Who is Underperforming?

The Secret Teacher ends with the question How helpful is our help?  The concern is that the perennial battle to take students over the C grade boundary, is not helpful to them, or indeed to teachers or schools.  I am reminded of this every time I opt for the word student; students, by definition, are learners.  When we teach, coach, coerce, monitor, prepare students to the point where they are simply repeating what is needed to obtain a grade, they have ceased to learn; they have rather become parrots.  We need to be brave and recognise that this C grade is losing whatever value it once possessed.