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Originally Posted by lyounamu Yeah, that's my school which is currently ranked 101 or 100!
Anyway, back on track: I don't know if all the good teachers are coming to the urban area. But I am sure about one thing: good teacher empower students to help themselves rather than spoon-feed them throughout the HSC year (or even durng the Preliminary year). Therefore, class environment has an impact on this matter as it affects students' learning environment and the knowledge they absorb. No matter, how much teachers spoon-feed them, if the students themselves are not self-sustaining and not working well, all the effort goes to waste. The reason why we perceive (usually) Selective teachers as the top quality is not necessarily due to the fact that they teach effectivey. It's the students' result that deceive us into thinking that the teachers' efforts go hand in hand with their results. But that's not necessarily the case.
Same story for many private high schools. Students usually are of the high quality than normal public schools and that's probably why they perform well, thus deceiving us to believe that teachers there are awesome to the core. So I think it's all up to the students when it comes to determining how good the teachers are. Apart from that way, how would you really come about determining whether that teacher is good or not? (when you didn't even experience that teacher yourself?) |
Whilst I agree that to a large extent it is the students who drive their work teachers play a large role as well.
Having a teacher who's taught a subject for decades/marks the hsc is an enormous advantage. They can show students the mechanics of learning (buzz phrases, key points, 'fishing' techniques where you can borrow information from other dot points) which can really put them head and shoulders above a kid with an excel guide and a lot of time on his hands.
It is particually frustrating in history subjects where the higher marks can often depend on access to university texts (Briant, Bury & Meiggs, Peter Grant, Maria Brosius, Dandamaev etc etc) which can cost big bucks, and with a teacher who knows them thoroughly they can often direct you straight through the tedious sections to the pages they're after.
The boy who got a 99.55 at my school was very smart, but also having (by luck) senior markers in every subject would have played its part as well.