Throughout one’s life, school can be a gateway to learning more about your interests, talents, dreams, and values. As you go through school, you are given an environment to grow in, while learning more about the person you are, as well as the world around you, along the way. Every day, you hear new information that shapes your own thought and self going forward.
Now, as you spend so much time going through school throughout many years of your life, you’re encouraged to become better, to take opportunities you are given, and behave with decorum and responsibility as you mature through the years.
Overall, as a student, you’re encouraged to work hard, to learn, and to be good. At school, students are guided to do these things and more with the staff and teachers of the school. Here, we can see how closely related students and teachers are: students learn from teachers who are meant to guide them through their education.
When such an important relationship exists between the two parties of people, this begs the question: what makes a good student, and what makes a good teacher?
To help answer this question, students and teachers from LHS have given their own perspectives on this complex question.
In sophomore Will Rentfro’s eyes, a good teacher is one who is responsive to you, listens to you, and does more negotiation and conversation, instead of just lectures. There’s always at least one teacher who makes an especially lasting impact on a student, a teacher who is memorable and significant to a student for a variety of reasons. For Rentfro, it was Mr. Schaper, who he had as a teacher last year.
“He was my advanced English I teacher, and he was amazing,” Rentfro said. “He was everything I wanted a teacher to be. He was conversational, he listened to us, and he was just awesome.”
On the flipside, the algebra I, precalculus, and essentials of math teacher, Mrs. Allensworth, formerly Ms. Hunsel, believes that a good student is just one who “puts their best effort into what they’re doing. So, maybe they don’t get it every time, but as long as they’re trying and putting their effort into doing it, I think that makes a really good student.”
Junior Raksha Thiagarajan personally finds it important that a teacher works personally with students to try and help them succeed by making sure students truly understand, rather than just “putting a grade in the gradebook.”
“I think it’s important for students to have good teachers while learning because that can really help encourage the student to come to school, instead of making school like a chore,” Thiagarajan said. “It can also help not stress the students out.”
Mr. Barker, the psychology, sociology, and U.S. government teacher, later went on to explain why it’s important for teachers and students to have good interactions with each other.
“Positive relationships make any endeavor more fun, and also often results in high quality,” Barker said. “ If students and teachers can find a common ground upon which to build good relationships, I think it can only benefit.”
When it comes to what makes a good teacher, senior Skylar Grosch feels that, “a good teacher is someone who really appreciates their students and takes the time to learn about their students, such as learning about their teaching preferences.” Grosch then went on to recall how Mr. Barker, her current AP Psychology teacher, has been one teacher who has really stuck out to her throughout her school experience. “Mr. Barker really just knows how to make the class fun, and he really cares about every one of us. And, he really knows how to have fun,” Grosch said.
Mrs. Tarrant-Oliphant, also known as Mrs. T-O, reflected on students in her teaching career who have been significant to her.
“Because I teach English, it lends itself to telling really personal stories sometimes because literature is personal, and you connect to it on a personal level,” Tarrant-Oliphant said. “And, when you create that level of comfort, your class becomes in the best years a community and in the most excellent years a family. So, I would say knowing that I’ve fostered relationships that have lent themselves to me being at people’s weddings, baby showers, and other significant life events–years and years after I’ve had them in class. I know that maybe they don’t remember every specific thing I taught them about English, but at least I had an impact on them in a way that they felt seen, heard, and valued in my classroom, which helped them through this phase of their life, along with the next phase of their life.”
It truly is interesting to see how one person can change a life, both positively and negatively. For students and teachers, the relationship between these two groups is one that is able to grow over time, time where memories are made, lessons are learned, and connections strong enough to last through years are built. So, at the end of it all, what makes a good student, and what makes a good teacher?
Well, the answer to this one may never be definite. However, the basic ingredients to these recipes may really be as simple as this: a dash of compassion, a little bit of patience, and a spoonful of willingness. To learn, grow, and make the most out of one day after the other.
