Saturday, July 17, 2010
The people at Fastcompany.com blogged on the 100 most creative people in business. Pop artist Lady Gaga was number 1.
Edudemic.com is looking for popular teachers on Twitter, whom they'll give the cutesy name, Tweachers.
Obviously the top creative people are all well-known celebrities or CEO types. Educators who make the Tweacher list will be be teachers who tweet most often.
These sorts of lists are essentially based on popularity, making one wonder if is there a process for evaluating the impact of teachers on their profession.
Considering influential teachers, Sarah Brown Wessling, the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, comes to mind. Her acceptance speech was certainly inspirational, but is she any more qualified for this honor than a thousand other educators?
What about Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education? Certainly, he must be on the list, right?
In 2006, New York Magazine wrote about the most influential teachers. This list included people like Randy Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers, and Robert Hughes, President of a company called, New Visions for Public Schools.
Looking at the aforementioned popularity lists and thinking about education makes one wonder, just who are the most influential teachers, and how do we judge them?
