What defines a good teacher?

What defines a good teacher? What are those special qualities that separate the effective from ineffective, the strong from the mediocre? In the current educational climate, a strong, effective teacher is defined as an individual who can raise standardized test scores, who can produce adequate yearly growth, whose administrator can neatly check boxes on a rubric when observing. This admirable educator would not excuse poverty, disability, or language barriers, but instead would rise above, propelling such disadvantaged populations toward infinite achievement, achievement defined by statistics. According to the above definition, I am not an effective teacher, nor even a mediocre teacher. New York State would label me ineffective, and should this occur two years consecutively, I would be dismissed. Despite my fifteen years of educational experience spanning private, urban, and suburban districts, educating gifted, learning disabled, average, and alternatively placed subgroups, despite hundreds of hours of professional development in which I both participated and facilitated, I am ineffective. The students who I teach will not meet standard on a standardized test because they are not standard students; they are exceptional, exceptional in ways too rich and prolific to share within the space. Given this climate, why would I ever teach? Why would I risk jeopardizing my livelihood for a career currently under insatiable public scrutiny and attack? Like so many educators across the nation, and unlike many careers available in the twenty-first century, I teach for a purpose and fulfillment greater than monetary reimbursement. I teach for the exceptional student, the child lost in battle between effective and ineffective, the child who no one wants or considers. "Patrick" came to my classroom a forlorn seventh grader, who at thirteen years old recognized only a handful of kindergarten and first grade level sight words. He felt dejected, hopeless, and stupid. In an age of information, he could not access the world surrounding him, profoundly affecting his social interactions, classroom affect, and self-concept. Patrick entered seventh grade having been the product of multiple teachers and interventions. Some teachers wholeheartedly attempted to help him read, but were limited by top-down regulations; other teachers, fearful for their jobs, could only see a severely reading disabled boy, consequently focusing instructional efforts elsewhere. Every year interventions for Patrick changed, compounding his confusion of alphabetic principle. Every year he was passed along, never the student on the cusp of passing the annual state assessment, always the student forgotten because there was no glimmer of proficiency. This is the student for whom I teach, for whom so many of us teach. To me, Patrick is not a 4, 3, 2, or 1. He is not chasing the next cut score. He is not meeting, exceeding, or approaching standard on any category or subtest of New York State. He is Patrick, a boy who loves to scooter and joke around, who happens to struggle with reading. Earlier this past November, after fourteen months of working together, Patrick emerged a butterfly. It is a moment forever penned into my mind. With minimal assistance, comprehending every word, Patrick stretched his wings and read an entire page of text, tears in his eyes (and mine), pausing periodically to whisper, "I'm scared... I can't believe it... I'm doing it, myself." And he was doing it himself. In that moment, all those months of hard work collided, and he transformed. In that moment, Patrick, the boy who couldn't read, became a reader. Eight months following Patrick's transformation, we continuing our work together. He can now read chapter books, recognize complex consonants and vowel digraphs, and read with intonation and phrasing; however, as an incoming ninth grader, he reads at only a second grade level independently. To any teacher, this progress is profound; to New York State, this progress is not progress at all. Millions of teachers across this nation are not just good, but exceptional. Millions believe that student progress is not just possible, but inevitable. We know that progress cannot be narrowly defined or neatly charted on a graph or within a formula. We know what good teaching looks like and feels like. Education is a human endeavor, one that requires strong interpersonal, creative, and emotional skills. To remove humanity from teaching and to replace it with data, scripts, and formulas is to strip education of its foundation. In this climate, "highly effective" ceases to have meaning for students, especially the Patricks of our nation. We owe it to our children, our future, to allow humanity back into the equation.