| This semester, I had the opportunity to offer a college course entitled "Education and Power" to students at Santa Monica High School. The goals of the course were to study and analyze The Students' Bill of Rights and to engage students in critical research in relation to those rights. The course also seeks to provide students the opportunity to present their research findings and proposals in public forums such as this web site.
While focusing on the right to quality teachers, students in "Education and Power" wrote papers that explore what it means to be a good teacher and what it means to be a bad teacher. All too often, teachers look to their colleagues, to theories in books, to the latest idea they picked up at a teaching conference or even to their families and friends for ideas on how to motivate students and get them to want to learn. Rarely do teachers call upon their students for advice on how to improve their teaching.
We hope that the student work on this page will help educators today or those considering a career in education gain insight in what students believe makes a quality teacher. As the ones who witness a teacher's performance on a daily basis, it is important that students be regarded as experts on quality teaching.
- George Acosta, Santa Monica High School Instructor |
