Teaching is reciprocal. Teacher at one end of the log, student at the other: both are responsible for keeping the log anchored, preventing it from tiddly-winking away. Sometimes we teachers forget that. Everything is geared towards teacher effectiveness—are we getting across to them? How do we evaluate their progress? How do we keep them engaged? What are the most effective strategies? And so on and so forth.
We all recognize that some folks are just plain better teachers than others, and that the difference isn't necessarily a matter of training. There's a talent for teaching. Either you got it, or you ain't. The gifted teacher makes it all look effortless, mainly because at some level it is effortless. That isn't to say that the born teacher doesn't have to work at it—the best teachers tend to put in the longest hours. But that's not because they have to. It's because they want to. It's because the careful preparation, the extra studying, the many hours advising students, the rich passion they bring to their classrooms or studios, all stem from a downright unquenchable joy in teaching. It isn't really work. It's all just too damn much fun to be work.
There are gifted, born teachers. And there are gifted, born students as well. That gets forgotten by the educator-squirrel types with their soul-shrivelling polysyllabic goobledegook. It has been my experience that two equally hardworking, straight-A students can be polar opposites from my point of view. One of the students can seem barely noticeable, while the other can be a treasure. For that matter, the fascinating kid might fall well short of a 4.0. It isn't a matter of grades, per se—just as the difference between the born teacher and the educator-squirrel has nothing to do with certificates, degrees, or pedagogical articles published. It's all in approach, in attitude, in the swing, the style, the brio that the born student brings to the process.
Like the born teacher, the born student makes it seem effortless, joyous and fun. That's because it is joyous and fun. Making a game out of it, delighting in the process itself, spending the extra time not for the higher grade or out of fear, but because it isn't really extra time. It's just there. It's cool, it's fun, it's challenging, it's engaging. For such students the subject matter is secondary to the process itself; sheer exuberance characterizes all.
I've found that born students are instinctively resistant to the depredations of mediocre teachers: such students simply write off the teacher and direct their energy where it's not likely to be dampened. Born students can sometimes even elicit a hint of juice from even burnt-out drudges; all that brio can be a potent force. Even if not, I've known such gifted students to wind up having a grand time with the class anyway, thanks to their own self-directed energy and ability to guide themselves when necessary. They may not be taking quite the class that's listed on their transcript, but that's OK. Talent has its own rules.
I suppose the occasional insecure teacher feels intimidated by such students. But teachers usually have at least a streak of idealism in there somewhere, no matter how dimmed it might have become over the years. One would have to be horribly burned out, or just plain incompetent, not to get a little jazzed by that sparkling virtuoso in the front row. Nor are gifted students necessarily consistent in their passion. Because their emotional involvement is so pronounced, negativity can flare up dangerously at times. I've seen some truly talented students obliged to face situations in which all their best efforts aren't prevailing. A sudden tailspin of depression isn't uncommon—but that's when we teachers start earning our keep and then some. We know, as our students may not, that the setback is likely to be temporary and that they will indeed find a way either through or around the obstacle.
Born students need born teachers. The ever-witty Patrick Dennis expressed it perfectly: Would you ask Toscanini to lead a harmonica band?? Highly gifted students flourish in the shared joyousness of a highly gifted teacher. Born students aren't all that common. Neither are born teachers. But just as we take pains to ensure that developmentally-disabled students are placed with the appropriate teachers, so we should also try whenever possible to identify the kid who is gifted at being a student, and put that kid with a teacher who equally gifted at teaching. If nothing else, we need to keep that kid safe from the educator-squirrels, the anti-talents who can turn academic Casanovas into flaccid eunuchs.