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Why Are We Still Doing That?: Positive Alternatives to Problematic Teaching Practices
Old habits die hard, particularly when they are part of the unexamined norms of schooling. In Why Are We Still Doing That?, the best-selling authors of Total Participation Techniques lead a teacher-positive, empathetic inquiry into 16 common educational practices that can undermine student Round robin reading* Teaching to learning styles* Homework as the default* Using interim assessments as "formative assessments"* Asking, "Does everybody understand?"* Traditional Q&A* Data-driven everything* Publicly displayed data walls* Content breadth over depth* Adhering to rigid pacing guides* Teaching to test samplers* An analysis-only approach to reading* Elevating English language arts and mathematics over all other subjects* Ignoring curriculum experts* Using behavior charts* Withholding recess
Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele provide straightforward, research-informed accounts of what makes each of these practices problematic. And they share easy-to-implement instructional, assessment, and classroom management strategies you can use to meet the goals those problematic practices are intended to achieve . . . without the downsides or the damage.
This book is for K–12 teachers at all stages of their career, including preservice teachers who will be educating the next generation of students. Read it and reflect on it with colleagues. Use it to focus your own inquiry into what is and is not working for your students and to replace ineffective and potentially harmful habits with more positive and effective ones.
Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele provide straightforward, research-informed accounts of what makes each of these practices problematic. And they share easy-to-implement instructional, assessment, and classroom management strategies you can use to meet the goals those problematic practices are intended to achieve . . . without the downsides or the damage.
This book is for K–12 teachers at all stages of their career, including preservice teachers who will be educating the next generation of students. Read it and reflect on it with colleagues. Use it to focus your own inquiry into what is and is not working for your students and to replace ineffective and potentially harmful habits with more positive and effective ones.
203 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 29, 2021
19 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 14, 2022
Ready to roast some sacred cows in the education world? The book I finished today is full of the hope that “ One day it will be as hard to find counterproductive practices in schools as it is to find a smoke-filled teachers lounge.” Persida and William Himmele (rhymes with simile) roasted several traditions in their engaging book Why Are We Still Doing That?: Positive Alternatives to Problematic Teaching Practices. It’s another great book I scored with my ASCD membership.
The authors skewer round-robin reading, teaching to specific learning styles, homework, asking “does everyone understand?”, withholding recess, shortchanging science and social studies, and a handful of other topics. Oh the humanity! They skewer those traditional ideas and explain many of the evidence-based side effects they cause. Round-robin reading, for example, can dissuade students from enjoying reading, which also undermines literacy and life-long learning. They also provide alternatives to these well-intentioned practices, which gives their arguments far more credibility.
I am not a classroom teacher, but I do belong to an industry that is known for its traditions. The fire service is also known for not liking how things are and not liking change. It’s awkward. This book is written for classroom teachers and it is equally applicable my role as a risk reduction specialist who gets to teach audiences of multiple ages. In fact, I created a lesson plan in the back of the book that utilizes some of their insights. Here’s one of their ideas that resonates with me: “You can teach all you want, as intensely as you can, but unless a student is actively making sense of the content, you can’t expect that student to learn.” As a result, they won’t change their behavior or their surroundings to improve safety. As risk reduction specialists who utilize teaching strategies, we must be willing to change our ways to empower students to process all the big ideas we deliver. And that change is for audiences of all ages.
As parents across the nation, and probably around the globe, discovered over the last couple of years, teaching is hard. We expect the teachers earn credentials and become experts in instruction techniques. It is ridiculous that we would then legislate them into boxes where they can’t apply their skills to develop students into bad-ass lifelong learners. It is similarly ridiculous for anyone who teaches to avoid new ideas and techniques for self-growth as instructors. This book gave me several tools to improve my materials and my delivery. It’s a good one if teaching is part of your world.
The authors skewer round-robin reading, teaching to specific learning styles, homework, asking “does everyone understand?”, withholding recess, shortchanging science and social studies, and a handful of other topics. Oh the humanity! They skewer those traditional ideas and explain many of the evidence-based side effects they cause. Round-robin reading, for example, can dissuade students from enjoying reading, which also undermines literacy and life-long learning. They also provide alternatives to these well-intentioned practices, which gives their arguments far more credibility.
I am not a classroom teacher, but I do belong to an industry that is known for its traditions. The fire service is also known for not liking how things are and not liking change. It’s awkward. This book is written for classroom teachers and it is equally applicable my role as a risk reduction specialist who gets to teach audiences of multiple ages. In fact, I created a lesson plan in the back of the book that utilizes some of their insights. Here’s one of their ideas that resonates with me: “You can teach all you want, as intensely as you can, but unless a student is actively making sense of the content, you can’t expect that student to learn.” As a result, they won’t change their behavior or their surroundings to improve safety. As risk reduction specialists who utilize teaching strategies, we must be willing to change our ways to empower students to process all the big ideas we deliver. And that change is for audiences of all ages.
