Should teachers classify students as good and bad? How can it impact a student's performance?

We all have our own definition for a teacher. Most of think that a teacher is someone who teaches us new things. Some of us also think that teachers lecture us about topics that we learn in our classes.

 

Humans as a species like to classify things into groups according to their opinion. For example, let's take apples. Let's say that you went to the market to the fruit vendor. You bought a kg of apples and when you came back home, you started to sort out the apples based on either big or small, sweet or sour, etc. classifications. 

Just like the apples case, we humans like to classify things in any context. Whether it is a student classifying his teachers' teaching style as good or bad, or the teachers classifying students based on their respective performances.

When we go to school then as per how much we like our teachers' teaching style, we make our opinion on how good is the teacher or how bad is the teacher.

 

Just like we students classifying teachers into groups of good and bad, our teachers also classify students into good, bad or average students.

Honestly, none of these classifications are valid and no one should be discriminated on the basis of this classification - neither the students nor the teachers should classify. But because it is human nature, our blindly accepts these facts about some other person and classify him as good, average or bad.

This classification ability of us humans gives us good advantages, like if you would see two paths for you to walk on, one of them is dirty and one of them is clean, then your decision and classification making ability of yours will help you choose the better path.

So, our mind thinks like this in every situation, it sees what is good and what is bad. This is what classification basically is.

In the ancient Vedic times in India, the students used to go to study in an educational institution called a Gurukul. The teacher was referred to as a Guru and a student was referred to as a Shishya. For the shishyas their Guru was equivalent of their father because he was in-charge and took care of the shishyas just like any father would do. The Guru also did not differentiated his shishyas with his own children; he took care of them and taught them just like a father does to his child. This made a Gurukul a very homely place for students.

This is what the modern society teachers and students need to inculcate. Questions should be encouraged, not classifications; as it makes someone bad and someone good at something. We humans are not perfect by nature, this is because nature hasn't made us so. Then why bother that someone is good at a particular thing and someone is not? This makes classification of someone into good or bad a complete pointless idea.

Those teachers who are very good at explaining and give good examples to teach are thought of as good teachers by the students. Those teachers who are more practical rather than theoretical are thought of as average teachers by the students. This is not the kind of viewpoint that a student should have, especially towards his teacher as it takes that student further away from the path of learning.

But this classification of students does not make any difference and cannot make any difference in the teacher. 

The classification of the teachers however, makes a huge difference in the student's performance. It all goes like this; teachers come to class and they observe how the students are performing for a few months, and then stay with that decision for the rest of that year. These teachers observe and pick a few students who are good at answering the questions and they don't allow others to answer. This is a form of discrimination, at an as basic level as a student. These teachers don't want to give opportunities to other weaker students, making their performance even worse because the students start to feel shy to give answers and those students who are picked to give answers become more and more confident.

So a teacher should give equal opportunities to every student to ensure the proper intellectual development of the students. There is no such thing as good or bad in a person, it is just that someone is good at something at a higher level than someone else is. This level of difference can be diminished if the person who is not so good at one thing practices more and gets better guidance. The practice has to be done by the student and the guidance has to be given by the teacher. And when this practice and better guidance is merged together, then the student gets confidence and can overall perform better.