What Urban Students Say About Good Teaching
What can schools do to encourage students to care more about learning? Make sure that
teachers act in ways that demonstrate how much they care! At least, that would be the
answer of nearly 400 students we interviewed from inner-city, low-income middle and high
schools. In fact, the students never wavered in identifying their teachers as the main factor
determining how much they learned, and they spoke with one voice when describing good
teachers. Good teachers:
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Made sure that students did their work.
Controlled the classroom.
Were willing to help students whenever and however the students
Explained assignments and content clearly.
Varied the classroom routine.
Took the time to get to know the students and their circumstances.
wanted help.
Significantly, students did not confuse teachers' personal qualities with their professional ones.
Interviewees described "mean" good teachers and "mean" bad teachers; "funny" good
teachers and "funny" bad teachers; and "boring" good teachers and "boring" bad teachers. If
a teacher had the six qualities that students identified as those of a good teacher, then
demeanor, sense of humor, and charisma--as well as any other personal characteristic--were
unimportant.
Interviewing Students About Reform Efforts
In an effort to include students' voices in education reform efforts being implemented in
Philadelphia, we interviewed inner-city middle schoolers annually for three years while their
schools were undergoing a district-wide reform known as Children Achieving. The adolescents,
selected to reflect a range of attendance and achievement patterns, attended six of the
lowest-income schools in the city. Each year, we asked them to talk about their daily
instructional routines, the classes in which they learned the most and least (and behaved the
best and worst), how they preferred to learn and which classes accommodated this
preference, what they thought good teaching was, and where in their schedules they
encountered it. We hoped to discover through these conversations whether school reforms
had actually changed the educational experiences of students.
We also followed many of the same students into high school. In a serendipitous occurrence,
several of the middle schools fed into high schools that had adopted the Johns Hopkins Talent
Development Model. Because of this fortunate timing, we were able to get students'
descriptions of their high school experiences before and during this reform.( n1)
Throughout the years that the students talked with us, they held fast to their view that good
teaching was central to the quality of their schooling experiences. Moreover, when they talked
about the value of education reforms (specifically, the Talent Development Model's block
schedule), they judged such reforms on the basis of their effects on teacher behavior that
aided student learning.
What Is a Good Teacher?
Students repeatedly invoked the six qualities of good teaching in answering almost any
question we asked. Students tailed approvingly about "strict" teachers--those who pushed
students to complete their assignments and maintained an orderly classroom. Students added
that good teachers were willing to help, explained assignments and content clearly, varied
classroom activities, and tried to understand students.
Good Teachers Push Students
These urban students admitted that their default response to most assignments was to ignore
them, which understandably gave the impression that they cared little about learning.
Nevertheless, students liked teachers who successfully combated this habit. As two students
explained (in their words and syntax),
I like the ones that don't allow excuses. It's my turn to get an education. I need to have
someone to tell me when I'm tired and don't feel like doing the work that I should do it
anyway.
If they don't keep after you, you'll slide and never do the work. You just won't learn nothing if
they don't stay on you.
Teachers "nagged" students in many ways--by consistently checking homework, offering quiet
individual reminders, giving rewards, and calling parents. As one student boasted, "He keeps
pressing me until I get it right."
Good Teachers Maintain Order
According to students, their teachers varied tremendously in how well they were able to
control students, and the ones who could not maintain control bothered them a lot. As one
student succinctly explained,
The kids don't do the work. The teacher is hollering and screaming, "Do your work and
sit down!" This makes the ones that want to learn go slower. It makes your grade sink
down. It just messes it up for you. The teacher is trying to handle everybody and can't.
Another student pointed out the difference between strict and not-so-strict teachers:
“Teachers that just let you do what you want, they don't get a point across. Strict teachers get
the point across.” And, as was typical of almost everything students had to say about good
teaching, everything came back to whether they learned: “I want a teacher strict enough for
me to learn.”
Good Teachers Are Willing to Help
Just as research has demonstrated that students have different learning styles, the students
we interviewed had different helping styles. Some wanted help after school, some during
class, some individually, some through working with peers, some through whole-class
question-and-answer sessions, and some without ever having to acknowledge to anyone that
they needed it. Being omnisciently adept at knowing how and when to offer help was an
indelible part of being a good teacher.
