What makes a good student? (20th Feb 2012)

Intelligence, the ability to follow instructions and the willingness to accept the teacher as THE teacher are an obvious starting point.

However, as with many things in life, the obvious is obviously wrong. Let me tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

I was very kindly invited into a primary school class to watch what was going on. The class was split into tables, each with about six pupils of a similar ability. It was a maths class and each table had a different set of problems to solve. One table had a problem like this :-



The seven year-olds had to add the two numbers on the corners of a side and put the total in the boxes in the middle. That gave another three numbers which had to be added together to go into the gray box in the middle. Easy!

So, having a maths background, I sat down and worked out the algebra on a piece of scrap paper and felt quite superior. At least I did until the teacher asked those on other tables to look at the problem. One girl put her hand up immediately and said the gray box had to contain four times the total on the outside because you were doubling the sum each time you went in a level. I sat there for a moment, looked at what I had done and ripped up the bit of paper.

Amusing though this was, I then watched the very bright lass. Being polite and pleasant, she did everything asked of her immediately ... and then sat looking out of the window, watching the leaves blowing in the breeze or the spider wander across the window ledge. She did not chatter or cause a fuss. She just switched off.

I have often wondered how she got on. Her intelligence will have taken her a long way, but what would happen when she hit a problem that needed sustained concentration? Other, less capable, students may well have passed her at that point. Whilst it helps, intelligence is not a necessity because the ability to concentrate will have a far greater impact.

Well, how about the ability to follow instructions? Isn't that what was claimed at the Nürnberg trials? The ability to follow orders does not show the ability to understand a problem. In fact shows the opposite, a lack of understanding so deep that any "rule" would be accepted even if it is wrong. The ability to follow instructions is useful, but the ability to develop your own set of instructions would have a much greater impact. May I bore you with another story? No? Well, it's my blog, so there.

We had a course for the upper echelons of a local authority at the time when PCs were first being introduced. Word processors were the cutting edge and we had to show them how to use them so we created some well structured materials. It led them through the process of creating a letter keystroke-by-keystroke. We had trialled the materials on lower level students, so we knew they worked. We were good to go.

The course seemed to be a huge success. They all whizzed through the instructions and seemed quite content - except one. He could not get past the first page. I assumed that he was on the course under duress and this was his way of showing it. However, chatting to him it became quite clear that he wanted to word process but was having difficulty with the handout. So I erased the little he had done and asked him to complete the steps in front of me. He did the first step fine, but then moved on to step 4, missing the others. So I gently pointed out the problem, got him back to the beginning and asked him to try again. He started with step 2. I was perplexed. But he said that he had done it wrong with steps 1 and 4, so the thought he had better start at 2. It did cross my mind that he might be having fun with me, but he was obviously serious. Then I had a brainwave (even I'm allowed one in 30+ years of teaching). I covered up the list of instructions with my hand so that only step 1 was was visible and asked him to do that. He did - we were on our way! So I moved my hand down to the next instruction (having covered the first with a piece of paper) and asked him to do that. He nodded and gently moved my hand down so that he could do step 3 ... He had two masters degrees and ran a large department but could not follow a list of instructions.

Whilst he was an extreme example, I find many capable students who need to internalise a process before they can follow instructions.

Then there is being THE teacher. Most of my students are used to seeing "Sir" as the fountain of all knowledge because that is what they have had drummed into them at school. Ask "Sir" if you don't know the answer. Don't think about the problem. Don't look in a book or on the Internet. Just ask "Sir". What lesson are we sending to our charges if make them totally reliant on "Sir". That attitude was needed when there were 100 children in a Primary School class in 1880. Whilst society has moved on, the school system has remained as it was 130 years ago. A modern economy needs workers who can think for themselves, people who can innovate, minds that are not afraid to try new ideas.

The current system works for those who are in the middle. They have to concentrate because they need that to meet the task set. The brighter ones can allow their minds to wander. The less able don't learn to concentrate because they know they will not achieve. The middle ones will complete the task and get immediate satisfaction when the teacher says, "well done. The brighter ones have their satisfaction deferred and so the glow is not as bright. The less able know they have not met the level and therefore any praise is unearned.

So what does make a good student?

First we need to decide what the measuring stick looks like. What is "good"? A good student is one who gets pleasure from learning, one for whom the work-reward cycle is closed, one who concentrates because they have learnt how and who has the opportunity to develop their way of understanding a problem. The level of achievement is irrelevant because each could tend towards their potential rather than an arbitrary level decided by someone who does not know them.

This is why atomisation will work. To each his own is beautiful (or suum cuique pluchrum est, as we used to say when I was at school and the Romans were still here).