Educator's Dichotomy: Good Kids vs. Good Students

This is probably not a very commonly discussed topic because many non-educators may consider these to be linked.  I've come to realize that they really are not.  Being a good kid is not a meaningful predictor of how well they do as students.  And being a good student is not a meaningful predictor of what sort of moral character students have or acquire over time.

In my experience, there have been plenty of students who have demonstrated the ability to be amazing kids, however, they make lousy students. The opposite has also proven true, where some of my best students were really lousy kids with marginal/questionable moral values.

I can't help but dismiss this notion that the types of kids we teach are dependent of the kind of students they are or become.  Though it helps to be a good kid in terms of developing a meaningful rapport and developing their skills as students, there's oftentimes this cloudy gray area where sometimes the student gets lost in being a good kid while learning nothing in class (hence good kids as lousy student).

In the past, many of the strongest students are very manipulative since they have this egocentric passion towards attaining their goals at any cost, even if it means compromising academic integrity or their depth of understanding.  Whereas the lousy student, who could care less about the quality of the work they produce, has not bought into the egocentric passion to attain the academic success, however they are often not afraid to admit this either.

Which raises the question, as an educator, would I rather have a classroom full of egocentric butt-kisses as students or a classroom filled with a bunch of kids who aren't going to lie to themselves about what they really think about the science they learn in my class (usually littered with really colorful language, if you know what I mean).  Which would YOU want?

It's an interesting dilemma as an educator to look for these qualities in my students and trying to figure out how to take advantage of their student abilities without compromising their development as "good kids."  Students are driven and motivated by their interests and emotional state of mind as kids so it's very difficult at times to engage everybody on something as uninteresting as mitosis and meiosis (honestly, who gives a damn about cells when you're 16?).

I don't know if this is a difficult distinction to illustrate for readers but there's something about teaching that requires more than content knowledge and qualification, but a social awareness that nourishes individual growth, regardless of the direction of growth.  It is not in our place as educators to sell students on hypothetical futures that they haven't believed in their whole life.

I've always felt that it is just as unethical to sell a child on a future as an astronaut than it is to tell them that they are going to drop-out of high school (the whole selling an unlikely future vs. telling them the actual future to their actions).  I've learned that it's more important to have students buy their own future than it is to sell them on one that is unrealistic and unreasonable.  With this in mind, in my observation of other teachers at my school, I have noticed a stark difference between their approach towards managing their students and my own approach at managing students.

Here's the difference.  I am a believer that complete control of a classroom of students is an unattainable and unrealistic expectation.  It's a nice goal to have but there's really no way to completely control the universe, that we call the classroom (especially in NYC).  So with this in mind my approach at reaching my students has taken a turn away from micromanaging their behavior (a common and exhaustive practice I have observed with other educators).  Instead, I have placed a stronger emphasis on appealing to the student's motivations for being in school and for living an emotionally fulfilling life.

The good kids that are lousy students tend to be more receptive to my emotional state of mind than the good students who are not good kids.  So my visage of disapproval or my gestures of distaste weigh more when dealing with lousy students of good moral character than it does with the good students (the thousand-yard teacher stare).  This is especially true in one-on-one encounters with these students since now the message is personal.

The good students usually keep their mouths shut and wait while being flies on the wall waiting for class disruptions to end while rarely taking matters into their own hands (which I encourage since it's their education - the notion that class time is more valuable than my time).  It's a really interesting experiment.  However, I can't imagine other teachers doing this in their classes, it feels like I've grown into this without really realizing it.

I don't know where I'm going with this except to point out this stark contrast between the nature of good kids vs. good students.  They are rarely one and the same, and to expect them to be is a first-year fallacy.