A good teacher takes time out to see if all the kids have what they're talking about and cares
about how they're doing and will see if they need help.
Teachers who offered generous help often hooked students who previously had been reluctant
classroom participants into working.
One boy in the class, he do all his work now. If it wasn't for my teacher, he wouldn't do
nothing. At the beginning of the year, he don't do nothing; now he does.... [It's] 'cause the
teacher took time out to help him and talk to him.
Teacher help also broke the cycle of failure that we heard about from so many students. One
of them explained this phenomenon and the role of teacher assistance in ameliorating it:
Say, for instance, I didn't come to school. The next day I came in, they went over something
new. There wouldn't be like time to show me what they did [the previous day]. And the
teacher wouldn't make sure I understood. So, I start moving with them, but I be behind. They
should have given extra help.... They could pull me to the side and ask me if I want to do it.
Then it would be my choice.
Good Teachers Explain Until Everyone Understands
Many students complained about teachers who moved too fast through material or explained it
only once and in one way. They much preferred to have teachers who stayed on an
assignment until everyone understood, who offered multiple and repeated explanations, and
who, as one student said, "feed it into our head real good; they do it step-by-step and they
break it down."
Students seemed most disturbed by teachers who allowed discipline problems to affect the
quality of their explanations. For example, many students referred to teachers who would say
a variant of "I've already told you this; you should have listened the first time" in response to
repeated requests for clarification. Although the teachers may have been justified in feeling
frustrated at the lack of attention that prompted the requests, to students this phrase meant
"I refuse to teach you."
By contrast, students' faces brightened considerably when they were able to say something
like the following:
The teachers are real at ease. They take the time, you know, go step-by-step. We learn it
more. It seems like they got the time to explain it all. We don't have to leave anyone behind.
Good Teachers Vary Classroom Activities
Different activities appealed to different students. Students' preferences included working in
groups, listening to the teacher talk, reading from a book, doing worksheets, participating in
whole-class discussions, and doing hands-on activities. However, students agreed that learning
was the primary reason for liking a certain approach, as the following three statements
illustrate:
I prefer working in groups. You have more fun and you learn at the same time. You learn
quickly. So, you have fun and you do the work.
My favorite subject is math because she made our work into a game and I caught on real fast
doing it that way.
I prefer to work by myself because most people don't read on the same level. I don't like to
listen to others read. I might be ahead or behind where they are, whatever the case may be.
Good Teachers Try to Understand Students
Students applauded teachers who did more than just teach content to them. They especially
appreciated teachers who made the effort to see beyond students' behavior and understand
who they really were. One student explained:
I heard teachers talking about people, saying "Those kids can't do nothing." Kids want
teachers who believe in them.
Students particularly valued teachers who recognized the possibility that students' misbehavior
was not automatically targeted at the teachers.
Sometimes a teacher don't understand what people go through. They need to have
compassion. A teacher who can relate to students will know when something's going on with
them. If like the student don't do work or don't understand, the teacher will spend a lot of
time with them.
Good Teaching = More Learning
Students clearly expressed the belief that good teaching was important because it made them
learn better. Understand that when they said "better," students sometimes meant that they
learned "something." Unfortunately, it was not unusual for these students to spend a semester
or an entire year in a core subject in which they learned nothing, most often because they
experienced a revolving door of substitutes or a new teacher who was not equipped to meet
the challenges of an urban environment. Indeed, one student's advice to an early-career
teacher was, "She should quit this job--it's too hard for her."
Students defined learning "better" as "getting the work right," "understanding something that
a teacher already tried to teach," and "getting stuff we haven't had before." Despite the lack
of definitional sophistication, students voiced no doubt about doing better in some teachers'
classrooms than in others.
And because they cared about learning, it mattered greatly to students how often they
encountered good teachers. Nearly every student in all six Philadelphia middle schools could
identify a teacher whom they considered to be good; and nearly every one could describe a
classroom situation where little learning, if any, took place.
