Four Qualities of a Great Teacher

Education is a long and tedious opportunity that educators accept and challenge in order to create a better learning community for their students.  In layman’s terms, educators teach so that students can learn.  It sounds simple at first, but behind that 45 minutes of lecture that students sit for, educators are being ducks.  That’s right, ducks.  Educators paddle back and forth, swerve in and out, and even sometimes crash and burn to learn the information and techniques needed in order to service their students the most relevant, useful, resourceful, and interesting information.  The true challenge that comes of this when students are presented with their teacher on that first day of class.  What makes a teacher a teacher?

Certainly, educators, i.e. the teacher, are all subjectively liked and not liked by their students.  But the essential part in being an educator is having the students learn something from a lesson, and are able to leave that educator’s class learning something even more vital: a means in while they will always have with them to utilize in the future when faced with a problem.  That lesson learnt might be more academically inclined than realistically inclined, but having a larger knowledge base will almost always help the student find things like work, higher education, and a future after life as a student.  The teachers has to have a set of qualities at their disposal that they must always have if they wish to success as an educator, and also wish to see their students success as learners.

What are four qualities teachers need, and why?

Teachers will need these four qualities:  Knowledge, Adaptability/ Accommodative, a Willingness to be a Student themselves, and Passion.

First and foremost, the teacher will most likely be desired to being knowledgeable.  Any student would wish to learn something from their teacher.  In the case of an ELA teacher, the student would most prefer that their teacher knows how to manipulate the syntax of their student’s work in order to steadily improve their quality of work in the future.  For a civics teacher, the student would most likely want to learn about the humanities and how to further their knowledge base about community.  But most certainly, the teacher should be knowledgeable if they hope to have their students learn.

Following this, the teacher should be able to have a high level of adaptability and be accommodative to the various needs of the various students they will meet.  Just like the teachers students will have the privilege of learning from, not all students come from the same discipline.  This also meets that all students learn differently, both in skill, material, and pace.  Some students will have trouble following the pace of a class lecture or discuss.  In that case, the teacher should be willing to either have their lessons written out on large paper boards, or have open office hours so that students may come later to ask questions.  Some students may have difficulty seeing or understanding a teacher’s handwriting from the back of the room.  Teachers should then be able to have handouts or be willing to move around the classroom and write on multiple boards, or allow students to talk and share notes with one another.  Overall, with the various students and student abilities that teachers will encounter, the teacher should have a prepared a numerous set of arsenal to assist their students.

Next, the teacher should always remember that no matter how long they’ve been in the occupation, there is always something new to learn.  This is especially true with the number of technologies that pop up each year.  Following the fact that students come in all various and skill levels, technology will always be newly created to accommodate that particular.  If teachers want to be better equipped to aid their students through the future and into the future, it is always a good idea to be willing to sit down and become the student.  Learn the tools and tricks it takes to make teaching students better and more worthwhile.

And lastly, what the teacher needs to succeed is the passion to begin teaching and the passion to continue teaching.  No student, I guarantee you, will want to sit through 45 minutes intervals listening to an unmotivated and disinterested teacher and teacher lesson.  You may hear moans and groans that showcase this.  But the point is, somewhere in the several years of teaching the same lesson day in and day out, the teacher should always have an enthusiasm that outweighs the mundaneness of those rehearsed lines.  And, in fact, if the teacher wishes to stay motived and passionate about their teaching, they should never teach the same lessons year after year.  Instead, I recommend something Don Murray one suggested:

When you begin the school year, instead of running to your file cabinet and pulling out Week 1, pull out a blank piece of paper and a #2 Pencil.  What comes to mind? You’re probably already leagues ahead of those other teachers that aren’t doing this, so don’t worry.