Who Is a Good Student?

Who Is a Good Student?

Throughout this discussion I have deliberately been using the words good and bad. This whole discussion ultimately, revolves around a fundamental ambiguity inherent in the phrase good student (Amirault, 1995). On the one hand, a good student is one who does well: learns, passes tests and exams, and so on. These qualities and achievements are moral in nature the way that education in general is moral in nature. It is good to learn, to know more, to have more skills and abilities. Yet even here there is ambiguity. What exactly does it mean to do well, to succeed? Such questions once again go to the heart of our purpose in teaching. In an adult literacy class, for example, is a student successful if he reads a newspaper article? Or passes his GED (the high school equivalency examination)? Or if he gets a job? We might also ask: What of the student who learns well but does not pass the exam? Or what of the EFL student who gets only a C in English yet is promptly hired to teach English in an elementary school? (I have known such teachers myself.) Furthermore, there is a social notion of the “good” student that is also moral in nature, yet in a different way. This notion of the “good student” takes good to mean obedient, pleasant, willing, hard working, conscientious, persistent—all of which, of course, are 69 Values in English Language Teaching also morally desirable characteristics, and which, other things being equal, equip students better to benefit from their education. Yet this meaning of “good student” cannot always be reconciled with that mentioned in the preceding paragraph: Some students work hard and are pleasant but do not properly grasp the subject matter; others are sullen and lazy yet smart. What do we—what do you—mean when you use the expression “She’s a good student”? Which of these meanings is more important to you, and to the student concerned? Which meanings are reflected in the system of values underlying the forms of assessment you use?
It is important to emphasize the symbiotic relationship between the moral messages
sent by our assessment practices and our notions of what it is to be a good student. It is
through whatever assessment practices we use that the identity of good or bad student is
encoded in schools; conversely, our idea of the good student affects the kinds of
assessment we select. In either case, multiple powerful and complex moral meanings are
to be found in the kinds of tests and other forms of evaluation that we use in our
classrooms.