LESSONS FROM GREAT TEACHERS
to
Dale Ripley
LESSONS FROM GREAT TEACHERS to TEACHERS WHO WANT TO BE GREAT
Dale Ripley
Copyright © 2025 by Solution Tree Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ripley, Dale, 1948- author.
Title: Lessons from great teachers to teachers who want to be great / Dale Ripley.
Description: Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024027085 (print) | LCCN 2024027086 (ebook) | ISBN 9781958590294 (paperback) | ISBN 9781958590300 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Teachers--United States--Interviews. | Effective teaching--United States. | Affective education--United States. | Learning, Psychology of. | Teachers--Job satisfaction--United States.
Classification: LCC LB1775.2 .R56 2025 (print) | LCC LB1775.2 (ebook) | DDC 371.100973--dc23/eng/20241120
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024027085
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024027086
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This book about great teachers is dedicated to two great children, Daniel and Camille Ripley. Daniel is a great teacher in his own right, and I see a lot of him in this book. Camille has long wished to have a book dedicated to her, and I believe there are times in everyone’s life when their dreams ought to come true.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There is a section in this book where I talk about how great teaching is a team sport. So is writing a book. This book would not have been possible without the participation of the following twenty-four outstanding educators who freely and willingly shared their wisdom and passion for education with me and with my readers.
• Tonya Alexander, high school teacher, Owego Free Academy, Owego, New York
• Nicole Antonakis, grades 1, 2, and 5 teacher, Bishop David Motiuk Catholic Elementary / Junior High School, Edmonton, Alberta
• Anju Bajaj, STEM educator, Holy Cross School, Winnipeg, Manitoba
• Ryan Bolichowski, junior high science teacher, Edmonton, Alberta
• Taylor Bronowicz, middle school mathematics teacher, Toney, Alabama
• Lynn Calimbas, grade 5 teacher, Surrey, British Columbia
• Sabine Fels, visual arts teacher, Halifax Regional Arts, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
• Michele (Mickie) Flores, retired elementary mathematics and science teacher, Deer Isle, Maine
• Nathalie Fournier, kindergarten to grade 3 teacher, Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan
• Brian Gray, middle school and high school unified arts teacher, Kingston, New Hampshire
• Gwen Hanke, kindergarten to grade 5 teacher, Edmonton, Alberta
• Ted Jason, retired junior high and high school English teacher, Edmonton, Alberta
• Christine Klistoff, agricultural science teacher, Fairmont Elementary School, Sanger, California
• Amy Kochensparger, high school biology teacher, Eaton High School, Eaton, Ohio
• Erin Kruckenberg, grade 5 teacher, Jefferson Elementary School, Harvard, Illinois
• Cindy Law, science teacher, William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Ontario
• Kristin Mansell, middle school science teacher, Washington Fields Intermediate, Washington, Utah
• Judy McCann-Floeter, principal, Jefferson Elementary School, Harvard, Illinois
• Tracy Nelson, elementary English language arts teacher, Graham, Washington
• Tim Reves, former principal and current chief academic officer, Olathe Public Schools, Olathe, Kansas
• Jared Savage, principal, Fairmont Elementary School, Sanger, California
• Bob Sonju, retired principal, Washington Fields Intermediate, Washington, Utah
• Rachel Swearengin, grade 5 teacher, Manchester Park Elementary School, Lenexa, Kansas
• Terry Volk, junior high and high school English teacher and principal, Edmonton, Alberta
To them, I am exceedingly grateful. It was an honor to talk with them and to learn from them.
I would like to thank my friend and partner Rae Gajadhar for her edits to the first draft of each of the chapters in this book. I enjoyed our many discussions on the correct usage of commas.
My thanks to Heather Jamison for her insightful and thorough reading of the first draft of the entire book. Her compassion for the work of classroom teachers, along with her high standards for the proper use of the written word, made this book so much better.
My thanks to Tara Crouter for her response to an early draft of this book. Several ideas in this text resulted from her many years of reflective practice in classroom teaching and school administration.
My thanks to Larry Rankin and Robyn Shewchuk, two educators for whom I have immense respect. They graciously shared with me many stories and strategies that they used throughout their careers, which I have included in this book. The stories, opinions, and insights of all the preceding educators have served to make this work so much better than anything I could have written without them.
I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of Alberta’s library services. The university’s online databases allowed me access to much of the research contained in this book.
My thanks as well to Paige Duke from Solution Tree. Her competence, flexibility, ideas, and positivity made the hard work of initially restructuring this book all the more pleasant.
Solution Tree Press would like to thank the following reviewers:
Courtney Andre
Special Education Teacher
Pella High School
Pella, Iowa
Janet Gilbert Principal
Mountain Shadows Elementary School
Glendale, Arizona
Teresa Kinley
Humanities Teacher
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Shanna Martin
Middle School Teacher & Instructional Coach
School District of Lomira
Lomira, Wisconsin
Kory Taylor
Reading Interventionist
Arkansas Virtual Academy
Little Rock, Arkansas
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/teacherefficacy to download the free reproducibles in this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dale Ripley, PhD, teaches in the Departments of Elementary and Secondary Education at the University of Alberta. He has taught at the elementary, junior high and middle school, high school, and college and university levels since 1972. Additionally, he has served as a principal at the elementary and secondary school levels and as the superintendent for a small rural school district and a large urban school district.
Although Dale has worked in high-performing schools located in affluent areas, his first love has always been working in schools where many of the students are considered “at risk” or “challenging.” For this reason, he spent most of his teaching career in inner-city schools, or what many refer to as high-needs schools.
In 2009, Dale was asked to establish a high school on a First Nations reserve, where he then taught for six years and helped boost high school graduation rates, with many of his students going on to obtain postsecondary degrees.
