What does it mean to fail as a teacher? The answers will vary as you ask different people. It would be a fair statement to say that someone has failed as a teacher when their students have failed. I am not talking about a few outliers on the fringe because these will always be present. When there are great grade curves necessary to bring the majority of the class within average grades, that would be failing as a teacher.
Much like in business if the majority of employees are failing, then it is a management issue; the same standard should be applied in teaching. The fact is that if the material is so difficult that students score less than a passing grade on tests then that should indicate not that students are failing, but the teacher is failing to explain it in bite-sized pieces and ways that the students are able to grasp.
The first requirement is caring. If the teacher has no concern whether the student is actually learning the material, then most students will not care either. Without concern, a teacher will not be inspired to go the extra mile in teaching. A personal example is that I have had great success with individual students who were having difficulties grasping material by utilizing the following method. I would first talk with the student and find out what their personal interests were as well as any area where they were very knowledgeable. Then I would pick one of these areas and spend 15-30 minutes learning it myself. Then I am able to communicate with the student using something they already understand.
As a teacher, I think it is just a matter of proficiency that any teacher worth two cents should be able to take a given topic and understand it well enough withing 15-30 minutes in order to be able to draw analogies between this new area of student understanding and the area of the teacher's expertise. By being able to talk with a student about something they understand and plug in knowledge they dont understand by association, they are able to grasp difficult concepts very quickly. Since learning occurs by association, it makes for very effective learning that a student will likely remember as well as understand the practical application of.
The caveat is that this takes extra time and effort on the teacher's part. So we can sum up the failure of teaching to not only using ineffective methods, but also being adverse to trying new ways and learning new things on the teacher's part.
To Ponder:
How to convince the all knowing and all powerful wizard (Teacher in this case), that there is more to learn. Is it necessary to pull back the curtain and reveal the ineffective person first?
