Re. Blame the student or blame the teacher?

Subject: Re. Blame the student or blame the teacher?
From: Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 12:43:20 LCL

I'm interested to note that we seem to have divided into two camps
over poor writing/reading skills: many blame the teacher, and many
blame the student. I must wonder, though, whether anything is ever
this simple.

There's no doubt a bad teacher can fail to teach. There's also no
doubt that a bad learner can fail to learn. (Note that "bad" here can
have a multitude of explanations and meanings... choose whichever ones
suit you.) The reality is that even good teachers won't reach
uninterested or learning-disabled students, and that even the worst
teachers won't ruin interested, skilled learners. Generalisations
usually mask the truth... that reality lies somewhere in between the
extremes, and usually combines elements of truth from both.

I've taught students who simply didn't respond to me at all, no matter
what approach I tried. This may have been my fault (limited rhetorical
flexibility), their fault (disinterest) or a combination of both. I've
also taught students whose learning style I could adapt to, and in
several cases doubled their percentage grades by the end of the
course. (Yes, I'm proud of that. Very. But less proud that I couldn't
help some others.) Don't cast blame without recognizing that both the
teacher and the learner share responsibility for learning.

--Geoff Hart #8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

Disclaimer: These comments are my own and don't represent the opinions
of the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada.


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