DOUG LEMOV
How to teach like a champion
SCHOOL: Uncommon Schools, Rochester, N. Y.
CHALLENGE: Creating extraordinary teachers to help close the achievement gap
SOLUTION:
Changing classroom
systems that save
instruction time and
keep all students
ready and engaged
in learning
TIMO TH Y HARRISON RAAB
Closing the achieve- ment gap between poor, predominantly
minority urban children
and their white, middle-class suburban contemporaries has proved to be one
of this era’s most intractable
problems. Even so, they’ve
done it at 24 Northeast
inner-city schools managed
by Uncommon Schools,
a nonprofit organization
where managing director
Doug Lemov focuses on creating great teachers.
The organization
manages public charter
schools in New York, New
Jersey and Massachusetts.
Statewide tests show that
Uncommon Schools students outperform the state
average in most subject
areas.
“Teachers are hungry to
make a di ;erence, and we
show teachers what they
can do to be as successful
as they can,” says Lemov,
43. “We are helping them
change the world.”
Lemov, who earned his
MBA at Harvard Business
School, says he set out to
identify the best teachers
around and then figured out
what di;erentiated great
teachers from those who
were merely good. Those
lessons were detailed in his
book Teach Like a Cham-
pion: 49 Techniques That Put
Students on the Path to Col-
lege. He found, for example,
that great teachers were
obsessive about mundane
classroom systems, such
as passing out papers at
the start of class. A typical
teacher might take a minute
“Teachers
are hungry
to make
a di;erence,
and we show
teachers what
they can do
to be as
successful
as they can.”
or t wo of every class,
every day, to accomplish
this, whereas others
could do it in 30 seconds, saving a minute of
instruction time. Other
great teachers did what
Lemov calls “cold calling”—calling on students even if they don’t
have their hands up.
“This helps ensure
that kids are ready and
engaged,” says Lemov.
“It’s also a way for teachers to check to make sure
all students are learning.
You won’t know that if
you only call on those
with their hands up. It’s a
real game changer in the
classroom.”
