I had a teachers' college instructor who had a theory of education somewhat like you talked about in your post, purex. She said that if the students fail to learn, then that means that the teacher fails to teach. Her idea was that the student was not the one who failed, but it was the teacher who failed.
I think that can be taken too far one way or another. My brother-in-law's mother was a school teacher, and she said that some students could not or would not learn. She put all the responsibility of failure on the student, and none on the teacher. When I was little, like 1st or 2nd grade I failed to learn to play the piano. I wanted to play, but I didn't have the motivation to learn to play. I couldn't see the rewards of learning, and no one helped me to see them. Playing outside, to me, seemed more rewarding than routinely practicing a piece of music so that I could impress my piano teacher with how well I had learned it that week. I didn't care what she thought about how I had learned that piece of music, and that frustrated her, and it also upset my parents to the point of limited my piano lessons. After at least 3 attempts to learn after becoming an adult, I can now play hymns/church songs fairly well, and I am still improving. My last attempt was when I was 61 years old, and I decided that I was going to keep at it until I could play the piano, and I am still working on it, but now it is more pleasure than pain, and more interesting than druggery, and once a person accomplishes the skill then it is really rewarding.
School was the same for me. I thought the only purpose in school was to enjoy recesses, lunches, and physical education times. All the other subjects I just barely passed and some times I didn't even pass, but they passed me along anyway, so I was graduating from one grade to the next without learning much. My teacher wanted to hold me back in the 5th grade, and my parents wouldn't let her do that. My eighth grade teacher took me in another room with a teacher from next door, so he wouldn't get sued, and he beat me with a 2 by 4 because he didn't think I was putting enough efforts into my studies. I tried to learn in high school, but I had enough work taking care of cows and horses that I didn't have time for my studies, so I was never able to get on the honor roll. In Bible College I worked as hard as I could, but I didn't do well as I was not a good reader, and we had such a heavy load of subjects that skillful reading was a must. Being out of school for many years, reading for my pleasure, reading and studying for sermons and Sunday school lessons gave me the reading skills I needed to do well in school. I attended teacher's college then, and since then I have taken many college and university classes, including classes for a Special Education Endorsement on my teaching certificate. I take 15 credit hours of college course work every 5 years to maintain my teaching certificate. In all but 2 classes since I have gotten top scores. I love to write papers and do projects, but I hate tests. I do well on the tests, but I hate the stress they put me through.
