I remember being asked to "criticize" papers in college. These papers were always classics in the field, in many cases standing up for decades. It always made me uncomfortable, though I eventually settled into a rhythm of simply automatically and mindlessly "criticizing" that "they should have done more". Dress that up in three paragraphs and you're done.
And this is the same thing. Criticizing that somebody should have done more is a null criticism. What needs to happen in any environment where you have limited resources (limited pages the journal will publish, limited time with the children) is that if you're going to say somebody needed to do "more", you need to also criticize what should be removed to make room for this "more".
By that standard, I doubt this teacher could have done much better. There's a balance to reacting to the kids, but you also need to get through the curriculum, which ultimately is there for a reason. (Most of us would probably agree there's too much emphasis on curriculum today, but the solution is not to completely ignore it.) Reacting endlessly to the students comes with its own problems.
I should have been nailed for my formulaic criticisms. But then... students "criticizing" the top 0.01% of papers shouldn't be expected to produce useful results anyhow, any more than this criticism of the teacher does. There's only so many pages and so much time.
And this is the same thing. Criticizing that somebody should have done more is a null criticism. What needs to happen in any environment where you have limited resources (limited pages the journal will publish, limited time with the children) is that if you're going to say somebody needed to do "more", you need to also criticize what should be removed to make room for this "more".
By that standard, I doubt this teacher could have done much better. There's a balance to reacting to the kids, but you also need to get through the curriculum, which ultimately is there for a reason. (Most of us would probably agree there's too much emphasis on curriculum today, but the solution is not to completely ignore it.) Reacting endlessly to the students comes with its own problems.
I should have been nailed for my formulaic criticisms. But then... students "criticizing" the top 0.01% of papers shouldn't be expected to produce useful results anyhow, any more than this criticism of the teacher does. There's only so many pages and so much time.