"The best students will always do well." No, actually, they won't always do well.
I was a "gifted" kid but I still had some teachers over the years that absolutely failed to engage me with their subject matter and they made learning painful and miserable. I did okay, but not great in those subject areas - looking at you, geography. And calculus. (A lot of that was also the undiagnosed ADHD.)
There were others who were fantastic at their jobs, and it was their love of their subject matter AND their skill as a teacher that drew out the best in me as a student.
Please forgive if the point has already been made below in the comments here, but this looks very much like the classic Dunning-Krueger model, wherein the most competent people consistently underrate their own job performance, and the least competent people give themselves the highest marks for competence.
It's a good sign (in my humble O) that TAMMVA feels a bit like an imposter; the best people often do.
Ha ha. I can relate. As a former one-time, or two- or three-time full-time classroom teacher, and current many-time sub (in k-8) I found myself only wanting/enjoying to teach the kids I like... and some schools have very few of those. Increasingly, the kids I like get younger and younger every year. Funny, that.
Buddhists have an idea of a Buddha, who is an enlightened person who has attained a state of being that encopasses all spiritual knowledge. They also think some people can be Boddhisatvas, and those are people who have attained a state of enlightenment but who refuse to depart from this material world until everyone else also attains the condition of enlightenment. When I think of those two conditions, it seems much harder to be a Bodhisattva than it is to be a Buddha -- because it's much more difficult to bring enlightenment to others than to just find it for yourself. I admire the questioner's understanding that the accolade is not something they feel they have earned because they haven't brought enlightenment to everybody. On the other hand, two points: nobody has brought enlightenment to everybody; and this might be an opportunity to highlight how much more work needs to be done. An award is not a granting of a state of perfection -- it can be a challenge to do more.
As a high-achieving student myself (top 1% of graduating class), and father to a daughter who is the same (top 5%), I will tell you unequivocally that what you provide as a "good teacher for the smart kids" is at LEAST as impactful as what those who are "good for the less smart kids" provide. Teachers who can raise the level of gifted kids and aid their learning, while preventing classes from turning into utter bore-fests, are worth their weight in gold and rare gemstones. I got far more out of my experience with my also-gifted and amazingly articulate high school physics teacher than I did from the idiot who taught AP Calculus and often couldn't answer our questions about the harder problems and other techniques that resulted in the same answers but weren't "by the book" because he didn't understand them. I now believe he was the only one willing to teach the class at all, which is why he ended up with the job.
TL;DR: Do NOT undercut your value to the gifted/driven kids. You deserve recognition for making them better as does EVERY teacher who elevates their students beyond what they could achieve on their own. Excel at what you're good at, and work on your weaknesses. That's all we can ask of anyone.
Part of the Dunning-Kruger is that people in the top quartile of expertise reckon themselves to be merely in the second-to-top quartile. So this is straight Dunning-Kruger.
Reverse Dunning-Kruger could be a non-expert thinking they're even less skilled than they are, or an expert thinking they're even better than they are.
Good teachers affect more people than they realize. When my son graduated from high school, I was going through a really rough time. His Big History teacher was nominated by the students to give a speech. He was speaking to the students, but I felt he was speaking to me. Saying, you want to get through the hard parts of your life quickly, but they are part of your life. Plus an awesome Camus quote about living one day through each minute, don't remember the details, but I got the vibe.
Even if the struggling students don't seem to succeed, that doesn't mean that they do not feel the affect of a caring teacher. Who knows where that energy will click in
I have a similar perspective to the author of the letter, although in college, not high school. I won a couple of awards, but I never felt like I was all that good. After winning an honorary teaching professorship, I sat on the award committee, and I couldn’t believe the accomplishments of all the nominees, I really didn’t belong in that group.
But just to share something helpful: it’s totally natural to feel you are doing better with the high flyers than the lagging students. It’s extremely hard or impossible to get some students to do well, for a host of reasons. That’s why they are not the high flyers! You have measure the progress of each student against their potential. If you have a student who could only possibly get a C in a particular subject (sufficient interest, or time to put into it to get a B), then if you can get them their C, you succeeded! Take the win. They probably are happy with it.
And nominations are always going to come from the scholastic stars and their families, because they have the time and discipline to do that.
I always felt that the good teachers were never happy with how they did, they always thought they could have done better or more. The poor teachers thought they were doing it perfectly, and it was always somehow the student’s fault if they didn’t do well.
Some years a student nominated me for a teaching award. It was one of the top stus whose opinion I value. So the school told me what I needed to do. (what I needed to do???) I had to prepare a binder with testimonials, my teaching philosophy, copy of my course material, pix of this and that. Every page needed to be in a clear plastic sleeve. So spent several days on this. Handed it in, next day it's thrown back at me, not good enough!!
Later talking to another instructor. He snapped that adjuncts are not allowed the award. I thought he was just cynical. Except we were standing next to the dept chair and he didn't deny it.
Since midnight here (still eight hours left in the day), I have gotten seven moneybeg emails from the Biden campaign or their surrogates.
SEVEN.
That's almost one every two hours.
.
