Education Improvment

Education Improvment

Viewing students as consumers -- and consumers with strong ideas about how their instructors should treat them as learners and individuals -- can help good teachers become great teachers in the eyes of the people who matter most, according to a new book. Included: Tips for building relationships with students.

Much research has been devoted in recent years to what makes a good teacher -- education, content knowledge, student test scores, evaluations. Little consideration has been given to the views of teachers customers -- the students who sit in their classrooms everyday.

Students, in fact, have a lot of opinions about what makes a good teacher. School administrators Kelly E. Middleton and Elizabeth Petitt captured some of those pointers in their book, Simply the Best: 29 Things Students Say the Best Teachers Do. Suggestions range from the very simple -- smiling at students and knowing their names -- to more personalized efforts, such as attending student events and visiting their homes.

Middleton and Petitt argue that the best teachers take a customer service approach to education and focus on making connections with students and getting to know them as individuals. Teachers who do that, they write, see greater academic progress and fewer discipline problems.

The two authors talked with Education World about their book and the pervasive effects of positive relationships with students.

Education World: