ISSUE ORIENTED
Excellent Educators Everywhere
The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.
—Randy Nelson, former dean of Pixar University
By Kate Conley
W hat makes educators excellent? Is their excellence in the eye of the beholder, a.k.a. the student? I know I had several
teachers I thought were excellent: Carol Pizzo at
Convent of the Sacred Heart, who taught me to
love literature; Henry Mayer at Urban School of San
Francisco, who taught me how to think critically—
not judgmentally; and John Williams at University
of the Pacific, who taught me how to write.
What does an excellent educator look like?
Well, you can look at any of ISTE’s 2011 award-ees. Clearly, teachers like Adam Bellow, the 2011
Outstanding Young Educator of the Year, have
characteristics such as curiosity, creativity, and
innovation. Read about him and others in Diana
Fingal’s article on page 12. You can also see excellent educators at work online, including John
Hunter, whose TED Talk, “World Peace & Other
4th Grade Achievements,” is nothing short of inspiring. You can watch others in action at
ISTE 2011 on ISTE’s You Tube channel or via
our video-on-demand page. And don’t forget
the many excellent educators who contributed
articles to this issue.
As you can see from these few examples,
excellence comes in many forms, and one
does not need to be excellent at everything to
be considered an excellent educator. In fact, as
Randy Nelson’s quote above implies, it really
boils down to fearlessness. Some of the other
characteristics excellent educators have in
common are that they:
• Provide students with rich learning
environments where they can engage,
explore, and exchange
• Are themselves lifelong learners
• Respect their students
• Share their expertise with colleagues
• Have passion for their subject matter
• Help students discover their own reasons
for wanting to learn
And, of course, an endless supply of patience
and perseverance—and tissues and hand
sanitizer if you’re a preschool or elementary
school teacher—don’t hurt either.
Taylor Mali in his 1999 spoken word poem-
turned-You Tube-phenom, “What Teachers
Make,” says it well:
You want to know what I make? I make kids
wonder. I make them question. I make them
criticize. I make them apologize and mean
it…. Teachers make a … difference.
Kate Conley is ISTE’s
periodicals director
and the editor of L&L.
Her first career was
as an English teacher
in the San Francisco
Bay Area. She holds
a master’s degree in
journalism and a
bachelor’s in English.
Conley has been with
ISTE for more than
10 years.
Resources
ISTE 2011 videos: www.youtube.com/user/istevideos
ISTE Awards: iste.org/awards
ISTE Video on Demand: isteconference.org/ISTE/2011/
glance/ video_on_demand.php
John Hunter’s TED Talk: www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_
on_the_world_peace_game.html
Randy Nelson: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhXJe8ANws8
Taylor Mali: http://taylormali.com
