Teachers

I started teaching in 2014, and I wanted to be the "hard" teacher*.* I believed that a student would be motivated by the "A", realize that the "A" is hard to achieve, keep on extending their knowledge and skill set to achieve the grade, and then they would be a better person for it. I dreamed that they would come back to me 10 years later and say, "Your class was really hard but I learned so much!"

Around 3-4 years in, I realized that being the "hard" teacher is a stupid goal. Why be hard for the sake of being hard? In fact, you should be easy! No, I am not saying that you don't have standards or you grade in a lax way (that would be deleterious to the goal of education), I am saying make it easy for your students to learn. If you can get the same point across with 5 pages of homework as 25 pages of homework, assign 5 pages. If you can get your point across without homework, by all means do so! If you really want students to understand a broad concept, explain it like a broad concept and don't nitpick details. Don't make things harder just to make things harder.

This is not the bullshit admin demand of "give the students grace." This is saying to make learning a process with the LEAST amount of stress.

What I have found is that, when students like my class (and generally like me as a person), they can relax a bit and actually learn some shit. When my students go to the "hard" teacher, they tense up.

And this realization has been career-changing. Have high standards, but don't be a jerk unnecessarily just for the purposes of making students jump through your hoops.

Has anyone else gone down this thought process?