Sunday, November 4, 2007
Post 4: What makes a teacher successful and who should be the judge of that success and why?
A teacher’s success is marked by his/her students’ success. If their students are not learning the material, then the teacher is not doing their job. In every class there will be students that struggle to understand the concepts; the true test of a good teacher is how they react to the students struggles. A successful teacher will welcome these challenges and help their students overcome the difficulties. People that would be a good judge at measuring a teacher’s success should be the students, parents, and fellow teachers. The students and parents should measure the success of a teacher because they are directly affected by the teaching. Students can judge how well the teacher adapted their teaching to meet the student’s learning style. The parents can judge the success of a teacher by looking at their child’s success. Also, the parents can judge success by how much their child enjoyed going to school or how frustrated their child was while at school. Fellow teachers would be a good judge of a teacher’s success. Fellow teachers in the same school are familiar with the teaching environment and the students. Other teachers would be able to judge how well a teacher is teaching to their students, and adapting the curriculum to meet the class’s needs. A combination of off people should be used to judge a teachers success. The success of a teacher is a multi-dimensional measurement that would be measured well by the people who are directly affected by the teaching.
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2 comments:
Great thoughts! Yes, since it is all about the students and having them LEARN, I agree that the students are the true judges of what makes a successful teacher. If the students learn, and learn to not hate the subject, then the teacher is successful. Yes, parents and administrators have their say, and no doubt, what they have to say is very important, too, but the students is what the focus should be on. A good teacher's success will be reflected to the parents and administration through the students.
I really like the last sentence of your posting “the success of a teacher is a multi-dimensional measurement that would be measured well by the people who are directly affected by the teaching.” I think that this shows that you have a good idea of those who would make good judges of what good teaching is. All of the people listed are those that are familiar to the student as well as the teacher. They would be able to notice first hand all of the progress a child has made. I am glad that you pointed out that ultimately though, the student is the true judge of what makes a successful teacher. Even if a student leaves a classroom below grade level, if they entered that classroom with even less ability, but have improved from where they were, they have succeeded.
One thing I would like to ask is what about those students who don’t make progress. You mentioned that there will always be student who struggle with concepts, but what about those who reach a plateau and cannot seem to overcome it. Such as in clinic when we’ve done all that we feel we feasibly can for a client. We know that they are not likely to see much, if any, improvement beyond where they are at, yet it is below the level that we would ideally like them to reach. Is it ethical to keep these clients in therapy, using a lot of time and money, knowing that an improvement is extremely unlikely? Is there always some way to help them improve, even if presentation has been modified numerous times, or is it necessary to sometimes acknowledge that we’ve done all we can for a client and either refer to someone else or dismiss them?
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