Students' Views on School Reforms
Because good teachers were central in determining students' school experiences, these same
students judged the changes that adults implemented in their schools on the basis of whether
the reforms increased the number of good teachers. Students were keenly adept at evaluating
the effects of significant instructional changes that had been made in their schools in terms of
whether these changes promoted better teaching and, by extension, learning.
In that respect, therefore, the students tended to adopt the kind of single-minded,
uncomplicated focus on improved school and classroom practices that the experts frequently
urge education stakeholders to use when making strategic decisions. An illustration of how
students perceived the value of one such change occurred after our original middle school
students had moved on to two high schools that adopted a block schedule.
The Block Schedule
The students we had talked to in the middle school project were in the 10th grade when their
schools became Talent Development High Schools and switched all of the grades from the
traditional seven-period day to a block schedule in which students took four classes each
semester, with 80-90 minutes devoted to each class. They saw a difference between their 9th
grade and 10th grade experiences. Time seemed to be the theme that ran through many of
their comparisons:
Teachers last year wouldn't take as much time to help you.
Now the teachers take time with you, and let you know what's got to be done.
Students predictably complained about the length of the classes with this new arrangement.
Class got boring, they said--they had to sit too long, and sometimes the teachers talked
forever. However, when we asked whether they preferred seven periods to four, 107 out of
148 9th and 10th graders said that they wanted the latter. Of the 41 who did not, six were
neutral, and not a single student said that he or she learned better in the shorter classes. Even
as they rolled their eyes about the tedium of having to be with one teacher for so long, the
students explained their almost reluctant endorsements of the block schedule:
There is more time for the teachers to help you. They can explain the work. We get to also
work in groups and if I don't understand, someone else can help me.
You learn more with just four classes because the teacher has a longer time to explain it right.
We get to do more things. We get to work by ourselves, we get to work together, and we get
to go over the work more.
I become more focused. With more classes, oh God, it drove me crazy.
You can build a relationship with the teacher. We can have more one-on-one interaction.
Readily available help ... good explanations ... variety ... focused attention ... closer studentteacher relationships--the block schedule, students felt, had almost single-handedly created a
school full of good teachers! In spite of students' complaints about the "boredom" of longer
class periods, the implementation of block scheduling had changed teachers' behaviors to
correspond more closely with students' notions of good teaching--and that result alone was
enough reason for students to support the reform.
Students Do Care
The block schedule has been the subject of intensive debates. Adults argue passionately,
relying on research that cannot conclusively bolster either side. Our students exhibited much
more single-mindedness in deciding that they supported this change. Unlike adults, they did
not raise financial, political, occupational, legal, bureaucratic, or philosophical reasons why
something that promoted student learning was nevertheless inadvisable. All that the
Philadelphia high school students knew was that with the advent of longer classes, their
teachers had changed. Instead of telling the students something once and leaving it up to
them to choose to work or not, the teachers prodded, aided, and clarified more. And, over
time, students noticed the true benefit of this development--they learned better.
When adults ask what they can do to make students care more about learning, their question
implies that students do not care enough now. Adults, quite understandably, allow scowls,
yawns, misbehavior, disrespect, and refusal to work to persuade them that apathy is rampant.
But our interviews with students in high-poverty schools suggest that these adolescents do
care. The students we talked with cared so deeply about having good teachers that they
wholeheartedly embraced a reform about which many adults are deeply divided. Students
simply wanted good teachers because such teachers made them learn--often in spite of
themselves.
Do students care about learning? Perhaps the question we should be asking is What can
schools do to support and reinforce adult actions that demonstrate to students that the adults
care as much about learning as the students do? The students' definitions of good teaching
provide an excellent starting point for identifying just what those actions might look like.
(n1) Our discussions with middle schoolers are reported in detail in Listening to Urban
Students: School Reform and the Teachers They Want (Wilson & Corbett, 2001, State
University of New York Press). Additional material from the project that followed students to
high school is available in Students' Perspectives on the Ninth Grade Academy of the Talent
Development High Schools in Philadelphia: 1999-2000 (Corbett & Wilson, 2000, Philadelphia
Education Fund).
Source: Educational Leadership, September 2002, Vol. 60 Issue 1, p18, 5p
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