How can we be better?

We can be better

It is the age old cry for any business, education included. We can be better.

Is it really saying, ‘you are not good enough’? I don’t think so. Value of any kind is subjective and needs to be measured against your aims, your eventual targets. So what are those targets in education?

It has to be results first of all: the student needs to be able to score well on whatever tests they are taking to advance to the next level of their education. Whether at the age of five or six or for their PhD viva twenty years later; this has to be first in our minds as educators.

The next is a love of the subject. If you teach, it’s because you have passion. If you don’t you are in the wrong profession. You believe in your subject, in its value to the student, in its relevance to the world.

The last has to be the small areas that we all usually miss. The advice we give when we mark a paper: is it thorough? The work that’s set: is it enough, does it challenge the student? The students who can’t quite get it: how do we differentiate and bring them into the fold, get them achieving within their ability level?

We can always be better. The question is how do we do it? With all three of these targets we can be better. We can teach to the exam and prepare students more effectively, we can run extra classes and give them a deeper understanding of what made us want to study these subjects in the first place and we can be dogmatic about how we set them work and how we mark it to give them the best advice.

We can always strive to be better. The question is, why aren’t we?

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