When Learning Turns Sour-The teacher's impact on Success and Failure

There are certain areas in which my son struggles academically. He is not very fond of writing. Not only is his writing speed slow but also his handwriting is terrible. Further, he struggles with spellings too. At times, he makes mistakes with simplest of the spellings. Moreover, he is quite poor at rote learning which creates challenges for producing detailed answers in the examination.

Because of his slow speed and inability to keep focus on his work it takes him more time to finish the writing tasks.

Because of his laziness to use sharpener he keeps on writing with blunt nib of the pencil. To avoid the use of erasers he just attempts to correct the words by over-writing on the existing mistake. Moreover, the formation of his alphabets is not appropriate and there is no consistency in the size and gaps between words. This all makes his work messy and difficult to read.

Conversely, there are certain academic areas in which he excels. While he struggles with maintaining focus during writing tasks, he demonstrates exceptional listening and observation skills. He is remarkable at grasping concepts of almost all the conceptual subjects, be it mathematics, grammar or sciences. He is also good at remembering information and basic ideas of literature.

Mathematics has always been his favourite subject . While I have to pay extra attention for preparation of certain other subjects, fortunately, I don’t need to spend too much time for preparation of mathematics. The learning at school is often enough for him to complete his work.

While teachers have had complaints about his writing abilities, his mathematics, Arabic and Islamiat teachers had always been satisfied with his work. In these three subjects he has always been securing marks in 90 percent.

Nevertheless, recently he secured only 60 % marks in Arabic and Islamiat. It was disappointing but not surprising to me, as I had already observed that the new teacher at the school had not taught properly. Not only the concepts were not clarified but the work was not completed responsibly. The teacher claimed that she had explained the work to the students but I couldn’t find anything like that in the notebook of my son.

Interestingly, this was not only my son whose work was supposedly incomplete but also of his friends. Anyhow, he gave the test and secured 60% marks. Meanwhile, there are many other students of his class who failed the subject for the first time.

It is the clear example of how a teacher can impact students' performance. Since his old teacher was replaced, he had been complaining about difficulty in understanding the subject.

Arabic is not a commonly taught subject in our country. Some schools have exclusively included it in their curriculum. Thus, home tutors or parents are unable to augment the learning at school. The students are entirely dependent on the school teacher for the understanding of the subject. Therefore, when the teacher didn’t teach well, the massive failure happened in the aforementioned case.

While a student's academic performance is dependent on multiple factors like home attention, home and school environment, student’s personal cognitive abilities, etcetera, the teacher’s skills and methodology are of crucial importance. A skilful teacher has the ability to convert a dry and boring subject into a juicier one; whereas a lacklustre teacher turns an interesting subject into a boring one.

When I was in university, Statistics and Research Methodology were among the driest subject of the curriculum. Nevertheless, the teacher assigned to those subjects was incredibly talented. Through relatable and real-life examples she made the subjects digestible. Occasional humour during the lecture never let us feel bored.

Moreover, her method of simplifying the concepts was amazing. Her teaching style helped us grasp the core of the subjects firmly. Her classes were mostly jammed pack as no student wanted to miss her lectures.

On the other hand, one of the most interesting subject in our curriculum was supposed to be Personality Psychology. Unfortunately, it was assigned to a teacher who was pretty skilful at the art of turning simple things into complicated 😕. Consequently, attending her lectures felt nothing more than a burden.

I often chose to sit at the back seats, which was quite unusual for me. Her lecture added nothing to our knowledge. We had to study on our own to clear the exam. Students would only attend her classes to meet the minimum criteria of 75% attendance. Often, the strength of students in her class was low.

Something similar happened to my son when he was in grade 3. I noticed a decline in his interest in Mathematics. I did not understand the reason until I attended the Parents Teacher Meeting at school.

Her Mathematics teacher, whom he admired a lot, had been replaced. Interacting with her new teacher I realized that her own concepts were shaky. Interestingly, it was the first time that a Mathematics complained me that my son was not good at the subject. It was quite obvious that the teacher was responsible for his lost interest.

In conclusion, teaching is a profession that comes with great responsibility. While other factors affect student performance, a teacher’s skills and approach are crucial in making a subject engaging and understandable.

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This post is my participation for Hl-featured contest week 138, edition 2

Image 1 and Image 2 are created by me using Bing AI