In 2019, Dale wrote The Successful Teacher’s Survival Kit: 83 Simple Things That Successful Teachers Do to Thrive in the Classroom in response to the myriad questions that his preservice teacher-education students posed about how to deal with the practical dayto-day problems novice teachers face. His next book, The Tactical Teacher: Proven Strategies to Positively Influence Student Learning and Classroom Behavior, was published in 2022.
Dale received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Alberta and then returned to attain his doctorate in curriculum design and educational leadership.
To book Dale Ripley for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.
INTRODUCTION
Why should you read a book about what great teachers do in their teaching practice? After all, it’s easy to tell yourself, “They’re special. They’re different. I could never do what they do!” So why bother reading a book like this?
On her podcast, Oprah Winfrey tells a story of visiting Maya Angelou and speaking to Angelou about some of the mistakes she made in her twenties. Angelou responded, “That was when you were twenty. Now you’re in your thirties. When you know better, you do better” (Winfrey, 2019).
That’s why you should read this book—because when you know better, you can do better! I know that any teacher, and that includes you, can learn from what great teachers do. By doing so, you can become even better at your teaching practice. You see, great teachers do many things differently than poor teachers or even good teachers do. By exploring what the great ones do, you can emulate some of their practices.
How This Book Was Born
It took me almost ten years to create the book you now hold in your hands. After I had finished my teaching apprenticeship years and was reasonably confident that I was now fairly good at teaching—based on feedback from my administrators as well as my students—I started to ask myself these questions: “How can I move from being a good teacher to being a great teacher?” “What makes a teacher great?” and most importantly, “What does it even mean to be a great teacher? What do the great ones do differently?”
I began by reflecting on my own experiences. I have worked with some amazing colleagues over my many years as a teacher—educators who loved their subject areas and genuinely cared about their students’ success, and teachers who were passionate about their vocation and worked diligently to ensure that every student in their classes felt they belonged and their learning mattered. Yet, while most teachers I taught with were good, rare were teachers whom I would call “great”!
“Why is that?” I wondered. “Do great teachers do the same things that good teachers do, but simply do these things more often? Or do they do the same things that good teachers do, but do these things more effectively?”
Authors Richard DuFour and Robert Eaker (1998) answer the “more” question by considering the Excellence Movement, an umbrella term describing U.S. educational systems’ response to the National Commission on Excellence in Education’s (1983) report A Nation at Risk:
The Excellence Movement offered a consistent direction for reform But it was not a new direction Schools simply needed to do MORE! Students needed to earn more credits for graduation in courses that were more rigorous and required more homework Schools needed to add more days to the school year and lengthen the school day Schools needed to test students more frequently and expect more of teachers both before offering employment and before extending tenure The reforms of the Excellence Movement simply called for an intensification of existing practices. They contained no new ideas (p 3)
Does the Excellence Movement’s approach sound reasonable, let alone effective? It didn’t to me. I felt that asking good teachers to do “more” work was unreasonable and unrealistic. After twenty years of teaching, I was convinced that the way to improve teaching was not to ask teachers to do more, but rather to do some things differently, to implement teaching and assessment strategies that were more effective in teaching more students to learn more. That was the kind of “more” I was seeking.
While we intuitively know that having a good teacher matters in terms of how well students learn, a wealth of research supports this. For example, Eric A. Hanushek (2010), an economist who has written extensively on the economics of education, informs us that “in a single academic year, a good teacher will get a gain of one and a half gradelevel equivalents, while a bad teacher will get a gain equivalent to just half a year” (p. 84). If Hanushek is correct, students who had poor teachers throughout grades K–5 will function at about a grade 3 level at the end of fifth grade, while students who had good teachers throughout will work at about a grade 9 level—a difference of six years of schooling. The quality of classroom teaching clearly matters a lot.
However, are curricular gains the only, or even the best, measure of good teaching? Hanushek (2010) would argue yes:
A good teacher is one who consistently evokes large gains in student learning, while a poor teacher is one who consistently gets small gains in student learning In other words, the quality of a teacher is best judged by performance in the classroom as reflected in the gains in learning by the students. (p. 84)
While Hanushek’s argument clearly has some merit, it raises questions about how effectively we can measure gains in student learning, what areas of the curriculum we
ought to assess, and what areas of the curriculum we are unable to assess accurately. For example, I have taught high school English for many years, and the program of studies requires teaching students six strands of English language skills: (1) reading, (2) writing, (3) speaking, (4) listening, (5) viewing, and (6) representing (for example, via visual media). Yet the standardized tests the province of Alberta uses are reading and writing tests only, leaving the other four strands mostly unassessed. Would those test results be a fair measure of my teaching?
Additionally, are there other aspects of the classroom that we should be looking at to ascertain what constitutes great teaching? What about classroom climate, students’ desire to come to school, students’ desire to learn, and students’ overall satisfaction? Are these not important indicators of good teaching as well?
While Hanushek’s metric has the appeal of being both simple to comprehend and relatively straightforward to measure, it fails to understand the complexity of teaching. Every perceptive teacher knows the task of teaching goes far beyond simply improving student scores on standardized tests. There is nothing to be gained by oversimplifying what constitutes great teaching other than missing the mark completely.
I then looked at research that tracked the effect of great teachers over time. Dan Goldhaber (2002), senior research associate at the Urban Institute, writes that the state of Tennessee has tracked teachers over time and linked them to students’ achievement scores:
Researchers who have studied the Tennessee data found that the effectiveness of teachers has more of an influence on student achievement than any other schooling factor The most effective teachers elicited an average gain of 52 percentile points a year The effects of teacher quality were also found to persist for years after a student had a particular teacher (emphasis added)
This 52-percentile-points-a-year average gain was almost four times greater than the impact that poor teachers had on student achievement.