I mean look: I sent money after the debate, and I sent money again yesterday. And I sent money for the senate campaigns too.
Please stop.
I don't want to just shut this off, because democracy is indeed at stake here.. but stop with the bullshit about how WE NEED YOUR CONTRIBUTION IN THE NEXT FOUR HOURS every two hours. Eventually you are going to piss me off.
Whenever I cave in and send a little front-pocket money, I immediately unsubscribe because they pass me around and it hurts my dignity to be treated like a cheap trick.
Only 7? Try twenty before noon...most were texts of course, the favored way to intimidate no matter what party you belong to...both sides do it, and it took me forever to squash the conservative emails I never signed on for...
Jill and Kamala have taken a liking to me, so I have duplicates of each email they sent (4). Joe and the gang sent me 3 or 4 more, and even Carville sent something. I feel loved.
Huh. For that first minute there, I thought I was listening to Bizzarro Petter Hörnfeldt (aka MentourPilot). "Fly the plane." Memory-items. "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate."
I wish he would have passed that on to that loudmouth Tom Nichols before he got on with Alex Witt and vomited his anxiety all over weekend prime time AFTER having BLOCKED some of us who tried to tell him the truth about Donald *in 2016* and then had the utter temerity and gall to turn right around and talk about it three weeks ago like it was all his idea
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
#TooTypicalWhitePrivilegeMan
Is anyone (other than me and Gavin Newsom, from how he sounded talking to Alex "Anxiety" Witt) just PAST FED UP with these ageist bigots (who claim to be Democrats!!) who apparently believe they are old enough and wise enough to tell the rest of us what to do but who simultaneously seem to have COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THE REPUBLICANS PROPPED RONNIE RAYGUN UP IN THE WHITE HOUSE WITH FREAKING ALZHEIMERS??????
"The best students will always do well." No, actually, they won't always do well.
I was a "gifted" kid but I still had some teachers over the years that absolutely failed to engage me with their subject matter and they made learning painful and miserable. I did okay, but not great in those subject areas - looking at you, geography. And calculus. (A lot of that was also the undiagnosed ADHD.)
There were others who were fantastic at their jobs, and it was their love of their subject matter AND their skill as a teacher that drew out the best in me as a student.
Please forgive if the point has already been made below in the comments here, but this looks very much like the classic Dunning-Krueger model, wherein the most competent people consistently underrate their own job performance, and the least competent people give themselves the highest marks for competence.
It's a good sign (in my humble O) that TAMMVA feels a bit like an imposter; the best people often do.
Ha ha. I can relate. As a former one-time, or two- or three-time full-time classroom teacher, and current many-time sub (in k-8) I found myself only wanting/enjoying to teach the kids I like... and some schools have very few of those. Increasingly, the kids I like get younger and younger every year. Funny, that.
Buddhists have an idea of a Buddha, who is an enlightened person who has attained a state of being that encopasses all spiritual knowledge. They also think some people can be Boddhisatvas, and those are people who have attained a state of enlightenment but who refuse to depart from this material world until everyone else also attains the condition of enlightenment. When I think of those two conditions, it seems much harder to be a Bodhisattva than it is to be a Buddha -- because it's much more difficult to bring enlightenment to others than to just find it for yourself. I admire the questioner's understanding that the accolade is not something they feel they have earned because they haven't brought enlightenment to everybody. On the other hand, two points: nobody has brought enlightenment to everybody; and this might be an opportunity to highlight how much more work needs to be done. An award is not a granting of a state of perfection -- it can be a challenge to do more.
As a high-achieving student myself (top 1% of graduating class), and father to a daughter who is the same (top 5%), I will tell you unequivocally that what you provide as a "good teacher for the smart kids" is at LEAST as impactful as what those who are "good for the less smart kids" provide. Teachers who can raise the level of gifted kids and aid their learning, while preventing classes from turning into utter bore-fests, are worth their weight in gold and rare gemstones. I got far more out of my experience with my also-gifted and amazingly articulate high school physics teacher than I did from the idiot who taught AP Calculus and often couldn't answer our questions about the harder problems and other techniques that resulted in the same answers but weren't "by the book" because he didn't understand them. I now believe he was the only one willing to teach the class at all, which is why he ended up with the job.
TL;DR: Do NOT undercut your value to the gifted/driven kids. You deserve recognition for making them better as does EVERY teacher who elevates their students beyond what they could achieve on their own. Excel at what you're good at, and work on your weaknesses. That's all we can ask of anyone.
Reverse Dunning Kruger?
Otherwise known as Imposter Syndrome.
Had it all my life.
Part of the Dunning-Kruger is that people in the top quartile of expertise reckon themselves to be merely in the second-to-top quartile. So this is straight Dunning-Kruger.
Reverse Dunning-Kruger could be a non-expert thinking they're even less skilled than they are, or an expert thinking they're even better than they are.
Good teachers affect more people than they realize. When my son graduated from high school, I was going through a really rough time. His Big History teacher was nominated by the students to give a speech. He was speaking to the students, but I felt he was speaking to me. Saying, you want to get through the hard parts of your life quickly, but they are part of your life. Plus an awesome Camus quote about living one day through each minute, don't remember the details, but I got the vibe.
