I am posting this link with respect to a conversation I had the other day with a friend. She was mentioning that one person she knew was not as good as some other teacher, whom also she knew. That started a train of thought.
How is one teacher really better than any other? What is the purpose of a teacher? I guess a teacher is supposed to make the student (a) understand the subject better and (b) become better socially adapted. Does a teacher serve any other long term purpose?
Now if we say that teacher A is a good teacher, then it has to mean unequivocally that A meets at least one of the two criterion above with respect to the majority of her children. If we say A is a better teacher than B, then A has to meet the 2 criteria better than B does.
A teacher is not a crutch for students. A teacher is supposed to make the child (student) better and enable the child to do well without needing her, to become independent.
We make ourselves indispensable only by making ourselves dispensable. We think our mother is our first teacher. But many mothers want to retain the close bond with their offspring by making them dependent on themselves (the mothers). Is that the mark of a good teacher?
It's like when we learnt cycling, we had our father or some older person who would catch hold of us while we were cycling. After some time, when we were able to manage they would still run behind us with their hands close to the seat or close to our waist, just in case. Once we were confident, they would stop coming after us.
The process is the same while teaching any subject. Do we know how to guide? And how to let go? Are the teachers well socially adapted themselves to teach the children what should and should not be done?
Do our teachers make our children independent and better? Do we know enough of any two teachers to say that one is better than the other? Do the teachers know how to make a difference to the students?
These were the thoughts that I had had in my mind for a long time. After a recent discussion with a friend, I tried to put together a few points to evaluate.
These were the thoughts that I had had in my mind for a long time. After a recent discussion with a friend, I tried to put together a few points to evaluate.
Now let's see how to evaluate a teacher. There could be multiple perspectives. That of a student or a parent or peer teachers or the principal. Here I am focusing on the student. I am assuming that the student is old enough to understand the following questions and provide meaningful answers.
The questions I would ask of a student about the teacher are:
- How much interest in the subject did the teacher create in me? (1=Hate the subject, 5 = I love the subject)
- How does she compare with other teachers who taught me the same subject? (1 = She is in bottom 20% of all teachers, 5=top 20%)
- Do I think of her as a role model? (1=God forbid, 5=OMG, Yessss)
- What do I like in her apart from the subject?
- How much have I changed because of her? (1=very little, 5 tremendous positive change)
- If the rating for question above is more than 3.5, explain in which aspects I have changed and how.
I am not, at this point, interested in seeing how the evaluation results will be used - whether to set targets for teachers to score at least so much or their tenure or salary linked to these scores etc. My goal here is to see whether I know how to evaluate a teacher and have a means for differentiating a good teacher from a not so good one.
CBSE on how much homework is appropriate: http://m.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/chen-society/cbse-weighs-the-pros-cons-of-homework/article6402056.ece/
A friend talked to some students (class 9 to 12, basically high school students) and parents about what students expect from a good teacher. And what she found out is mind boggling. Students, both boys and girls, want a teacher to be a "mother" first to them. I still am shaking my head when I write this. A mother? Eeeek.
Articles related to the question above:
CBSE on how much homework is appropriate: http://m.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/chen-society/cbse-weighs-the-pros-cons-of-homework/article6402056.ece/
A friend talked to some students (class 9 to 12, basically high school students) and parents about what students expect from a good teacher. And what she found out is mind boggling. Students, both boys and girls, want a teacher to be a "mother" first to them. I still am shaking my head when I write this. A mother? Eeeek.
Articles related to the question above:
- http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov08/vol66/num03/What-Students-Want-from-Teachers.aspx
- http://scs.tamu.edu/?q=node/94
- http://www.apsva.us/cms/lib2/va01000586/centricity/domain/63/hanover_research_--_effective_grading_practices_in_the_middle_school_and_high_school_environments.pdf
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