This information was powerful, but it still didn’t answer my questions: What is great teaching? What do great teachers actually do in the classroom? What are the essential qualities that teachers must have if they are going to be truly great?
While there was much I didn’t know at that stage about great teaching, one thing I was (and still am) absolutely sure about is this: “You can’t have a great school without great teachers” (Guggenheim, 2010).
In the introduction to his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t, Jim Collins (2001) states, “Good is the enemy of great. . . . We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools” (p. 1). He then poses these questions: “Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how? Or is the disease of ‘just being good’ incurable?” (p. 3). For several years, I asked myself the same questions about schools: Is good the enemy of great? Are teachers who are “good enough” . . . well, good enough, and should we be satisfied with that?
I didn’t think that good enough was good enough. I wasn’t prepared to settle for that. I wanted to know about the great ones—what they did, how they felt, what they saw in a classroom, how they prepared, what sustained them, and so on. I thought the best way to find out was to talk to great teachers and ask them about their experiences. But first, I had to find them.
To explore these ideas, I asked several of my colleagues to identify teachers they had worked with whom they considered to be master teachers. My one condition was that they had to have actually seen the teachers in action in the classroom. I was not interested in talking to teachers based solely on their having a good reputation.
I asked my current students—preservice teachers in university—to give me the names of outstanding teachers as well. These students realized that, of the thirty to forty different teachers they’d had from kindergarten to grade 12, only one or two stood out as being great.
In identifying great teachers, I also thought about Todd Whitaker’s (2003) guidelines of teachers who are superstars:
Former students remember them as their best teachers
Parents regularly request these teachers for their children
Their peers respect these teachers
If they left your school, you probably would not be able to hire other teachers as good to replace them (p 67)
Ultimately, I had conversations with twenty-four outstanding educators from across Canada and the United States. I deliberately chose elementary, junior high, middle, and high school teachers, as these different levels of teaching vary in many ways. I also chose teachers from a variety of subject areas, as well as school administrators. All these educators have been recognized as remarkable teachers. They have won local, provincial, and state awards, and some have even been recognized at the national level, having received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in Canada or the President’s Award for Educational Excellence in the United States.
After I interviewed each teacher, I immediately wrote a one- to two-page description of my impressions of them and our conversations. These biographies are available online (visit go.SolutionTree.com/teacherefficacy).
As well, I read and viewed over three hundred books, articles, films, and videos while writing this book. I discovered a lot. And being a teacher at heart, rarely do I not want to teach something that I learn to others. What I would like to share with you through this book are the qualities that, through this research, I have come to believe are necessary in a great teacher.
About This Book
You do not have to read this book cover to cover. Each chapter stands on its own, so if you have particular areas of interest, you may simply read those chapters. If you are really pressed for time, you can even choose to look at only one of the major sections of any chapter, exploring either what the teachers have to say or what the research says about the chapter’s topic. You are free to read only those sections that are most interesting to you and most relevant to your teaching practice.
In chapter 1, we discover that great teachers all have an intimate knowledge of their subject area, and they are passionate about sharing this knowledge with their students.
In chapter 2, we explore the ways that great teachers develop and then utilize an intimate knowledge of the nature of their students.
In chapter 3, we examine the idea that who we are significantly influences how we teach and how we do, or do not, develop effective working relationships with our students and their caregivers.
In chapter 4, we look at how great teachers go about planning for teaching, including being mindful of the program of studies, the nature of the class they are teaching, students’ readiness to learn new content, and the classroom environment itself.
In chapter 5, we explore how great teachers develop and refine their teaching strategies over time.
In chapter 6, we examine how great teachers approach assessment in their classrooms.
In chapter 7, we discover what great teachers do to motivate their students, both academically and behaviorally.
In chapter 8, we examine how great teachers build and maintain effective teacherstudent relationships.
In chapter 9, we discover how great teachers form supportive communities that help them be even more effective as educators.
In chapter 10, we learn that great teachers are committed to continuous improvement and are always looking for ways to grow.
In chapter 11, we explore the role that school principals have in developing and supporting great teachers and great teaching in their schools.
I am grateful for the wisdom and knowledge that the master teachers described in this book have given me on my quest for deeper understanding of what makes a teacher great. I am confident that what they offer will also be of value to you and to your students. After reading about these outstanding teachers, you will know better—and when you know better, you can do better.
CHAPTER 1 GREAT TEACHERS ARE MASTERS OF THE SUBJECTS THEY TEACH
Early in my career, I worked with a junior high humanities teacher who taught English and history. He knew that conjugating verbs and memorizing dates would be boring for his students, so he worked hard to make the content of his courses engaging and relevant for them. For example, when teaching Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” he darkened the classroom and read the story by candlelight. In the background, a tape recorder pulsed with a heartbeat that grew steadily louder. When teaching history, he found ways for students to apply history’s lessons to their lives. For him, history was never about conveying facts and dates; it was about having his students learn from the past to make their lives better in the present. The students loved his classes, and I would often hear them arguing in the hallways about something they had explored in his classroom that day. I knew I wanted to be like him—a teacher whose students were still debating the content we explored long after my class had ended.
Ihave heard many teachers say that a serious challenge they face is their students come to class unmotivated. However, after decades of teaching at the elementary, junior high, and senior high school levels, I found that almost all the over ten thousand students I have taught thus far have come to my classroom highly motivated . The problem is that they often are not motivated to learn what we have to teach and not motivated to do the work we ask them to do. They are highly motivated, however, in aspects of their lives outside of school—activities such as playing sports and video games. Once I realized this, I wanted to find ways to channel this outside-the-classroom motivation into the work my students and I were doing in the classroom. So I posed this prompt to them: “Tell me about the best teachers you have had up to now, the ones you learned the most from.”
