What I feel makes a teacher successful is the amount of growth that students experience from interacting with that particular teacher. This growth may not be immediately apparent. It may not even be apparent for several years after the student-teacher relationship ends. Some teachers may plant seeds of knowledge in a student's mind, and those seeds might take some time to germinate.
Successful teachers teach not only their own subject matter, but also how their subject matter relates to other subjects and life in general. The most successful teachers look at the big picture and set their focus on their students and their students' needs rather than the core subject matter.
I think that students and teachers are the best candidates to accurately judge a teacher's level of success. Judgment cannot, however, be determined by only one party. For example, a teacher may assume that a student has learned something proficiently when the student has in fact been faking his way through the entire lesson, not understanding a single thing. If we were to just take the teacher's judgment of success in this case, we would be utterly misled. If we took only the student's evaluation of success, we could also be misinformed. Like I said earlier, some lessons that teachers present may not immediately register with a given student. If a student doesn't understand a lesson right away, she might say that the teacher is performing poorly. A few hours, weeks, months, etc. later, we may find out that the student had an epiphany and now understands the lesson. Thus, I believe it is essential to utilize both teacher and student input to determine the success of a teacher.
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2 comments:
Cody, I agree with you whole heartedly. Administration, principals, parents, and fellow teachers you may work with may certainly have a good understanding as to how you are performing and how successful you are. The students, however, are the greatest judges that we, as future educators, will ever see. It is through them we will see how they are applying what they will learn in our classrooms, the kind of people they turn out to be, and the lives they lead in general. You certainly hit the jack pot on this one Cody! If you decide to use this as a part of your paper, I might suggest to watch out for redundant words. Otherwise, it made great sense to me.
I agree with so many of the things you said!! I liked your seed metaphor. Many times students are compared to seeds, but I especially enjoyed how you said it takes time for the idea to germinate. I also agree with the idea that teachers need to connect their subject with others. Not all teachers are willing to take this responsibility, but it is so much better for the students if they do. Great ideas and well said!!
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