#sorry if this is incomprehensible btw i'm. i'm not sure what parts of education people do and don't understand T_T

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

was kakashi a good teacher? a CBE analysis that misses the fucking point

among the myriad discourses around the topic, i feel that most fans have avoided looking at the most fundamental aspect of kakashi's teaching: his teaching. today i am going to disregard every notion of child soliderism, pseudo-family dynamics, and emotional distance to discuss the really important question about kakashi's time as a teacher: did he effectively use a competency based education model to teach team 7?

what is CBE? competency based education replaces traditional grading with competencies- a simple yes/no binary. true CBE is time-variable, which means that students continue to work on competencies until they are competent. there are of course intervention points if the learning process takes longer than probable. it fixes a *lot* of problems inherent to traditional grading, and when implemented properly results in a significantly higher degree of competency in students. i don't really wanna give a whole rundown of it for. a fucking naruto meta post so i'll point you towards alfie kohn who has a blog with lots of free articles that explain a lot of the concepts around this in accessible terms. or just like. google CBE education. it's a whole thing.

before we get into kakashi, i'd like to look at the academy's teaching, as this will help us understand what he had to work with. education is a process, and poor education in student's formative years can negatively impact their ability to learn throughout their entire life. the academy overall has very poor teaching. although the final exam does seem to be competency-based, as students can pass it regardless of their prior grades, it is far from comprehensive. it needs a serious overhaul to ensure that graduating students have all the skills they need for their jounin-senseis to be able to continue their education without having to re-teach them the basics.

the academy also disregards the time-variable aspect of CBE. naruto is obviously missing fundamental information that prevents him from becoming competent in other areas, which suggests that he was pushed along the curriculum regardless of whether he displayed competency in a subject or not. this is a serious problem that makes kakashi's job a lot harder.

the academy also utilizes a public ranking system. this is very bad. traditional grades- especially when made public- create extrinsic motivation in students and limits their ability to use intrinsic motivation. systems like this hurt all students- both ones who seem to be succeeding, like sasuke and sakura, and students who seem to be failing, like naruto. they are not receiving accurate assessments of their abilities, which can lead to them internalizing harmful academic processes. the academy also lacks informational feedback and proper home integration.

to summarize: kakashi is receiving students who have been taught very poorly both in terms of information and educational habits. now let's get into the important question: is kakashi going to help or hurt them?

i'm going to break down three moments in the original naruto series where kakashi is acting as a teacher: the bell test, all of the d-ranks, and tree walking/water walking in wave. i will then give an overall analysis of his teaching.

the bell test: 0/10 kakashi what were you thinking

there are several problems with this assessment. the biggest and most obvious is that kakashi is not upfront about the nature of it. clear communication is very important in education. by not telling team 7 what the real goal of the test was, he handicapped their ability severely. he also takes several measures to make team 7 more anxious about the assessment, which is generally frowned upon. teachers should minimize student's apprehension about assessments- especially in CBE, where assessments should be repeated regularly to measure student progress. it's also not time-variable. one time assessments suck and don't make any sense. they punish failure and decrease intrinsic motivation.

however, it isn't a completely terrible exercise. for one, both the fake goal and the real goal are competencies, which is good. the open-ended nature of his instructions (when taken at face value) is also actually very good. they allow team 7 space to use critical thinking, allowing kakashi to not just understand their base skills and competencies, but their abilities to apply them. he also does a very good job of providing active feedback as the test goes on. still fucking sucks though "look underneath the underneath" my ass that's not how assessments fucking work

d-ranks: 4/10 mostly just busywork

the idea of d-ranks is to get genin used to the bureaucratic system konoha uses. busy work has a place. unfortunately, kakashi does not balance it out with other, more engaging activities, and fails to extrinsically reward team 7 when they complete d-ranks, both of which are critical pieces of effectively helping students with competencies that don't require actual learning.

tree walking/water walking: 10/10 kakashi effectively utilizes CBE. like to a scary degree. like better than some actual teachers i've had to work with. what the fuck

kakashi sets out clear expectations for competency: being able to tree walk. he gives a demonstration and then leaves team 7 to experiment and begin learning. he provides advice when asked, but does not take away their agency in their learning process. he allows them to fail in a safe environment where they can effectively learn from it. he also holds the lesson to CBE's time-variable element. when sakura figures tree walking out earlier than naruto and sasuke, he moves her on to a more advanced competency that builds on the previous skill.

i've seen some critiques of this, mostly saying that kakashi didn't actively teach them, but i disagree. an important part of education is knowing when to step back and let students struggle. although i think he could have been more active in offering encouragement (both naruto and sasuke could have benefited from positive language through the lesson), that's pretty much the only thing i can think of that would have improved this. awesome teaching moments. i guess.

all in all, i think that kakashi provided team 7 with a better education experience than the academy did. but the bar was really fucking low. i can't call him a good teacher, because he's really inconsistent. he does have the benefit of having a small class size, which theoretically should allow him to customize his curriculum for each student- which he does do when he's actually teaching. however, his classroom management skills suck and most of the time he isn't actually teaching.

i don't think he's a good teacher. i ...do think he's better than most teachers in naruto? so. take that how you will.