Their responses, such as the following, showed how important it is for the teacher not only to know their subject area but to be passionate about teaching it.
• “My high school science teacher was a real science nut. She loved science, and she showed us how science was everywhere in our lives. She did this in so many interesting ways that even though I didn’t really like science before taking her class, it became one of my favorite subjects.”
• “I hated math, and barely passed it in grade 8. Then in grade 9, I had this teacher who loved math. He was able to show me how math is everywhere and how I could use it to help me be a better thinker and problem solver. He taught a lot of his math lessons like the problems were mysteries to be solved and we were the detectives. I loved his class.”
• “I could never understand poetry. Why people wrote it and read it was a mystery to me. Then I had an English teacher who somehow made the poems we studied come alive. Instead of analyzing rhyme schemes, we talked about imagery and emotions and how poems could touch our hearts in ways like no other. Amazing teacher.”
How students respond in the classroom has a lot to do with how the teacher shows up, the persona they have, and the expectations they set for the classroom dynamic. In an article titled “A Game Called School” (Ripley, 2023a), I describe two different ways that a teacher may start the first day of class by explaining how the rules of the game called school work in the classroom.
Consider the teacher’s first-day script in version B of the game (Ripley, 2023a):
Look, we’re both stuck in this class together, so why don’t we agree to make the best of it My job is to teach the curriculum; your job is to learn it and pass And here’s what you need to do to pass I expect you to come to class with the necessary supplies and with your homework done I expect you to be cooperative with me and not interfere with my teaching and the learning of other students Lastly, I expect you to hand in your assignments and that these are done to a reasonable level of achievement If you do these things, you will pass this course
Does this teacher sound excited to be in the classroom? Or do they sound like they have to be there and are trying hard to keep their workload and discomfort to a minimum?
There is another way: version A of the game called school. It looks similar to version B in some aspects. The teacher and students still go to the classroom; curriculum still gets taught; students’ work is still assessed. But fundamentally, version A is very different.
Now consider the teacher’s first-day script in version A of the game (Ripley, 2023a):
Look, I chose to be a teacher, and I love it I wouldn’t do anything else with my life, and I’m glad to be here This is how I see my job as your teacher, and these are the commitments I am making to you for this term: I will come to class every day well prepared and excited to be here I will bring lots of energy, and I hope you do the same I will make the material as interesting and relevant to you as I can If I am ever teaching something and you wonder why, just ask If I can’t give you a good answer, we’ll move on to something else I will get to know each of you as individuals as well as students Your success in this class and in life matters to me because you are my students, and I have a responsibility to help you be successful I take that very seriously I have written your individual names on playing cards, and I will call on you to participate by drawing a card Participation in this class will most often be by random draw and is not optional I will be kind and patient when you mess up the first time I w ill also be very demanding about your in-class behavior This
classroom is a safe place to ask questions I will not tolerate any student making fun of another student in this class That is taboo Also, I expect your best work, and once I get to know what your best work looks like, I will accept nothing less We will laugh, we will learn, and at the end of the year, both you and I will be very sad that this class [has come to an end]
This teacher sounds passionate about teaching and about the subject they teach; they certainly care about their students.
Which one of these two methods would you have preferred as a student? Does either of these two approaches resemble yours? It is clear to me that the educators I interviewed for this book most closely resemble version A.
In this chapter, we explore what the great teachers I interviewed have to say about how knowledge of the subject area and a passion to teach it impact student learning in their classrooms. We then turn our attention to what the research says on the subject.
What the Teachers Say About the Impact of Content Knowledge
It would seem the more knowledgeable and excited a teacher is about the subject they teach, the more likely students will enjoy learning and be successful. Any student who has experienced a teacher who knew very little about the subject they were teaching could tell early in the school year they weren’t going to learn much in that class. Worse yet, if the teacher was unenthusiastic about teaching the subject, the year ahead looked bleak. Psychologist Daniel T. Willingham (2021) argues that teachers need to have not just content knowledge but pedagogical content knowledge . “That is, for teachers, just knowing algebra really well isn’t enough. You need to have knowledge particular to teaching algebra” (p. 253).
Great Teachers Make the Content Memorable
No teacher expects their students to remember everything they teach. However, we know students must understand and remember certain elements of content if they are going to be successful with more complex material later on (for example, we don’t expect a student to write a sentence without first knowing how to write words). The ability to make essential content memorable is vital to effective teaching.
Ted Jason, retired junior high and high school English teacher, believes that enthusiasm and knowledge are separate qualities, and that a great teacher needs both. He told me:
I think enthusiasm is important, and you can have the most enthusiastic teacher in the world, but if he doesn’t know his material My daughter loved her math teacher because he would explain it [in a way that] she would understand it Why I value that is because math teachers particularly teach a subject where there is a code, and there’s respect for math teachers because nobody understands that code, and the only one
who could break that code is the math teacher And so when he teaches [that code], there is this discovery (T Jason, personal communication, June 16, 2022)
Ted also spoke about the importance of making the content memorable. One example he shared was the way he chose to teach the modern play in high school—in this instance, The Crucible. Ted recognized that he could assign students to read the entire play and then give them an assessment to ascertain what they had learned, but he didn’t find this approach brought about what he calls memorable learning. Instead, he placed his students into small groups, instructed them to choose a section of the play to perform, and gave them creative freedom to interpret the story. Students memorized lines, created sets, found costumes, and added sound and lighting. Each group performed their section of the play for the class. Here’s how Ted described the awards they gave out after the unit:
I told them, because they were now members of the Academy, they were going to vote on the performances There were awards for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Stage Set, Best Costume (Individual), Best Costume (Group), Best Music and Sound Production, Best Background and Lighting, and Best Production They performed, and when the productions were finished, I gave them a ballot and they voted for their choices in the categories
I had gone to the craft store and I got straw figurines, really cheap. I attached labels with the titles of the categories to each one Results were tabulated and the awards were presented The winners were chosen by their peers, and we presented [our classroom] Academy Awards and the kids loved it I can guarantee that the kids who were in the drama class doing The Crucible and went through the awards, they will remember that So the teaching has to be memorable in terms of them retaining the information, but it also becomes an event that will live on for a long, long time (T Jason, personal communication, June 16, 2022)
Ted’s students learned the play and gained insight into how an authentic drama production works, thanks to a unit designed with memorable learning in mind. Ted used what is called a jigsaw approach, in which a student or group of students chooses just one piece of the content and then presents it to the class. He also used collaborative group work by having groups of students do the project together. And he used competition and peer pressure by having the students perform in front of their peers for straw “Oscars.” We will more closely explore teaching strategies that master teachers use in chapter 5 (page 78).
