What Makes a Good Teacher (original) (raw)
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The Teacher as a Person, 2020
The Teacher as a Person Teachers' Colleges, or Colleges of Education, which is a better term, will do two things: (a) They will continue the student's personal education and help him to become a good person. (b) They will introduce him to the difficult art of teaching, its theory and its practice. Some people think teachers' colleges should produce fully trained teachers at the end of the course. This is not what colleges do, or claim to do. They lay foundations upon which the young teacher can build. It is during the next five or ten years of teaching that he will complete for himself what the college began to do for him. Only in school (his work place) can he get the experience that counts. But, experience is of no use if we are too proud to learn by it. There are millions of people in the world who have had lots of experience-but they are no wiser. So, let us remember that the amount of experience we have had is of less importance than our ability to profit by it. The best teachers are those who have the humility and capacity to learn by success and failure. Humility is the capacity to accept the criticism of others and to criticize ourselves without feeling too sorry for ourselves. It should now be obvious to 'student teachers in training' that a large part of their future success depends on themselves, on their knowledge, on their attitude to learning their job, on their capacity to learn by their own experience, and on the conduct of their personal lives. But none of these good things is enough in itself to make a good teacher: Knowledge is not enough if we do not know how to pass it on to our students. Training is not enough if we have no knowledge to pass on. Experience is not enough unless we learn by it. Good character has to be supported by knowledge and skill in the classroom. What sort of person a teacher ought to be? 1. A teacher should be a person of good character-a man or woman who respects truth, who is sincere in word and act, who likes people and especially children, and whose personal life sets a good example to his pupils. He should have a sense of humour; which means that he can laugh at himself and that the children will laugh with him. These qualities of character are the solid foundation of the good teacher's work. Parents will feel that their children are safe in the care of such a person. 2. The good teacher will remain a student all his life-Only in this way can he become an educated person, which is what every teacher should wish to be. Teaching fails when we cease to learn, no matter how old we are. What we have learned at school and college is only the beginning of knowledge. The School Certificate is a beginning; the Teacher's Certificate is another beginning. If we have a university degree, this too is the beginning, not the end, of the journey. For these are only stages on the pathway to knowledge and wisdom. The test of the truly educated person is that he knows that he does not know all he ought to know. The mind of the
What A Good Teacher Needs Some Observations: Some Questions
Who is a good teacher? The answer is easy: a good teacher is one who teaches well. And what does one mean when one claims about a teacher that s/he teaches well? The answer to this question, again, is not too difficult to suggest: a teacher can be adjudged as having the competence to teach well if and when s/ he can help her/his students understand the subject being taught easily, clearly and fully by disentangling and explaining all the linguistic and ideational or conceptual complexities underlying the subject concerned, and can do so in such an interesting way that all or at least most of the students present in the classroom can remain absorbed in the process of teaching-learning and can feel stimulated to try to explore further complications and subtleties related to those aspects of the subject which the teacher has not even directly referred to in the class. A good teacher, in other words, is one who can by way of teaching her/his own specific area in her/his subject can help the students understand some other related areas of the same subject independently, chiefly by arousing their intense interest in the subject in particular and by making them feel the joy involved in the entire mentellectual process of learning or studying in general. Now, the yardsticks (implicitly emerging out of this frame of definition of the act of teaching well) that can be used to judge whether a particular teacher is good must vary with the variance of subjects. A good teacher of literature, for example, needs to possess some vocal, verbal and articulatory gifts which a good teacher of Chemistry may quite well do without. Teaching History well, again, requires some skills on the part of the teacher which are certainly not the same as those required for teaching Physics or Computer Science well. Teaching Philosophy with competence is evidently not the same thing as teaching Mathematics efficiently, although philosophy, like Mathematics, is considered to be the mother of all sciences. However, as a teacher, and a very ordinary one, of literature, working in different Government colleges of West Bengal for nearly three decades, this writer shares a deep concern about the contemporary situation involved in the process of the teaching/learning of humanistic studies, especially literature. This is not to deny the importance of the teaching/learning of the science and technological subjects. But the teaching of literature demands and deserves equal attention particularly in the context of all-pervasive erosion of values in the present times and also in view of the fact that the literature-teaching scenario in our country mostly appears to be in a shambles. And, since teachers form one of the most important pillars of this edifice of human civilization, this article confines itself to an exploration of the qualities and conditions that go into the making of a good teacher of literature, although some of them may apply equally well to the good teachers in other disciplines. To begin with, a good teacher is one who can orient her/his students with a richly wide range of information (and, if necessary, theories) relevant to the topic/subject and essential for its expansion. But, does a good teacher mean one who can only supply the students with loads of information (including data and statistics, where applicable)? Then should we not consider Mr. Google the best teacher in today's world? But, nobody will claim that this omniscient master can take the place of any good teacher of flesh and blood as yet. Another common feature of good teaching is the teacher's ability to make the subject s/he is teaching interesting. Now, areas of interest vary according to innate predilections, and likes/dislikes or tastes that different individuals have developed from the different environments in which they have been
Encouraging imagination and creativity in the teaching profession.
