EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER12

Teaching has often been thought of as a creative performance. Al-though comparisons with performance were originally intended to emphasize teacher creativity, they have become associated instead with contemporary reform efforts toward scripted instruction that deny the creativity of teachers. Scripted instruction is opposed to con-structivist, inquiry-based, and dialogic teaching methods that empha-size classroom collaboration. To provide insight into these methods, the “teaching as performance ” metaphor must be modified: Teaching is improvisational performance. Conceiving of teaching as improvi-sation highlights the collaborative and emergent nature of effective classroom practice, helps us to understand how curriculum materi-als relate to classroom practice, and shows why teaching is a cre-ative art. Although the teacher-proof movement of the post-Sputnik1960s has long been considered a failure, new versionsof teacher proofing have gained adherents in the 1990s, as increasing numbers of schools continue to implement scripted curricula that turn teachers into script readers. These curricula often provide word-for-word scripts that teachers are strongly encouraged to follow, and include Slavin’s Success for All (Slavi