Ted didn’t always teach this way, giving students a lot of choice in how they demonstrated their learning, having them collaborate in large groups, and so on. Ted always had a passion for teaching English, even when he first started teaching. However, he recognized early in his career that his lessons were not as memorable as he wanted them to be. So he searched for and developed teaching strategies that would serve his passion to
make learning both fun and memorable for students. Teaching that is both engaging and memorable starts with a passion for your subject and a desire for your students to learn the content and also appreciate the subject.
Consider what other teachers I spoke to had to say on the topic.
Junior high and high school English teacher Terry Volk argued that today’s teachers have to bring life to the content they are teaching:
I think you have to make your content come alive We don’t live in those times anymore where you could stand in front of the room and just talk to kids and expect that they were going to learn anything You have to have inquiry; you have to teach students how to think for themselves, how to find information, how to ask good questions, how to become confident learners. We need to provide students with opportunities to do that So when presenting material, you have to make it engaging, and you have to give them the opportunity to explore their own passions and really get excited about a subject. If you find a topic boring, your kids are going to find it boring too. You have to bring enthusiasm every day. (T. Volk, personal communication, June 13, 2022)
Kindergarten to grade 3 teacher Nathalie Fournier is one of the most passionate teachers I have ever met—she even started to tear up when she told me how much she loves teaching. She said this about passion:
You have to be passionate You have to love to teach You have to make it fun and interesting for the students, and then they will get on board and they will learn much easier The day I’m coming to school and I see it as a pay cheque, I will stop teaching because that is not good for kids I can do anything else for a pay cheque; I don’t need to be at school
We were doing this crazy staff game one time and it was about, So if you won the jackpot, what would you do? And they [the other teachers] were all retiring, and I was like, “I’m buying a new SMART Board for my classroom; that’s what I will do And I will have this tech guy [in my classroom, just in case] anything happens He will be there to fix it.” And they were like, “You are so crazy!” I was like, “I know. I want to stay in school.” (N. Fournier, personal communication, December 9, 2022)
Who wouldn’t want to be a student in a classroom with a teacher like that, or to have their children in the teacher’s class?
Grades 1, 2, and 5 teacher Nicole Antonakis pointed out one significant advantage of being deeply knowledgeable about the curriculum you are teaching:
If you know your curriculum well, then you can have that flexibility and be able to take a turn [during the class] Or you might have planned a certain amount of time
for something, but the students are really engaged in it and they want to take it a little step further Of course I’m going to do that because that’s meaningful learning (N Antonakis, personal communication, July 26, 2022)
These teachers are all saying the same thing. No matter what grade level or subject you teach, to be an effective teacher, you need to have extensive knowledge of your content area, and you need to know the best ways to teach that particular content to the specific group of students in front of you.
Great Teachers Are Passionate About Their Subject
Some teachers just seem to be passionate about the job right from the beginning. When I asked grade 5 teacher Erin Kruckenberg about this, here’s what she told me:
I was a gung-ho go-getter [from the very start] You offered a committee, that was me You wanted someone to volunteer after school, that was me I wanted to get involved in as much as I could right away And I came every day with that energy that I wanted my kids in my class to be excited and be ready for learning I chose the extra work that I was passionate about so I didn’t feel like it was stuff piled on me It was stuff I was choosing to do and that helped a lot. . . . I was never “voluntold” to join something where it didn’t mean a lot to me, [where] it was just something extra on my plate (E Kruckenberg, personal communication, January 23, 2023)
High school teacher Amy Kochensparger attained a biology degree before moving into a teaching career. She couldn’t believe then—and still can’t fathom today—that some people don’t like science. Her passion for the subject has never been in question:
I was a biology major. I loved having a degree in my field. I loved biology . . . and I was just surprised when people said they didn’t like science They would just roll their eyes or groan I’m like, How do people not like science? When you walk outside, you can see the land formations and why this river formed, why these flowers are these colors, so I thought maybe I should teach to share that passion and get more people excited and aware of how science affects everything you do—your health, your food (A Kochensparger, personal communication, February 21, 2023)
Grade 5 teacher Rachel Swearengin talked to me about the power of a teacher’s connection with their subject matter: “Coming out of [university], I don’t really think I understood . . . the emotional connection between not just the teacher and the student, but even creating the emotional connection to your content” (R. Swearengin, personal communication, December 3, 2022).
