Good vs. Great

Grant Wiggin recently wrote a blog post titled “Good vs. great teachers: how do you wish to be remembered?” that was very interesting.  He details the difference in what he thinks a good teacher is (i.e. someone who teaches content well) and a great teacher (i.e. a teacher that develops talent).  He gives a really interesting list of differences:

• Great teachers are in the talent-finding and talent-development business.
• Merely good teachers think they are mostly in the business of teaching stuff and helping students so that it gets learned.

• Great teachers are aiming for the future: are these students better able to succeed on their own after me and without me?
• Merely good teachers look mostly to the past: did they learn what I taught and did they do what I asked of them?

• Great teachers decide what NOT to teach to ensure lasting emphases and memories
• Good teachers cover a lot of ground while making the content as interesting as possible.

• Great teachers delight in smart-alecks and skeptics who clearly have raw but undirected talent.
• Good teachers are often threatened or bothered by smart alecks and skeptics.

• Great teachers know us better than we know ourselves, especially in terms of intellectual character.
• Good teachers merely know us as students of the subject.

• Great teachers get more from us than we thought possible to give
• Good teachers have high expectations and passions, and think that the rest is up to us.

• Great teachers sometimes bend the rules and fudge the grades on behalf of raw student talent.
• Good teachers uphold standards and grade according to the scores students earned.

The article goes on to discuss famous and successful people who were poor students by the standard of a “good” teacher.  He also details how these “great” teachers exist in our current system, and makes a call for more teachers to be “great”.  Very interesting article worth the full read.

This article has me thinking quite a few things.  Imagine a world of only great teachers.  How would this go over?

1. Does a great teacher really inspire an entire class to the wonderful, anecdotal accomplishments Grant refers to?  Great teachers are able to look deep in the soul of the student to see their abilities and potential, which good teachers only see their scores.  How exactly does a lecturer of 300 students look deep into the soul at a large university?
2. What is the loss in content, skills, and information after many years of “great” teaching?  Inspiring motivation and interest in students is a high priority and much of the content is forgotten in time, but learning is developed during the content.  Students become more capable learners as they are forced to worth through content, and the ability to learn independently seems like a high priority skill.
3. Is it acceptable for great teachers to fudge the scores?  What does it teach students?  It is o.k. to play outside the rules as long as you are bright enough to impress your teacher?  We want to inspire and motivate, but at what cost?  Grades have to mean something or why give them at all.  Just look at grade inflation in higher education and see how quickly grades become meaningless.
4. Are students always ready for a great teacher?  It seems like being “great” in this sense also requires the student to be emotionally and mentally ready for a door to be opened. Or maybe the point of great is to inspire them to get to that place.

Great teachers might help students be great, but the path to great goes through good.  Grant specific mentions Einstein, so let me mention Newton.  Despite the story of the apple, Newton came across his discoveries because he knew the background so well he was ready to take the next step forward (“.. standing on the shoulders of giants”).  Motivation is hard to find and harder to instill in students, but without background and skills how are these grand plans accomplished?  How many students have you met with the skills and not motivation?  How many with lots of motivation and no skills?

As with most things, too much of a good thing is probably not the best solution.  I’m right now trying to be a good teacher, but maybe I need to make some more time in my day trying to be a great teacher as well.  Either way talent identification and development has got to make up a bigger portion of my time if I want to put these students in the position of doing great things.