Advanced Placement United States History Blog

The problem addressed in this article is certainly a hard one to fix. In my opinion, the idea of paying teachers based on student performance is absurd. As mentioned in the article, basing a teacher’s salary on their students’ performance would just give the Board Of Education a reason to lower salaries all around. No one is going to want a salary that will never be stable. One year it could be high and the other it could be extremely low because it all depends on how well the students can perform. Something that needs to be considered is that students all learn differently. Just because one student complains that lectures all period make it almost impossible to learn anything, another student may excel in a course designed like that. All children learn differently. All teachers teach differently. What really needs to be reformed is the way students adapt to their environment. If we sit and complain about how terrible the teacher is, of course we’re not going to learn! Personally, I don’t learn as well when all a teacher does is lecture. Of course, that changes depending on the class because Covino lectures all the time and I actually retain my information better that way. But that’s just in History. In a class like math, I can’t understand ANYTHING unless it is applicable, but there can’t be a fun activity for every math chapter. My job as a student is to learn the material though so regardless of how it’s being presented, I just have to go with it. In my opinion, obviously teachers need to be motivated more to help their students but a student’s performance is on them; it’s not the teacher’s fault.

I agree with Cyrena that every student learns differently. Some may learn better through lecture while others need to see or do things themselves to understand.  But I do not think it is fair for a teacher to be entirely judged by how their students perform.  Certain students can do well in a class no matter what the topic or who the teacher is, they just excel at learning in general.  Others may try their best and do well.  Some may try their hardest and still not understand what is being taught.  Yet there can still be those kids that put no effort into paying attention and obtaining knowledge.  It's not fair to blame the teacher for a student who fails because they don't show up, do their homework, or participate.  I don't see an easy solution to this problem because you could also have teachers that don't teach well and still have students getting help elsewhere to pass.  This "bad teaching" could be a reflection of the teacher or the students.  The best thing a teacher could do to help this problem would be to offer more time to the students and really try to figure out how they learn best.  One of my teachers makes lesson plans in which we read, write, and listen to learn vocabulary.  Since not all of us learn the same way she trys to cover all of our learning methods and it really helps everyone.  It also helps to make learning fun, we got to use iPads today and in my opinion I learned a lot in one period.