A few months back, I got a message from a high school student named Ellie asking if I could publish a piece she wrote. I don’t publish many guest essays, but after reading it, I felt that this was a piece I should share, largely because (beyond being well-written and thoughtful) it contains a perspective rarely seen in discussions of education: the student perspective.
As teachers we may occasionally or even regularly ask students how a lesson, unit, or class went, but even when we are committed to hearing the students’ perspectives, the realities of the classroom mean that our surveys often have to be faster and more surface-level than we’d like. Further, even if anonymous, student responses to a lesson, class, or teacher tend to be heavily skewed by the relationship/dynamic they have with that class or teacher.
To get a truly deep and relatively objective look into how our teaching practices impact students is rare, and it is part of why I am handing the microphone today to Ellie. The other reason is that Ellie makes some novel and interesting points about form-first teaching, thesis statements, and creativity–points that I haven’t seen made anywhere else. I walked away from her essay holding an internal debate with both her and myself, which to me is a surefire sign that what I just read was worthwhile.
So without further preamble, here is a student perspective on the essay and how it is commonly taught. I’ll be back with a new post next week, but in the meantime I hope you get as much from it as I did! Thanks as always for reading!
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