Teachers are of many kinds. Their aspirations as teachers would vary too. The saddest part is when the teacher looks for monetary gain as the only goal of their teaching, then the whole process is skewed. There are fewer than lesser great teachers who inspire and inculcate knowledge with true humane passion.
Four must haves for a teacher are:
- Passion for teaching any kind of student.
- Patience to see through the student’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Meeting the study requirements of the student.
- Be a guide for the learning life of the student.
Passions for Teaching
This feeling should naturally occur in the teaching person. The act of teaching anyone comes with its set of responsibilities. Recognizing that responsibility and being able to meet it against all odds means true calling for the person. A teacher with a calling is a venerable force for the student.
Not everyone is a teacher, but all can become one, if they know the importance of their role in a student’s life. He, She, or It desires to see a first-time learner’s joy in understanding a topic and in generating enthusiasm to learn more. Then, the transference of the passion for knowledge from the teacher to the student happens seamlessly. A great teacher provides that gift to their students.
Patience for Students
The teacher must have loads of patience until the student has taken the first day of their learning challenge to the day when they clear the test and are scored. Anything done for the first time may not be perfect. But many days of relentless working on the skill produces the results of new learning skills.
The student’s strengths and weaknesses vary according to their ability. The patience of the teacher also includes a non-judgmental outlook towards students facing greater challenges than others who are more talented students.
I have often seen in schools that the teachers are especially only interested in students who score high grades and not for students who have poor scores. The reason being that in a huge class of students it is impossible to give special attention to students who are lagging or facing learning issues.
Education has become a means to an end to making loads of money. The importance of scores and percentage takes precedence over what the student truly learns. In that way, I feel the Singapore method to give up grading students is a great move towards progress.
If a teacher makes the child understand that they are their competition. Their score becomes the track for their progress. The child should understand that in a school year the scores gained for different subjects should motivate them to do better, maintain their stream of progress and jump to find their passion for the subject of their closest choice.
Knowing the Student’s Requirement
A teacher is the bridge between the unknown to known, between ignorance to understanding, between untruth to truth differentiation. To achieve this the teacher might have to understand the needs of the students and meet them.
The teacher is the next person who spends more time with the young minds and shaping them requires them to be humble and with a humane outlook. The compassion shown towards the student’s known or unknown weakness and the ability to build on their strengths means the teacher’s job is very nearly cut out.
I love to work with one student at a given time rather than a whole class of them. I am a person with learning disability, but I do know how to self-tutor. This skill had kept me in great steads through my school, university, and future of learning ahead of me.
At some point the teacher is a part counselor of the student in their progress at school and in the learning progress. The best approaches are never one size fit all sizes solution, but more of a tailored to the student needs. A good teacher would figure out how to help the child.
Now the schools are outsourcing learning and teaching to outsiders and the growing population of home tuition. The fact that the child did not learn at school but needed additional help from outside shows a poor educational system.
Teachers Are Like Lamplighters!
A teacher lights up the inner mind of the students and provides them with a self-charging light that opens the world to them. When the teacher lights one lamp of a child and dispels the darkness of ignorance, that student has received educational training to self-improve.
During their growing educational years, they can navigate the challenges in their learning with confidence and prove their worth to the world. When the lamps of knowledge and understanding with compassion are not lit then, the child is left in the darkness of ignorance of partial learning.
The idea bulb that we see in each new ideation is possible when the understanding is truly complete. To achieve that a teacher should use two-ways communication and reception. Then only can teacher draw the internal resources of learning.
Greatest Teacher Is Yet to Be
There are multiple challenges in the working of a human mind. The young brain is still creating its neural connections through learning and repeating tasks. The way the child learns is unique to its own.
I completely agree with the Singapore’s stand to remove ranking students from the mainstream formative education. They will use scores for the child’s exams to evaluate their individual successes and failures in scoring for their test.
A great teacher is one who strives to be understood by their wards, understands their wards, creates conducive environments to progress, and achieve excellence in their educational life and beyond.
Itinerant Storyteller 