Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Education Next post, author Frederick Hess highlights comments by longtime teacher and Fordham fellow Robert Pondiscio on what "professionalism" means in education.

• The upshot: Let's get back to the basics of teaching. Pondiscio argues that it should be a profession that doesn't require superhuman intelligence, but recognizes the flaws in "mere mortals." Are we programmed to think that way?

• We also need to focus on equity: Here's how millennial teachers of color could change public schools.

Last year I wrote a review of Mark Seidenberg’s book, Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It. Seidenberg is a leading reading researcher and cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin. Here’s my opening graph:

Cognitive neuroscientists are the Cassandras of education. If you don’t remember your middle school introduction to Greek mythology, Cassandra was blessed with the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo. But when she refused to sleep with him, Apollo didn’t rescind the gift, he added a curse: poor Cassandra could still see the future, but she was doomed never to be believed. Mark Seidenberg probably wishes he were Cassandra. He must wonder just who he has to screw to get people in education to listen to him.

I’m not sure what comes to mind for others in this room when they hear the phrase “professionalize teaching.” For me it means a very simple thing: making teaching a job that is doable by mere mortals, not classroom saints and superstars. And that starts by training teachers not on theory, not on conditions of learning, not out of concern for the dispositions they bring to the job, but on ... oh  ... how to teach kids to read.

Read the full article about teacher professionalism by Robert Pondiscio at Education Next