Every CPS school yearly selects student representatives to serve on the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council. This group meets quarterly to give the superintendent information on what is happening in classrooms across the district.

At the last meeting, the superintendent posed this question: “What makes a great teacher?” Students were asked to divide into teams by age to come up with the answer. The three teams were elementary reps, middle school reps, and high school reps. Interestingly, the answers were very similar regardless of the team.

According to these CPS students, great teachers have five important traits:

1. They are friendly and like their students. They show this by talking informally with students and taking an interest in their lives both inside and outside of the classroom.

2. They are challenging. Students feel like they are always learning something interesting and new in the classrooms. Such teachers stretch their students and do not spend an inordinate quantity of time on review or simple concepts that the students already know.

3. They are patient. Favorite teachers are always willing to help students who need extra assistance. They do not demean or put students down because they do not understand. They explain concepts clearly with examples to promote student understanding. They make sure that students understand what they are taught before moving on to new material.

Such teachers have no need to be overly strict, the students said, because they obey them out of respect, not fear.

4. They are interesting. They do not rely on a high degree of teacher talk to deliver their content. Instead they give students plenty of time to talk. They also provide activities and games to make learning fun. Many give children a say in what goes on in the classroom.

One student gave the example of a teacher who admitted she was not sure how best to help students learn the material in a new unit. She also was unsure on how to help students be motivated about her subject, so she asked them what to add to her lessons. Then she did what the students suggested. This representative went on to say not only did the students appreciated this opportunity for input but were motivated to make their ideas work once she utilized them.

5. They have a sense of humor. They keep things light and are willing to joke around.

So when asked what makes for ineffective teaching, the students came up with similar ideas on the negative side. Ineffective teachers do not have patience with students, lecture a lot, do not respect their students, are boring, and they lose their tempers. One more trait that characterized this group of teachers was, “They show no mercy!”

Students’ perspectives are naturally colored by their own experiences. Often they are based more on feelings than facts. However, it is also amazing how insightful they can be. Asking students their opinions usually results in some valuable information that is honest, comes straight from the heart, and often is right on.

This is why it is wise to take time to hear the perspective of young people. Not only are they interesting and enjoyable to talk to, but they also can provide information that is valuable in determining the effectiveness of schools. This input is also effective in making improvements. Schools would benefit from asking their opinions more often.

One more side benefit of utilizing student ideas in making schools better is you gain their support for the ideas. This makes them that much easier to put into practice. If schools can get students to buy into what is happening in the school and classroom, learning and improvement can sky-rocket. Students who are happy about how a school is run will give the effort necessary to create high levels of learning.

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