude that the controversies that rage back and forth within American education should be likened to arguing about the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic. The education reform industry is not likely to appreciate these conclusions.

Stigler and Heibert's message is not going to be easy for politicians and the public to accept, either. It will have to triumph over the xenophobia in American culture that makes it hard for us to look honestly at the achievements of other countries, and the chauvinism in society that makes people all too ready to denigrate the efforts of a workforce that is 75% female. Twenty-five years of trash-talk about teachers will not be easily forgotten.

However, if the authors are correct in their assessment of what it will take to improve instruction, (and I think they are, based on 33 years of teaching and administrative experience), some means will have to be found to put teachers in charge of their own destinies. The authors feel that the education establishment can make the changes that are needed. Maybe so, but I would take another course and get outside of the establishment through some of the proposals that are coming out of the school choice movement, like charter schools. In that direction lies the freedom teachers need to improve their instruction--to march, for a change, to the sound of their own drums.


Inaccurate   June 30, 2002
42 out of 64 found this review helpful

I read the part of this book regarding Japan. I've taught in a Japanese public junior high school and found lots of inaccuracies in the text. The conclusions they came to are outdated and in places in accurate.

For example, the authors state that there is no widespread reforms in Japanese education, that teachers constantly strive for improvement. This year the Ministry of Education has instituted widespread reform and there has been a lot in the Japanese media about the preparations for this. Japanese people are very dissatisfied with the schools and some wish they'd adopt a few Western style practices.

However, there is little or no accountability in Japanese instruction. Teachers can blythely ignore any required changes and a few have told me that they've been teaching their way for years and don't want to change. None of this is in the book.

While there are a lot of teachers' meetings in Japan, improving one's performance is optional. Often the teachers who do strive for excellence are ostrasized.The book didn't mention this.

Japanese schools are in crisis. There's rampant absenteeism and classroom violence and breakdown. It's not a system we should emulate. Buy another book.


Insightful Analysis of Effective Elem. Math Teaching   May 18, 2000
psychephile
39 out of 39 found this review helpful

From several cross-national comparisons of math achievement, we've learned that elementary school students from the worst Japanese schools routinely outperform students from the best American schools. Why? According to Stigler and Hiebert, the cause is a difference--not in teachers--but in teaching.

In Japan, mathematics teaching is a method that aims to develop students' understanding of mathematical relationships and properties. This system of mathematical knowledge is taught to children in lessons that are highly coherent, hierarchically linear, and based on teachers' own research of what lessons promote student learning. Further, these lessons typically involve "structured problem-solving," where math concepts are induced from challenging problems, where these concepts are concretized through well-considered examples, and where mathematical relationships are proven as following necessarily from given premises.

In contrast, mathematics teaching in the U.S. seeks to train students in mathematical procedures. These procedures are taught to students by demonstrating one correct procedure for solving an easy problem, and then students are asked to imitate that procedure for many highly similar problems. More often than not, the lessons for imparting these skills are incoherent--with many non-mathematical discursions and interruptions. Further, lessons almost never involve math inductions and proofs; rather, teachers state math relationships explicitly and immediately tell students how the relationship should be used to solve simple problems. Last, lessons are developed by education researchers not only without the collaboration of teachers, but specifically so that the lessons are "teacher-proof".

Discovering the difference between Japanese and U.S. teachers alone is well-worth the price of this short book. All of the differences outlined above are well-explained and illustrated (though frequently not so well defined). And many important suggestions are made about how the Japanese culture of teaching can be recreated in the U.S. within the American context.

However, what isn't discussed are many non-teaching differences between the U.S. and Japan that also account for the "learning gap." For example, Japanese students, teachers, and parents believe that the key to mathematics success lies within the students' control--that is, his hard work, whereas Americans believe that such success comes from outside the students' control--that is, from his genes, parents, and teachers. Changing teaching methods will not itself allow children to see themselves as in control of their own learning. Further, as S&H's own analysis shows, American teachers believe that they can't allow American students to struggle and err--apparently on the premise that errors will show students that they are stupid, a belief which follows from teachers' and students' view that math success comes from innate math-smarts. Moreover, although S&H are surely right that even the most mathematically competent teachers in the U.S. cannot impart their knowledge using their current methods, S&H are wrong to think that American teachers possess the mathematical knowledge to teach as the Japanese do (on this, see Liping Ma). These issues raise an important qualification for S&H's otherwise correct thesis--that differences in math achievement are the product of differences in the culture of math teaching.


A practical, readable roadmap for improvement of teaching   August 14, 1999
27 out of 30 found this review helpful

This practical and readbable book is a must for any teacher. The authors and their international colleagues spent three years comparing teaching methods and test scores in Germany, Japan, and America.

Their masterful use of the research from the TIMSS study brings clarity to the underlying cultural assumptions that determine the teaching methods of every nation. (American and Japanese emphasized) They note that in the last 50 years Japanese educators have taken an incremental approach to improving teaching by working together to enrich individual lessons. Teachers are given the time and resources to do the action research essential to improving daily lessons for all students. In America teachers are told by non-teaching "experts" what and how to teach and most often work in isolation. Well intentioned reform efforts over the years have not only resulted in little change in actual classroom practice, but have bred cynicism and distrust of the entire reform movement. The authors believe that when American teachers are given the time and support to collaboratively improve the profession of teaching at the individual lesson level will students achieve significant improvement in what students, know, understand, and are able to do.

What Does this Suggest to American educators?

We must recognize the cultural assumptions that define effective teaching for educators, students, parents, politicians, and school board members. Then we must work to change these cultural assumptions by incorporating research in learning and teaching methods so that students achieve the higher standards demanded in the global economy. This can only be accomplished with the support of the entire community and professional development leading to more effective teaching methods. All schools must give teachers the time and support to study teaching and develop more effective methods. Gimmicks and individual star teachers cannot achieve the evolution of standard educational practice in America. The star teachers of the 21st century will be those who collaborate to infuse the best ideas into standard educational practice.