Even if the struggling students don't seem to succeed, that doesn't mean that they do not feel the affect of a caring teacher. Who knows where that energy will click in
I have a similar perspective to the author of the letter, although in college, not high school. I won a couple of awards, but I never felt like I was all that good. After winning an honorary teaching professorship, I sat on the award committee, and I couldn’t believe the accomplishments of all the nominees, I really didn’t belong in that group.
But just to share something helpful: it’s totally natural to feel you are doing better with the high flyers than the lagging students. It’s extremely hard or impossible to get some students to do well, for a host of reasons. That’s why they are not the high flyers! You have measure the progress of each student against their potential. If you have a student who could only possibly get a C in a particular subject (sufficient interest, or time to put into it to get a B), then if you can get them their C, you succeeded! Take the win. They probably are happy with it.
And nominations are always going to come from the scholastic stars and their families, because they have the time and discipline to do that.
I always felt that the good teachers were never happy with how they did, they always thought they could have done better or more. The poor teachers thought they were doing it perfectly, and it was always somehow the student’s fault if they didn’t do well.
Some years a student nominated me for a teaching award. It was one of the top stus whose opinion I value. So the school told me what I needed to do. (what I needed to do???) I had to prepare a binder with testimonials, my teaching philosophy, copy of my course material, pix of this and that. Every page needed to be in a clear plastic sleeve. So spent several days on this. Handed it in, next day it's thrown back at me, not good enough!!
Later talking to another instructor. He snapped that adjuncts are not allowed the award. I thought he was just cynical. Except we were standing next to the dept chair and he didn't deny it.
Padres 8 Red Sox 0
Jim Rice isn’t walking through that door
Bogearts told them all the little secrets of where to hit the ball. "Over the fence" was probably the best advice.
Don't worry TAMMVA, you've never won and might not ever. Here, have a tablespoonful of horseradish!
/goes to find somebody else to piss on
Well it is Saturday - time to vacuum the rugs!
Daisy hates this and hides under the bed - so sorry young kitty!
https://substack.com/profile/2048134-the-blessed-reverend/note/c-60450957
I did laundry AND vacuuming.
Treating myself to beer and weed
Oh, pizza also
No pineapple
Not YET officially confirmed but these could be the first F-16s strikes in Ukraine war
https://twitter.com/Lyla_lilas/status/1806996487496204562
"Oriannalyla 🇺🇦@Lyla_lilas
"The first strike carried out by an F16 and confirmed by direct contact in the International Legion. We're finally there."
tik tik tik... aaaaand
it's time for the smoking lamp to be lit! :]
Light it up!
Since midnight here (still eight hours left in the day), I have gotten seven moneybeg emails from the Biden campaign or their surrogates.
SEVEN.
That's almost one every two hours.
.
I mean look: I sent money after the debate, and I sent money again yesterday. And I sent money for the senate campaigns too.
Please stop.
I don't want to just shut this off, because democracy is indeed at stake here.. but stop with the bullshit about how WE NEED YOUR CONTRIBUTION IN THE NEXT FOUR HOURS every two hours. Eventually you are going to piss me off.
.
/rant
I just delete them and donate what I can when I can.
Whenever I cave in and send a little front-pocket money, I immediately unsubscribe because they pass me around and it hurts my dignity to be treated like a cheap trick.
Forward them all to John Roberts.
Only 7? Try twenty before noon...most were texts of course, the favored way to intimidate no matter what party you belong to...both sides do it, and it took me forever to squash the conservative emails I never signed on for...
Jill and Kamala have taken a liking to me, so I have duplicates of each email they sent (4). Joe and the gang sent me 3 or 4 more, and even Carville sent something. I feel loved.
Carole King has been flirting with me!
Carville seems damn thirsty to me.
That Carville person seems to think that sending me insults will get me to contribute. I already contribute regularly. But f*ck him.
Rick Wilson also has a good take on the Biden-Trump debate fiasco and how not to freak out. Essentially, he is saying "'Keep Calm and Carry On'"
"How to make Biden's bad night into Trump's bad November"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw8te6EiIlY
Huh. For that first minute there, I thought I was listening to Bizzarro Petter Hörnfeldt (aka MentourPilot). "Fly the plane." Memory-items. "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate."
Great channel!
I wish he would have passed that on to that loudmouth Tom Nichols before he got on with Alex Witt and vomited his anxiety all over weekend prime time AFTER having BLOCKED some of us who tried to tell him the truth about Donald *in 2016* and then had the utter temerity and gall to turn right around and talk about it three weeks ago like it was all his idea
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
#TooTypicalWhitePrivilegeMan
Is anyone (other than me and Gavin Newsom, from how he sounded talking to Alex "Anxiety" Witt) just PAST FED UP with these ageist bigots (who claim to be Democrats!!) who apparently believe they are old enough and wise enough to tell the rest of us what to do but who simultaneously seem to have COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THE REPUBLICANS PROPPED RONNIE RAYGUN UP IN THE WHITE HOUSE WITH FREAKING ALZHEIMERS??????
I have HAD it with these people