When Stephen Sroka talks about what students want from today's schools, he doesn't just read from notes on a three-by-five card. Instead, he brings the student voices to you. During the closing general session of ASCD's 2005 Conference on Teaching and Learning in San Francisco, Calif., Sroka's panel of student experts answered questions about the kinds of schools they want to go to and identified their amalgam of the most desirable teacher qualities. Here's what one student—Jake—had to say:
I think the defining quality between an effective teacher and an ineffective teacher is that the effective teacher cares. The effective teacher will look at the classroom and say, "I don't know, should I give this test on Friday? Will they be able to succeed? Will it be a fair indication of how much I've taught them, not necessarily how much they should have learned on their own?" Ineffective teachers just don't care. Ineffective teachers look at the standards and give tests that are just based on the standards and not necessarily based on what they taught. And [they will] say those are the standards, you should have known them, you should have done this—it's in the book. That's my favorite one: "It's in the book." I mean, okay, then why are you even here? I'll just go home and read the book all day, thanks.