How Do You Know You're a Good Teacher?

Hello everyone,

Last month, in the middle of the holiday blur of activities, someone asked me, "How do you know when you're a good teacher?"

I think it's a question worth considering, here in the middle of the school year.

While it's a good question, the definitive answer usually won't come to you for anywhere from one to twelve years:

The best answer to the question comes when a student returns from college--sometimes at the end of college--and tells you that you did a good job of preparing him or her for college. Or, the student may return to you from the workforce and tell you that you helped him or her be ready for a career.

It meant a lot to me as an English teacher to have students report that they didn't need to take remedial English in college, and that they got high marks in their college English classes. It meant a lot to me to hear that my film students got jobs editing right out of high school, or that my English students were able to pass the reading/writing entrance exams necessary for admission into a field of work.

Conversely, I felt terrible when I learned that one of my students had to drop out of college because it was too difficult.

Barring the college/career indicator, you will have to turn to other things to let you know how you're doing.

There are little hints and clues that may suggest that you are doing well as a teacher. How many of your students pass the CAHSEE, or how well your students do on the CSTs or periodic exams can help. There are a variety of factors that you might not have control over that may affect the outcomes of those tests, but they may be very helpful anyway. (The CAHSEE is a very good indicator of how you're doing, especially if you teach non-honors 10th graders in English or math.)

Post-year interviews help. I have spoken of these before: these student/teacher interviews occur at the end of the school year after grades have been submitted. Students will be very honest with you then. You must acknowledge, however, that the interviews may be colored by the students' unwillingness to hurt your feelings. If you want them to be very accurate, let them be anonymous.

I got a lot of information about how I was doing from the freely written journals that my students were required to hand in. If you use this tool, it is very important that you resist the urge to make excuses for yourself or comment on what the student is saying if you want an honest appraisal. More than once I altered my classroom practice when a student complained in a journal about how I was teaching. More than once I shut down the appraisal (the student refused to say anything) because I commented on it defensively. Sometimes, I didn't alter anything because I couldn't consider the student to be a reliable describer of my practice. There are problems, but the tool is a good one.

You will notice that there is nothing here about how popular you are. Popularity among the students is at best a tangential indicator of how good a teacher you are. If you are exciting and interesting and funny and good looking, and your students love the subject you're teaching, you're likely to be popular, whether or not you teach them anything at all about the subject at hand. Now, if you're all of those things, AND you teach them the subject, preparing them for college and careers and using your social power to do great pedagogical wonders, then it's a different thing all together. That, however, is unmeasurable in and of itself, and many teachers mistake popularity with pedagogy. I think you should never alter your practice just to be considered "cool."

It's true that students learn better when they have positive feelings about you, but those positive feelings can come from a variety of places. (The best place for positive feelings is when the kids want to learn, and you really teach them.) Frankly, many students will not enjoy being pushed to work hard, and you may lose popularity points by requiring your students to think deep thoughts and do difficult tasks, which you should do. If you're a good teacher, you're able to persuade them to do those things regardless of whether or not you're their favorite teacher.

Good teachers are good motivators.

Good teachers make difficult things seem do-able--even easy.

A good teacher is able to ask for silence and get it, but rarely wants it.

Good teachers know what it looks like when the little light bulb goes on above a student's head, but they don't get discouraged if it takes a long time for the bulb to warm up, and they are patient if the bulb flickers.

Jeff Combe