Why Caring, Educated, Respected and Well-Paid Teachers Get Far Better Results Then Tough Teachers
By Rabbi Benyomin Ginsburg
I had a teacher who approached me one day after class and sternly asked me why I wasn't taking any notes during the lesson. I showed him my notes, which were detailed, thorough, and clearly written, and explained how I had such excellent notes when I never wrote during class. I shared with him my disability that I wasn't able to listen and write at the same time. I therefore developed my own solution. I listened carefully during class and I wrote my notes as a review after class.
My teacher, instead of sticking to his idea of what was normal for a student to do and what he expected of his students, showed compassion and understanding. He suggested another solution. "Why don't I photocopy my notes and share them with you. That way you won't have to do that extra work of writing your notes over again, and you can still focus during the lesson."
Are you surprised that he was by far my favorite teacher and the one from whom I learned most? He demanded much from us and was firm, with a no-nonsense attitude that didn't allow for laziness. Not contradicting his usual firm manner, he genuinely cared about his students and showed us his caring and love. It was for this reason that he was loved by his students.
Our system of education and the resulting low scores places us in dire straits at home, where students aren't as prepared to enter the professional workforce, and more embarrassingly, on the international playing field. Almost everything about the way our schools run, from the amount of homework to the disciplinary policies, must be overhauled to produce the necessary results, yet without bringing back the many challenges and negative experiences of the previous decades. As an educator with more than thirty years in the classroom as a teacher, principal, and in hundreds of schools in the role of consultant, I must express my strong dismay at the recent article, penned by Joanner Lipman, titled, "Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results." Ms. Lipman begins her article by telling the story of experiences with her childhood orchestra conductor, a fierce Ukrainian immigrant named Jerry Kupchynsky. She shares her memories of his gruff, irritated manner and expresses her belief that it was his unfailingly high expectations and demands that made him such an extraordinary teacher. Lipman describes her surprise at the tremendous outpouring of gratitude toward the "teacher who has basically tortured us through adolescence," calling his students "idiots" when they made a mistake and never giving a compliment higher than "well-done." You are right, Ms. Lipman, "Today, he'd be fired." There are many aspects of Mr. K's educational methods that I don't take issue with, like his high expectations or the fact that he didn't coddle his students. However, a teacher who can humiliate a student in any way, particularly through name-calling, should never enter a classroom again. How dare he? How dare we allow him to? Instead of celebrating his accomplishments, I mourn for the many other students who were destroyed by his horrible and inexcusable humiliation. Have you reviewed all the rosters of his classes? Have you researched how many students he crushed? Do you know the percentage of his st
