There are several ways for teachers to make their students stronger. (That’s the goal, isn’t it?)
You can push down on your students. They will either crumple or push back, getting stronger along the way.
You can have a tug-of-war with your students. Drag them towards your hill – they’ll fall in the mud, learn to pull back, or let go.
Or you can pick an obstacle you can both tackle together. Work together to scale a wall, push a boulder, build a bridge.
All three can work, and all three have devotees. The third one has distinct advantages, as I see it. Your students aren’t working in opposition to you. When the work gets hard, they’ll look beside them and see you working, too. And when we work together, no one has to fail for someone else to succeed.
Common goals and working in tandem with your students: it’s not the model of education from past generations, but it is a model worth considering, and one particularly suited to education in the choral ensemble.