why be a good teacher?

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile. And remember that a good teacher costs as much as an average one, whereas halving class size would require that you build twice as many classrooms and hire twice as many teachers.

by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker (with thanks to Justin Yoshida)

I admit the above paragraph gives me pause. My own experience, as a fresh-faced high school French teacher in 1992-era northern Virginia, was that I didn't seem to have much effect on students one way or the other: unmotivated students never stopped drooling and grumbling "This is stupid!" throughout the school year; meanwhile, the energetic overachievers remained as perky and driven at the end as they had been at the beginning. I didn't feel I'd accomplished much, and ultimately left high school teaching because I'd come to realize I was wrong for that age group. I don't have the requisite patience for adolescent bullshit.

Teaching students of college age and above in Korea was a radically different experience. I had never been thanked so often for the simple act of teaching, even when, in 1994, I was doing a mediocre job of it. Now, several years on, I think I've learned from my many mistakes and have picked up a few tricks of the trade, and while I hope that my teaching has inspired some students, I still feel that what I do is an uphill battle. What sort of effect have I had on people's lives?

The above article is a reminder that those of us engaged in pedagogical endeavors carry enormous responsibility, and we'd do well to leave the profession if we're not committed to it. Teaching isn't a good activity in which to be mentally or spiritually elsewhere; of all the professions, it's arguably the one requiring the most presence.

Justin Yoshida's blog post title is "What makes a good teacher?" I don't have a comprehensive answer to that question, but I think the foundation for good teaching-- and good teachering-- can be written as a one-word imperative:

Care.


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