Who is, after all, the excellent teacher? The one rated 40/40 by an inspector, or the one who remains forever etched in the minds and hearts of their students?
The other day I happened to run into one of my teachers, Ms. Ioanna, at a bakery. I was choosing bread when I suddenly heard her speaking on the phone. I immediately recognised her voice and went over to say hello. It took her a few seconds to recognise me, after all, it had been some years since we last met. Once she knew who I was, we started talking. She asked me what I was doing with my life and how I was. We did not speak for long, but even those two or three minutes were enough to make me remember how Ms. Ioanna used to teach.
She was not a conventional teacher who cared only that we memorised a poem by a particular poet to later regurgitate its hidden meanings. She never gave us notes to learn a topic for which we would then have to write an essay. She never judged our positions, opinions, or arguments. I do not know how she managed it, but in a class of 25 not particularly quiet students, almost everyone participated in her lessons. We did not constantly watch the clock, waiting for the bell.
She was the teacher who played music from her phone during trips and dragged us all into dancing. We even organised a theatre outing and went with her. Twenty-five students aged 16-17, if I remember correctly, went to see Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
I do not remember how she divided us into groups or how many pages we had to read before a test. I do not even remember if she strictly followed the textbook. Yet I remember that she made me want to learn. I remember that she treated us as people with something to say, not as students who had to reproduce what was told.
Perhaps this is what cannot ever be measured: the difference between a teacher who “teaches you” and one who helps you find your own voice. The first can be put into a criterion; the second cannot. The first ends with the lesson in the textbook; the second stays with you for years.
And if today we are discussing the evaluation of teachers, before deciding who will rate them or what the scale will be, perhaps we should first decide what is worth rating. Following the syllabus is one thing; inspiring students to want to learn is another. Following instructions is one thing; opening doors is another.
And here the question arises: can an evaluation system protect these teachers? Those who cannot settle for silence and mechanical reproduction, who do not simply “finish units”, who break the lesson plan to allow time for an idea worth exploring, who refuse to treat the classroom as a ticking clock? Can it encourage them? Can it multiply their effect?
Perhaps the answer is not immediately visible. It will become clear only when, and if, a system is implemented that does not treat the teacher as a mere executor of instructions but as a person who shapes the conditions of learning. A system that does not reward simply following a programme but cultivating a climate. That does not ask teachers to fill the boxes of a form but to fill a child with confidence.