European Educational Research Journal, 13 (1), 2014
In this paper I argue that an important task of career-long teacher education is the encouragement of imagination and creativity in experienced teachers. The task implies a reversal of the managerialism that currently afflicts so many European education systems. I begin by giving an analysis of pedagogical relationships to expose some of the reasons that teaching is an extraordinarily complex activity, which it is difficult to do well. Indeed it is so complex that it is not something that can be learnt in advance of experience. Therefore early-career teachers need to develop their skills before they can become fully competent. However experience is not enough on its own. To become excellent – that is, more than proficient – requires a career-long commitment to self-cultivation as teachers. Part of the reason that the commitment needs to be career-long is that teaching contexts are in a continual state of change, and teachers need to adapt through a process of self-cultivation. I suggest that there are two broad approaches to career-long teacher education: (1) closed, standardised, benchmarked and (2) open, imaginative, creative. While the first can be encouraged in the usual managerial ways, the second cannot. Openness to change and adaptation requires teachers to carry out a daunting, exciting, risky re-evaluation of themselves and their pedagogical relationships. I draw on examples to illustrate what might be included in imaginative and creative self-cultivation. Many of these use creative and imaginative forms of practitioner research.
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Jo u r n a l o f A p p l ie d Lea r n in g & T e a c h in g JALT http://journals.sfu.ca/jalt/index.php/jalt/index "It appears, therefore, that of all secular professions, teaching is the most profoundly important" (Menzies, 1945). These are the words of the leader of the opposition, the politician Mr Robert Menzies, to the Australian House of Representatives in 1945 (Robertson, 2015). Although these words were spoken quite long time ago, the echo of Menzies' words seems to still reflect the present time. Therefore, one can rest assured that "teaching is the world's most important profession" (Cox, 2019). If you are an educator reading this article, you may know from your own professional experience that educators (teachers in general) can make a positive impact in students' lives. In the eyes of Rose (2014), in general, the whole teaching process can be immensely satisfying. Similarly, for Cox (2019), "teaching is immensely satisfying and exciting". Receiving these words is what makes life as a professional educator worthwhile, and there is no better reward than to see the development and empowerment of young minds in this chaotic society we live in. Teaching is the world's most important (and rewarding) profession indeed on this planet! knowledge, both theoretical and practical. Whether in or outside the classroom, he is always ready to offer advice and guidance and always with a smile!"
ON THE NATURE OF TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION
The effort over the past 150 years to create an effective and respected system for preparing teachers in the United States has not been easy. A large body of research on the history of teacher-education reform is a tale of persistent mediocrity and resistance to change. The author's aim in this article is not to revisit this sad story, but to examine an old and enduring problem that has long blocked the path to a truly professional education for teachers, that teaching is an enormously difficult job that looks easy. The author explores the roots of the gap between the reality and the perception of learning to teach by first spelling out some of the characteristics of teaching that make it such a difficult form of professional practice. He then examines key elements in the nature of teaching that make the process of becoming a teacher seem so uncomplicated.
2015
Abstract: There is poverty extreme poverty, in the world, despite increased literacy rates. This means education has fallen short of its promise, because it has left a very large number of human beings deprived of basic needs of existence. In addition, bizarre diseases, related to the aberrations of the mind, have increased considerably over the years, despite the growth of research in medicine. Why is there dissatisfaction with education despite increase in literacy rates and such elaborate discussions throughout the world on how to make learning interesting and effective? The answer to this is obvious. We link education to passing examinations and going to the next class but not to excellence of existence. Teachers rarely realize that knowledge is not power. Thinking does not come automatically to human beings. They can at best manage arbitrary or elementary thinking. Creative and purposeful thinking has to be taught in schools much more than providing random information Key words...
This paper includes a series of responses to survey questions posed by Mia Funk at Creative Process Project in Paris, France. Mia and I have been working collaboratively over the past two years. I serve as faculty adviser for our high school’s Creative Writing Club; my students submit their work to Mia, who publishes their writing in the “Young Writers: Pure Imagination” section of her website, which features the 100 Leading Authors in the world today, as well as testimonials from teachers in over fifty countries about the art of their craft. Teaching is indeed primarily an art, the vigorous attempts in U.S. graduate schools to frame it as a science notwithstanding; the most sophisticated and clever “strategies” can never ensure genuine student engagement; only the development of a viable relationship – a bond of trust and mutual regard and respect – between the classroom teacher and individual students can accomplish that.