As parents across the nation, and probably around the globe, discovered over the last couple of years, teaching is hard. We expect the teachers earn credentials and become experts in instruction techniques. It is ridiculous that we would then legislate them into boxes where they can’t apply their skills to develop students into bad-ass lifelong learners. It is similarly ridiculous for anyone who teaches to avoid new ideas and techniques for self-growth as instructors. This book gave me several tools to improve my materials and my delivery. It’s a good one if teaching is part of your world.
January 17, 2022
ALL educators — substitute teachers, seasoned and new teachers, education majors, principals, paraprofessionals even — should read this book, if not the whole thing then for the love of all that is holy please read chapter six. Not a very long read and LOTS of ideas for alternatives to ancient and harmful methods. Bravo!!!
February 19, 2022
Very interesting!
November 3, 2023
Dr. and Dr. Himmele’s analysis of standard classroom practices are well written, well researched, reasonable, convincing and sometimes painful. It took me sometime to read this book. It is not a long book and the langauge is quite accessible, but the fear of hearing that I had been doing things wrong for so long was intimidating. They analyze topics like Round Robin Reading, Teaching to Learning Styles, Homework, Standardized tests and withholding recess. I did often read a chapter and then put the book down for a month or so (to heal).
They rightly acknowledge that our training as teachers begins long before college. They say, “In the same way that most of us learn what we know about parenting through being parented, teachers have internalized the “scripts” of school from when they themselves were students. Even the best 4-year teacher-education programs will find it hard to overcome the models of practice their future teachers learned in the 13 or 14 years they spend in school as students (p. 9). At they same time, they are humble in their approach. On page 10 they say, “If being perfect is the qualification for writing this book, we are certainly not qualified; many of the revelations you will read about were sparked by incidents in our own classrooms. But if learning from mistakes qualifies us to write this book, then we certainly hit the mark.” Ultimately, I am very glad to have read this book. I think it has made me a better teacher. I will keep in it my reference library and use it often.
They rightly acknowledge that our training as teachers begins long before college. They say, “In the same way that most of us learn what we know about parenting through being parented, teachers have internalized the “scripts” of school from when they themselves were students. Even the best 4-year teacher-education programs will find it hard to overcome the models of practice their future teachers learned in the 13 or 14 years they spend in school as students (p. 9). At they same time, they are humble in their approach. On page 10 they say, “If being perfect is the qualification for writing this book, we are certainly not qualified; many of the revelations you will read about were sparked by incidents in our own classrooms. But if learning from mistakes qualifies us to write this book, then we certainly hit the mark.” Ultimately, I am very glad to have read this book. I think it has made me a better teacher. I will keep in it my reference library and use it often.
December 17, 2023
Good read
It's hard to believe any teacher is still doing some of these things!
I hope NO ONE has clip charts or other forms of public shaming in their classroom anymore!
Round Robin and Popcorn reading is bad. The anxiety it creates far outweighs any benefit you think you're getting forcing struggling readers to read or loud in front of whole class. I like that they have suggestions on what to do instead.
Anyway... every chapter focused on things I've 💯 done or seen in class and yup, we should stop.
It's hard to believe any teacher is still doing some of these things!
I hope NO ONE has clip charts or other forms of public shaming in their classroom anymore!
Round Robin and Popcorn reading is bad. The anxiety it creates far outweighs any benefit you think you're getting forcing struggling readers to read or loud in front of whole class. I like that they have suggestions on what to do instead.
Anyway... every chapter focused on things I've 💯 done or seen in class and yup, we should stop.
June 9, 2025
This book gave some practical knowledge and really rationales as to why teachers do the things that they do. As a teacher that has done some of the practices outlined as undesirable it’s hooks like this that keep me grounded. The way the book gently urged the reader to think differnt made the content easy to digest. I will use this book with the ones that I coach as it is a great edition to my library!
July 26, 2022
This was a great short book that made me think and reevaluate many teaching practices that we (may) still use in our classrooms today. What I really liked about this book is that not only did it explain (with the use of research) why this "practices" are detrimental to our students, but it also gives you many "positive" alternatives to switch in their place.
January 12, 2022
Seemed particularly basic; that may have been the point, but at times strategies were so generalized it was hard to find content-related ways to use them (particularly if the “bad” strategy was not in play first).
June 26, 2022
Wow! This book really made me think about teaching practices and how we may unintentionally harm students with our lack of knowledge of alternative practices. Chapter 4 focused on Formative Assessment and was especially impactful for me. I will keep this book close!
August 25, 2023
Book #25 of my #30BookSummer Challenge! Why Are We Still Doing That?: Positive Alternatives to Problematic Teaching Practices by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele. Great insights, backed by research about many things we thought we were doing right in education but were actually doing VERY wrong.
May 25, 2022
The problems that are identified are spot-on. Good solutions and alternatives to the status quo are more difficult to articulate.
June 8, 2022
Really interesting. I enjoyed how they presented and addressed research bias. I think this would be a great read for a first year teacher!
August 22, 2022
Here are a bunch of practices that don't work and some ideas for how to accomplish a similar goal. Very teacher driven with a lot of sourcing for 111 pages.
February 8, 2025
Quick read. Some good tips.
November 19, 2025
Really interesting book with good practical examples of how to improve teaching practice - especially the use of language in good pedagogy.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews