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Yes

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As a teacher, I can answer a resounding YES. Sure, it's the student's job to pay attention and apply themselves in lessons, BUT consider this:
Have you ever met someone at, say a party, that absolutely BORES the pants off you? You desperately try to catch someone else's eye with hopes for rescue, but your companion persists in outlining the difference between a raven and a crow, or to regale you with anecdotes about their grandchild's latest missing tooth . . . What if our boring party acquaintance was a TEACHER? YOUR child's teacher!

The world is made up of BORING people and not-so boring people. Odds are, some of those bores will make it through teacher training. I AM ONE, so I know how boring we can be. Lock us up with a CAPTIVE AUDIENCE of youngsters and we can just go on and on and on . . . with little regard for the crucial factors which affect a student's actual test scores:
1) Engaging, interesting teaching
2) Periodic, regular assessment to ensure that the material is being understood
3) Revision (which bores us teachers) but is critical to students' successful mastery of a topic
4) Control of the classroom environment, to ensure that the right conditions exist in which active listening and real learning can take place

Teachers are very much responsible for the performance of their students. It is a difficult job, but there are many people out there proving by their kids' results that it is far from impossible to produce an entire class of achievers with the RIGHT teaching methods, an enthusiastic attitude and some plain old common sense about what engages youngsters to listen and do their best.

Learn more about this author, Ally Chumley.
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