High school teacher Tonya Alexander said she felt the most important advice she’d give preservice teachers is to love what they teach:
The best advice I can give is that you need to be you and to share your love of whatever subject, whatever content it is because that energy that you bring into that room, that enthusiasm, your students will pick up on that It might not be their favorite subject You may never be their favorite teacher, but they will always remember the passion that you brought into the classroom, whether they got on the train with you or didn’t Passion is something that you are already bringing to the table because that is why you chose this profession (T Alexander, personal communication, April 12, 2023)
As a child, middle school and high school unified arts teacher Brian Gray loved making video productions. Something about it just drew him in. Later in life, he said, this passion for video became part of his teaching repertoire:
[Video production] was one of the first classes that we were able to develop . . . because we were finding that freshmen were failing electives because they were being put in with seniors and juniors So we started doing electives that were for freshmen only One of the [courses] I did was a video production journalism class because that was what my first love was. (B. Gray, personal communication, March 2, 2023)
It seems that the seeds of some teachers’ passion for a subject lie dormant within them until someone brings them to life. Other teachers—like Brian, for example—had a passion for something in their childhood, and teaching circumstances years later enable them to bring that passion to the classroom.
These teachers have told us that they believe both passion and knowledge are requisite to great teaching. In the next section, we’ll explore what the research has to say about this.
What the Research Says About the Impact of Content Knowledge
To be able to teach effectively, a teacher must know the necessary content. After all, you cannot teach what you do not know. But just how important is content knowledge in affecting student learning? That question has been around educational circles for a long time.
Great Teachers Know Their Content Well
It seems obvious that teaching times tables to grade 2 students requires less mathematical knowledge than teaching calculus to high school students does. Therefore, most teachers likely assume content complexity is a significant factor in how much content knowledge is required to teach effectively. However, teaching reading to grade 1 students can be extremely complex, with a plethora of theories as to how best to accomplish this. So, is a teacher’s content knowledge equally important across all subjects, or is it more impactful in certain subjects than others? Let’s see what the research says about this.
Educational psychologist Lee S. Shulman (1986) explored U.S. teacher applicants’ tests from the late 1800s. The daylong tests examined many areas of knowledge, including written and mental arithmetic, written and oral grammar, geography, U.S. history, penmanship, biology, reading, music, school law, and the theory and practice of teaching. In total, the tests covered twenty areas of knowledge! Shulman (1986) explains his findings:
All the tests I have found from that period follow the same pattern Ninety to ninetyfive percent of the test is on the content, the subject matter to be taught. The assumption underlying those tests [is] clear The person who presumes to teach subject matter to children must demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter as a prerequisite to teaching Although knowledge of the theories and methods of teaching is important, it plays a decidedly secondary role in the qualifications of a teacher (p 5, emphasis added)
This emphasis on knowledge of subject matter underwent a major shift a hundred years later, in the 1980s:
In most states the evaluation of teachers emphasizes the assessment of capacity to teach [with the following being assessed:] organization in preparing and presenting instructional plans, recognition of individual differences [in students], cultural awareness, understanding youth, management [of a classroom] (Shulman, 1986, p 5)
Shulman wonders where the subject matter went and what happened to the content. He argues that to focus almost exclusively on content and to focus almost exclusively on pedagogy are both flawed positions for preservice teaching programs:
Mere content knowledge is likely to be as useless pedagogically as content-free skill But to blend properly the two aspects of a teacher’s capacities requires that we pay as much attention to the content aspects of teaching as we have recently devoted to the elements of teaching process (Shulman, 1986, p 8)
Shulman contends that to be effective, a teacher needs to be an expert in both content and pedagogy.
Examining the relationship between a teacher’s knowledge of content and their students’ achievement leads us to wonder, Is the connection the same for all subject areas? Is it the same for all grade levels? The answer, it seems, is no.
Educational researchers Andrew J. Wayne and Peter Youngs (2003) reviewed twentyone studies looking at the relationship between teacher characteristics and student achievement. Specifically, they looked at four characteristics of teachers: (1) college ratings, (2) test scores, (3) degrees and coursework, and (4) certification status. They were trying to determine which of these characteristics, if any, have an impact on student achievement gains. Consider their findings:
The studies confirm that students learn more from teachers with certain characteristics In the case of teachers’ college ratings and test scores, positive relationships exist In the case of degrees, coursework, and certification, findings have been inconclusive except in mathematics where high school students clearly learn more from teachers with certification in mathematics, degrees related to mathematics, and coursework related to mathematics. (p 107, emphasis added)
This relationship between a teacher’s knowledge of mathematics and students’ achievement in mathematics was found in other research as well. University of Munich researchers Johannes Metzler and Ludger Woessmann (2012) studied sixth-grade students in Peru in the content areas of mathematics and reading. They found “a significant effect of teacher math knowledge on student math achievement, but (with few exceptions of sub-groups) not in reading” (p. 494).
In their study titled “Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Practice, and Student Achievement,” Julie Gess-Newsome and colleagues (2019) explored the effects of a teacher’s professional knowledge and classroom practice on student achievement in high school biology. The study examined academic content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge by looking at fifty high school teachers. All teachers had to commit to teaching one biology class for two years and attend professional development sessions. Of the three variables studied, only academic content knowledge was influential on student achievement. Gess-Newsome and colleagues (2019) write:
As [academic content knowledge] is the only variable that approaches statistical significance as a predictor of student achievement, we conclude that the majority of this effect on student achievement is attributable to differences in teachers’ [academic content knowledge] Although there is little research like the present study to compare to, we suspect that this is a small but noteworthy effect (p 956)
In other words, teachers’ knowledge of content is a factor in student achievement, albeit one among many.
Canada has no federal standards for teacher certification because education falls under the jurisdiction of each of the provinces. The United States, however, does have national teacher certification programs, such as the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards program. At the time of writing, the organization’s website says that over 130,000 teachers in the United States have achieved their National Board Certification. This is a significant increase from the 55,328 teachers who were nationally certified at the end of the 2005–2006 school year (Stronge et al., 2007).
