Teaching

I just took my daughter to Karate. She'd been teasing me about moving slowly, so I walked very slowly down the stairs...across the garage...cliiiimbed into the van....stopped for a breath... By this time, she was stamping her feet in agitation.

On the way, she told me about something dumb that someone in one of her classes had said. But that's the thing, she went on. Most of the people in that class are dumb. I thought about that for a moment. If they're mostly dumb, I asked, why aren't you a stellar student in that class? Because you're clearly not dumb. She paused. Not being dumb doesn't mean doing well. I'm doing better than other people in the class. And there are people who do better than me. Its just that there are more dumb people than not. Well, I replied, the teacher should be able to handle that. You saw how flabbergasted your mother and I got when your biology teacher said that the average for his course was a C. Our feeling is that C means 'has a general idea of the information, but not much of a grasp on it'. We know, in a tough course a C can be considered good, but this is a basic Biology course, not an advanced one. WHen I hear a teacher say that, I think Then they're not very good, if they can't get the average student up to a B. Unless the materials particularly difficult, or the kids not very bright, or with a poor background -- and even then, the job of a teacher is to TEACH. If they're not getting the material across to a basic level of understanding most of the time, to what we see as a B level, then to me something's wrong, and, most likely, they're not doing their job.

I hestitated. I am sure that teachers wouldn't agree, I added.

The rest of the trip was in silence.