Posted by Rick Denney on May 14, 2003 at 11:17:41:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Teachers vs. Students and Schooling posted by MG on May 14, 2003 at 02:21:01:
By the time one gets to college, it seems to me they are responsible for their own excellence. The college grades performance only as a means of determine on whom they will bestow degrees and special honors. Achieving excellence is a different objective, and it has to be internal within the student.
I frequently downplay my own ability as a tuba player and musician. Occasionally, my teacher will get on my case, and he'll tell me I'm a good tuba player. If I could get inside his mind, I'd might find a couple of motivations for that assessment. One might be that he wants me to have sufficient confidence to achieve the best that my abilities will allow, rather than undermine my abilities with timidity. Another, perhaps, is that he is comparing me with the whole gamut of amateur tuba players, and in that gamut I actually fair pretty well. These are both worthy objectives, pedagogically, with respect to me as a student, and thus his assessment does help me. Of course, he knows I have no professional pretensions, so he knows I won't do anything foolish with his assessment, heh, heh.
But when I assess myself, I don't use the whole gamut of amateur tuba players as examples. I use the best players--those I look up to as musicians and performers. They set the standards against which I compare myself. I believe that is why I continue to improve.
Rick "who thinks great students make themselves great" Denney