Sometimes the teacher is the one who fails
THERE are always two sides to the story of someone failing a class. The excuse I hear most from students is that it's the teachers fault. The other excuse, which I never hear, is that it's the student's fault. Most of the time, it really is the student's fault for failing, but I would like to approach the side where it's the teacher's fault.
I am a high school senior and an above-average student. I've had my fair share of screwups causing me to get lower grades, which I will admit to instead of blaming a teacher. But there are times where blaming the teacher is warranted. My transcripts will show this clearly. For example, my grades in a certain subject area look something like this: Freshman - A, Sophomore - C, Junior - A, Senior - A. I hope I am not the only one who thinks this is not normal. My quarter grades in that certain subject during sophomore year started off B and then nose-dived into a D-.
I am not one to blame others before myself, but in the case of my horrible geometry grades, I can confidently blame poor teaching. One of the biggest reasons why I think my old geometry teacher fails as a teacher is because of her personality. She would question me with sarcasm about my listening skills if I asked about something I didn't understand, which made me feel like an idiot for asking. I certainly do not have any listening problems -- many of my classmates had similar questions in mind, but did not bother asking because they knew they would get the same sarcastic answer I had received.
Once sophomore year ended, I thought I'd be OK because the odds of getting another teacher like that were pretty low. So my senior year came along and now I find myself in a similar situation. It's happened again. It's like a repeat of my sophomore year, except more is at stake. The last thing I need is a bad grade keeping me from going to my intended college just because of inadequate teaching.
What I and many other students would like to see in a teacher is real interest in teaching whatever subject he or she is teaching. It is difficult to do well in class if the lesson plans are uninteresting and hard to follow. I understand it might take a little bit of talent, which not all teachers have, to make a lesson plan more interesting. But it really would not kill a teacher to at least try to show more enthusiasm for the subject.
The combination of a boring lecture and an overly complicated lesson plan will knock out a student faster than an overdose of Tylenol. Instead of copying the notes from a textbook, it would be helpful if the teacher took the time to absorb the material and then rewrite the notes in an easier-to-understand format. Using a more enthusiastic speaking voice also would capture a student's attention.
Throwing in humor or applying the concept to a real-life hypothetical situation is another easy way to burn things into students' minds. My eighth-grade math teacher was good at this. When teaching us the order of operations, he got creative with the presentation of "PEMDAS." From that day on, I remembered the order of operations as "Please Execute My Daughter And Son" rather than the lame and clichéd "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally." Although it might seem a little morbid to some, there was an inside joke that made it funny. "PEMDAS" actually stood for "Parenthesis, Exponent, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract," which is the order of operations for any math problem.
Last, it is very hard to learn under pressure or intimidation. I'm not saying that every teacher has to be a saint, but yelling at students for making the smallest mistakes won't make them learn any faster or better. And, as I described earlier, lesson plans should not be dripping with sarcasm.
All it takes to be a good teacher is effort, the interest to teach, good character and the desire to see his or her students succeed. If any teacher disagrees with these values, maybe they should reconsider being a teacher.
The standards for students have risen over the years. Maybe the standards for teachers should rise as well.
Howard Shek is a senior at Moanalua High School.