Students’ Memories Are a Good Way to Measure Teachers’ Success

Lawyers know they’re successful when they win cases. Aircraft designers know they’ve done well when the plane flies. Real estate agents can measure their success by their sales and commissions.

Teachers, however, don’t often see tangible results of their efforts.

Contrary to popular belief, teachers’ effectiveness is not accurately reflected by student grades or test scores. And most students wouldn’t be caught dead saying, “Gee, you’re a great teacher” with any real sincerity.

That’s why I’m pleased at the opportunity to read and publish some comments I have received from readers about teachers who played special roles in their lives.

Marguerite Baum Heller, a pianist, wrote about her UCLA philosophy professor, Richard Hacking, who impressed on her that some subjects are worth studying simply for the pleasure they bring.

“My friends always asked me: ‘Why do you take philosophy? What good is it?’ ” Heller wrote. And she posed the questions to Hacking.

“He answered that our studies and activities in life have an intrinsic value apart from the practicality or utility which many people expect from their learning,” Heller wrote. The reply, she said, has helped her justify all her artistic endeavors ever since.

Rhoda R. Block, of West Los Angeles, offered an unusual example of a special teacher--a substitute she had for only one day in a New York City high school.

“She told our class to learn one new word a day,” Block recalled.

“Although that seemed an impossible assignment at the time, it opened up new vistas of the joy, beauty and enlightenment which can only be attained through . . . the printed word.”

Dale Janda, a screenwriter, described the deeper understanding of writing that he received from Leonardo Vercovici, an instructor at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

“He had an incredible way of teaching by letting us teach ourselves,” said Janda. “He would never give us the answers; he would guide us and then let us take over.”

Janda also appreciated learning how to best portray a crucial component of nearly every screenplay: characters.

“If you don’t know about people, then how can you write about them?” Janda wrote. Vercovici “taught us about people and gave us a wise perspective on humanity, that all human experience has validity.”

Andrew Lunt, a teacher trainee in Los Angeles, remembered Richard G. Everett, his Greek and Roman history teacher at Santa Barbara High School.

“I took his class as a fluke basically, (but) it was a wonderful class,” Lunt said.

Although history is thought to be dry and dead by many students, Everett used drama and props to liven up the curriculum.

“He’d yell and scream and wrap himself in a toga,” Lunt recalled. “But he also demanded really rigorous scholarship and made us learn all the wars that Rome used to conquer Italy in the Republican era.”

Inspired in large part by Everett, Lunt majored in history at UC Berkeley. Now he is teaching history himself, and also completing work to obtain his teaching credential.

“The way (Everett) taught that class also influenced my decision to become a teacher,” Lunt said.

I suspect that most teachers choose the profession, at least in part, because they had teachers whose style or influence they wanted to emulate.

For me it was Oscar Graybill, my English teacher at Hoover High School in San Diego.

Before Graybill’s class, I hated books and thought that reading was just for nerds who had no friends and nothing better to do.

Then Graybill showed me that good writers really do have something to say about real life and the real world.

He made the novels, stories and plays more current and relevant by connecting the fictional happenings to situations in my own life.

And he made the characters seem real and worth caring about by asking me to analyze and evaluate their actions, and then compare them to what I would do if in their place.

As a result, I can now be as entertained and moved by a good story, poem or play as others are by soap operas or movies. And I can’t end my day in good conscience without a good dose of reading.

Teachers rarely know whom they have influenced or what changes and achievements they may have helped set into motion. Students leave their classrooms to accomplish other goals and rarely get the time or opportunity to keep in touch.

Thus I greatly appreciate all of the stories I received from readers who took time to think about some of the people who helped or inspired them.