“A truly good teacher always strives to be the very best student.”
So the question comes to be, what is a good student? One who has respectful behavior in class, participates in discussions, completes their assignments on time, and has pride in their work.
What does the model student expect in return? If they’re anything like me, it’s an A. These seemingly perfect students toil endlessly not to become some sort of teacher’s pet, but to earn the grade they deserve in whichever class they’re enrolled in. Unfortunately, good grades and a hardworking student don’t always coincide seamlessly. At some point, the teacher’s responsibilities kick in. And what exactly are the duties of a teacher? I’ve arranged them in three simple steps:
First, the teacher is expected to teach their classes the material and elaborate on whatever the students don’t understand. Fortunately, most teachers are able to cover the first step.
The second step is the easiest; it is simply assigning homework and classwork in order to help solidify the student’s understanding of the material. Oddly enough, most instructors seem to go wrong at this step. The trick is assigning just enough work to help students improve, but not so much as to overwhelm them. Another thing to keep in mind is whether or not the assignment is relevant to the material being taught. If not, please teachers, ask yourselves, “why am I assigning it?” Adding additional work is cumbersome for students already swamped with assignments.
The third, and most important step, is grading the assignments and returning them to students with corrections. This is quite possibly the most time consuming step, and oftentimes, teachers choose to put it off until later. But before they do so, they should recognize that students often stay up all throughout the night in order to meet their deadlines. And in putting in that time and effort, they should be able to expect the teacher to correct their work and return it in order for them to improve.
Just as teachers enjoy the company of their hardest working students, for every student to have a schedule full of equally invested teachers would be a dream come true.