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (n.d.) program promotes five core propositions for what teachers should know and be able to do:
1 Teachers are committed to students and their learning
2 Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students
3 Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning
4 Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience
5 Teachers are members of learning communities
These five propositions are hard to argue with, but for the purposes of this chapter, I want to focus only on proposition 2: “Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.” If National Board Certified teachers demonstrate knowledge of the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students, it’s reasonable to assume that students taught by National Board Certified teachers should show superior subject-area achievement on assessments. What does the research tell us about this assumption?
Professor of education James H. Stronge and colleagues (2007) explored this question by studying fifth-grade students and teachers in four North Carolina school districts. North Carolina provides strong state support for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards program by both paying the application fee for teachers applying to the program and awarding successful graduates a 12 percent raise (Stronge et al., 2007). Consider Stronge and colleagues’ (2007) results:
[There were] statistically significant differences among the teacher groups on classroom management, classroom organization, positive relationships, and encouragement of responsibility. The non–board certified, effective teachers (top) were rated by observers as having higher behavioral expectations, being better organized, and establishing more positive relationships with their students than the ineffective teachers (bottom) and the [National Board Certified teachers] studied (pp 203–204)
Stronge and colleagues (2007) go on to say:
Current policies in many states are based on an underlying assumption that the National Board Certification process identifies highly qualified teachers who effect better than average student achievement gains This assumption was not supported by the findings of this study. . . . Obviously, student achievement is just one educational outcome measure It does not address the extent to which NBCTs might promote more learner engagement, motivation for lifelong learning, or students who enjoy their educational experience to a greater extent While there has been the expectation that the deep content and pedagogical emphasis of National Board Certification would enhance student achievement, perhaps the current end-of-grade state tests do not capture the more intangible outcomes of expert instruction as defined by National Board Certification. (p. 204, emphasis added)
Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University professor emeritus of education, tells us that strong content knowledge as well as content pedagogy (knowledge of how to teach a particular subject) are critical factors in student achievement. Research on teacher effectiveness, using teacher ratings and student gains, indicates the following five qualities are important:
1 Strong general intelligence and verbal ability that help teachers organize and explain ideas, as well as observe and think diagnostically
2 Strong content knowledge—up to a threshold level that relates to what is to be taught
3 Knowledge of how to teach others in that area (content pedagogy), in particular how to use hands-on learning techniques (for example, lab work in science and manipulatives in mathematics) and how to develop higher-order thinking skills
4 An understanding of learners and their learning and development—including how to assess and scaffold learning, how to support students who have learning differences or difficulties, and how to support the learning of language and content for those who are not already proficient in the language of instruction
5 Adaptive expertise that allows teachers to make judgments about what is likely to work in a given context in response to students’ needs (DarlingHammond, 2009, p 2, emphasis added)
This might seem like a list of obvious requirements for success in the classroom, but the question remains: Does having a teacher who possesses these skills and knowledge result in higher academic gains for students?
Urban Institute senior research associate Dan Goldhaber (2002) writes about the impact that teacher content knowledge has on student achievement:
The evidence is somewhat mixed, but it suggests that teachers’ knowledge of their subject matter, as measured by degrees, courses, and certification in that area, is associated with high performance Studies with more detailed measures of teachers’ education levels and coursework in subject areas found that, at least in math and science, academic preparation does positively influence student achievement.
Having an advanced degree in subjects outside of math and science, however, does not appear to affect student achievement Taking additional courses in one’s subject has some effect, but it depends on the level of the courses a teacher is teaching
The teaching of higher-level courses seems to require greater knowledge of subject matter than does the teaching of lower-level courses
Indeed, good teaching is somewhat of a mystery. Complicated, isn’t it? We really shouldn’t be surprised that the research has given us conflicting results. After all, think about the complexity of schooling. When trying to find the answer to a question such as “Does teacher content knowledge have an impact on student achievement?” researchers have so many factors to consider.
• “What grade level of students will we study?”
• “What subject areas will we study?”
• “Is teacher content knowledge equally impactful across all subject areas, or is it more impactful on student learning in some subjects than it is in others?”
• “How will we determine and gauge the quality of teachers’ subject-area knowledge?”
• “Where will we conduct our study (given that the schools we choose and the teachers who teach there and the students who attend there are likely to already have certain predispositions toward the subjects under study, and these predispositions will impact our results)?”
With so many variables to account for when conducting educational research, it is little wonder that we see such a wide range of findings.
While we may study and teach a subject for decades, and perhaps even have advanced degrees in our subject area, we must remember that the subjects are complex and we can never know everything about our content area.
The research on this subject can be somewhat surprising. It suggests that, yes, teacher content knowledge is an important factor in positively affecting student achievement, though it does not affect student achievement equally across various grades or in all subjects. The research suggests that while teacher content knowledge can have a small effect on student achievement across subjects and grade levels, this effect is greatest at the high school level, and particularly in mathematics and science.
Great Teachers Are Passionate About Their Subject
Having knowledge of a subject area is one thing; having a passion to teach it is something else. While we may assume that these two things are related—that a person would be unlikely to have an in-depth understanding of something they aren’t interested in— teachers can come to have knowledge of a subject area simply because it worked out in the timetable and they were forced to teach that subject. That’s just how schools work sometimes. Therefore, we cannot assume that a teacher’s knowledge of a subject aligns with their passions.
