Who would end up with a better education, a poor student with a good teacher, or a good student with a poor teacher?
A good student with a poor teacher. He would just learn the subject on his/her own. Unless it was a mathematics based class then its probably nearly impossible to learn that stuff on your own but in alot of subjects you can just learn in your own time.
I’ll bite and say the poor student with the good teacher. A poor teacher can turn a good student into a bored student who hates school very quickly.
A good student with a poor teacher. I went to one to elementary and high school in one of the poorest and worst school districts in the country. However, I was smart and I made it into a good college with a full scholarship and then on to an Ivy League graduate school. A good students knows how to teach themselves and that is the most important thing.
I don’t see how this question can possibly be answered without further definition of the terms.
What do you mean by “good teacher” or “poor student”? By my definition, a “good teacher” is one who finds a way to reach all her students and inspire them to learn. So almost by definition, she would have no “poor students”. Of course, if by “poor student” you mean someone who physically doesn’t show up to class, then even Paris Hilton couldn’t teach him sex ed.
Or what do you mean by “good student”? Someone who easily earns A’s? Or someone who is inspired to learn things just for the love of knowledge? Someone who easily earns A’s is not going get an education from a “poor teacher” because they will be satisfied just to skate through.
And what do you mean by “a better education”? Test well on the SATs? Or have the tools and inspiration to learn more about subjects that interest him even if they don’t fall into traditional academic areas? (For just two examples off the top of my head…)
As with anything, it depends.
Is the poor student poor because they are lazy? Are they learning disabled or slow? Are they bored? A good teacher can work with the second and the third, but chances are they won’t be able to change a lazy kid.
Is the good student good because they are smart? Or just hard working? A hard-working student who isn’t an independent thinker will turn out differently in the hands of an incompetent teacher than a brilliant student who questions and finds his/her own answers.
Teachers can also be “poor” and “good” in different ways. I had a bad teacher in middle school who would spend the whole period proselitizing (sp?) and talking about everything BESIDES science. He never gave us homework or exams. Grades were given arbitrarily. However, I’ve also had bad teachers who just could not communicate their knowledge well. They assigned homework and readings and gave exams, though. A good student would learn nothing with the first kind of teacher. But they might have a chance with the second.
I’ve had good teachers who were good because 1) they were smart, 2) they could communicate well, and 3) because they relayed information in an exciting and fun way. But they were also no-nonsense types who had no patience for lazy students, or students who constantly struggled with the basics. I’ve also had good teachers who were good because they were compassionate and patient and worked well with the students who didn’t always “get it” the first time. A poor student would suffer in the hands of the first teacher, but they might do well with the second.
I apologize if I have now ruined this thread. 
By this definition, there can’t be many good teachers. A class of 20 inspired learners and one dud who rarely shows up or turns in an assignment implies a bad teacher? I’d say that’s an unrealistic standard.
To answer the OP: a bad enough student is probably proof against almost any teacher. A good enough student can probably find ways to learn in spite of a bad teacher. So I go for choice B.
Well, I was simplifying a bit for sake of argument with the OP. Perhaps it would be better for me to say that IMVeryHO (which others are sure to disagree with) that would be the “ideal” teacher. Since the OP was being so hypothetical, I thought I could go with an equally hypothetical definition.
Suffice it to say that in this case, I don’t know what he means by a “good teacher” or a “poor student” (someone who traditionally doesn’t do well in a classroom setting versus someone who is so drugged out that he shows up only once a week and stoned).
I’d agree. My point was that you could be a gifted teacher and still fall a bit short of this ideal.
I left the OP intentionally vague to allow people to make their own definitions. Indeed, what makes a good teacher or what makes a good student is subjective and debatable.
I’ve had good teachers that were very interactive with the class, friendly folks, and I have had good teachers that were like robots, but you damn well better pay attention. I’ve seen good students that do all the required reading, do all their homework, and get A’s on their reports cards; but I have also seen good students that sat in the back of class, never paid attention to what was going on, but they were able to answer any question the teacher would ask about the subject.