What does the research tell us about how a teacher’s passion for their subject affects student achievement? I found this is a question not frequently asked in research. It seems that educational researchers may be hesitant to explore areas of education that deal with emotions. Yet educators like Robert L. Fried (1995) have written entire books on the
subject, and he argues that a teacher’s passion is one of the most important attributes for student success:
As I look into hundreds of classrooms, watch teachers working with all kinds of students, when I ask myself what makes the greatest difference in the quality of student learning—it is a teacher’s passion that leaps out More than knowledge of subject matter More than variety of teaching techniques More than being wellorganized, or friendly, or funny, or fair Passion (p 16)
Because I served as a principal in multiple schools, I—like Fried—looked in on hundreds of classrooms and was always struck by the “feel” in a classroom. When the teacher was excited and enthusiastic about what they were teaching, so were most of the students. There is simply no substitute for passion in teaching.
What do we mean by passion? What does it look like in education? A passionate teacher loves their content area, cares about issues and challenges in the larger world, and is invested in their students’ success both in and out of school.
In the context of choosing a career, I have often heard teachers advise their students to “follow their passion.” While this might seem like good advice on the surface, in 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, author Brianna Wiest (2017) asks us to think about this in a different way:
It’s not about following passion; it’s about following purpose passionately Passion is a manner of traveling, not a means to determine a destination Passion is the spark that lights the fire; purpose is the kindling that keeps it burning all night. (p. 187)
Wiest may be on to something when she tells us that purpose is the destination and passion is the fuel that gets us there. Passion is an emotion, a feeling. This gives rise to the question, How do great teachers feel about the subjects they teach?
Rebecka Peterson, a high school mathematics teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was named the United States’ National Teacher of the Year in 2023. An article about her shows how she blends both her passion for the subject and a deep knowledge of the subject in her teaching (Belsha, 2023). This is what Peterson has to say about mathematics:
Math can get kind of a bad rap sometimes For me, and every mathematician I know, mathematics is so beautiful When we really get into the rhythm of it, we’re transported But I think, oftentimes, there is so much content to teach, and our kids don’t get to feel that The beautiful thing about calculus is it is so ubiquitous We use it to figure out . . . if I’m drinking a cup of coffee right now, with my caffeine tolerance, when will my body allow me to fall asleep? I’m very lucky in that calculus is already so applicable It ’s time to explore some more mathematics pathways for our students so that they truly all feel like they are mathematicians
Because that is what I believe to my core—that every person is a mathematics person (Belsha, 2023)
What an attitude to bring into your high school mathematics class—every person is a mathematics person! That’s one way knowledge and passion can look in a classroom.
UNEXPECTED FINDINGS
Consider the following unexpected findings from this chapter.
Summary
Teachers’ knowledge of their subject area and their passion to teach it affect student learning in their classrooms. Consider the following key takeaways from this chapter.
• There are two ways to play the game called school: version A and version B.
• Ted showed us two different ways for students to explore the meaning of a play. One was more traditional (read the play and do an assessment), while the other was a jigsaw that had students look at only one part of the play in depth and present it to the class. Ted believes this resulted in much greater levels of both enjoyment and learning for his students.
• Classroom rewards, be they straw Oscars or peppermints, do not have to be elaborate or expensive to be highly motivational in regard to student participation and learning.
• Great teachers are passionate about teaching in general and about their subject area and their students in particular. This passion results in their having a lot of energy for the work of teaching.
• Great teachers work hard at showing how their subject is relevant to students’ lives now, today—not in some distant future after they graduate.
• Educational research on the role that a teacher’s content knowledge plays in student achievement varies. However, it does suggest quite clearly that the higher a student advances in terms of grade level, the more significant the impact of the teacher’s content knowledge on their achievement. This is particularly true in complex content fields like mathematics.
• Being passionate and excited about teaching your content area seems to have a very positive impact on both teacher attitude and student learning. However, teachers can be assigned to teach areas that they are not passionate about or have little background preparation in. When this happens, developing content knowledge is easier than developing a passion for the subject.
Chapter 1 Reflection Questions
Pause for a moment to reflect on the following questions in light of what you’ve read in this chapter.
1 Do you feel your curricular knowledge is sufficient to foster high levels of student achievement, or should you consider upgrading your knowledge in this content area?
2 What can you do if you are assigned to teach a subject that you are not passionate about? What will you do to create the emotional connection required to have a passion for your content area?
3 What do you tell your students at the start of each school year or semester? Does this more closely resemble version A or version B of the script in the game called school (page 8)? Do you think you should make any changes in this regard?
LESSONS FROM GREAT TEACHERS
“This is a great resource for educators to reflect on their current practices and seize the opportunity to improve them. Whether you read every page or focus on a topic of your choice, you’ll gain great insights from other educators and researchers in the field!”
—COURTNEY ANDRE Special Education Teacher, Pella, Iowa
“If you have ever wondered what separates good teachers from great teachers, this book holds the key. It masterfully bridges the gap between theory and practice, offering practical advice and actionable strategies for teachers who want to ensure they make an impact. Drawing on the wisdom and experience from exceptional educators, Ripley provides a blueprint teachers can follow that is both achievable and inspiring.”
—ERICA BATTLE
Educational Consultant and Author, The Trusted Teacher
What sets good teachers apart from great teachers? In Lessons From Great Teachers to Teachers Who Want to Be Great, Dale Ripley seeks to answer precisely that question. Through interviews of accomplished teachers and decades of his own teaching experience, Ripley has identified the qualities, behaviors, habits, and approaches that all great teachers share—a passion for their craft, the ability to form relationships, a sense of vocation, and more. Insightful and thoroughly researched, this book will inspire both new and experienced teachers in their work.
READERS WILL:
• Explore the qualities, habits, and behaviors of exceptional teachers
• Understand the research behind what makes teachers most effective
• Glean insights from other teachers on the topic of each chapter
• Hone the skills and approaches that will elevate their teaching
• Be inspired and renewed in their vocation
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