COMMON ATTRIBUTES OF A ‘GOOD TEACHER’ AS PERCEIVED BY A SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENT

Teacher is the noun from the verb teaches. To teach means to impart knowledge or skill or to give instruction or lessons. Therefore, teachers have a sole mission, which is to teach students. In order to teach, a teacher must be able to communicate, interact, and create a bond of understanding with the students. The objective of education, after all, is to enlighten, to stimulate, to promote growth, and to motivate further development.

For an individual to become a teacher, he or she must first have a calling to teach. An individual must not be forced to teach because teaching requires talent and creativity. Because a teacher is a closely watched role model who communicates more by what he or she dose rather than by what he or she says.

As explained by many, teachers or educators who have influenced our lives are those who managed to connect to us not only as teachers but also as human beings. Those who respected us also for being human and believed in us to our ability furthermore created a trust. An Arthur Jesild (1955) was among the first of modern-day educators to focus attention on the connection between the teachers personal life and her or his professional effectiveness. He maintained that understanding oneself is the single most important task in the growth toward developing healthy attitudes of self-acceptance.

A psychologist, Carl Rogers wrote extensively about the need for teachers to be process-orientated rather than exclusively content-orientated in their approach. He also stressed that educators must spend considerable time and effort building positive relationships with students, allowing their authenticity, genuineness, and caring to shine through. Rogers also said, quoting, “that teachers can genuinely act as a person, not a faceless embodiment of a curricular requirement, or a sterile pipe through which knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.”

Different individuals have different preferences or tastes. Therefore, from a secondary student point of view, a teacher may be good for him or her, but may not be good for others. From personal experience, good teachers are the ones who have astounded me with their uniqueness, eccentricity and distinctive character.

I will base my arguments on five common attributes of a good teacher as perceived by a secondary school student. Firstly, Charisma, which means the capacity to inspire followers or disciples with devotion or enthusiasm. How do you get a class of noisy students to get inspired, to listen and pay attention? As I recalled most of my teachers would just raise their voices, rather shout at us. Yes we keep quiet but we do not pay attention. Then we label the teachers who are always mad at us, and lose interest in the subject, often common in subject like math and History. My favorite subjects in secondary school were; Bahasa Melayu, because most of the time the teacher dose not mind if we pass up our work or not. Geography because I am interested in knowing about other countries. And English because it’s the only subject that I am best at.

My Geography teacher can really inspire a class because he is from New Zealand and he has been to most parts of the world including Europe and Africa. In between his lessons he tells us stories of how life is in those countries. He was my most favorite teacher because I also consider him my best friend. We can talk about other things than geography. I ask for his advice on courting girls and he asks me about Brunei and Islam. I was really close to him and his inspiration meant a lot to me.

My English teachers can’t really get the whole class to listen because we are studying a language. Most students have this general idea that they only need to know the basics. For me, it’s an inborn talent, I guess. In English, especially when doing composition, we can write stories without any bounds to what kind of story it is. Often they give us ideas, clues, to inspire us and come up with a breath taking or scary story.

Therefore being able to inspire students emanates a force from their personalities that others find attractive and compelling that there was a strong desire to know more about and from them, the educators. Teachers need not to act but it is absolutely crucial to feel passionately about what you are doing, and to be able to convey this enthusiasm to them.

Secondly, Compassion meaning pity. People appreciate being loved and cared for, especially students because it gives them a sense of trust towards the mentor. Other than teaching we are also raising them because schools should be their second home. Especially in secondary schools where students are just maturing, finding out about stuff that they are shy to ask about.

This best describes my earlier example of my Geography teacher where we can talk about almost everything. He would ask to keep him up to date on my social life, and he would always be there for advice. His openness helps me to communicate easily; I guess it gives him a sense of achievement for being close to me and helping me in more than one way.

In other words mentors treat their students like their own children. It is from this position of dedicated, consistent compassion that the effective teacher is able to set limits, establish and enforce rules, and provide discipline when it is needed, and yet is able to do so without risk of losing children’s respect in the process.

Thirdly, Egalitarianism, which means, advocating equal rights for all, when referred to a teacher student situation, this is connected with discipline. Teachers don’t want to be labeled as a Bad teacher just because sometimes the teacher is being unfair. For example, once we were not allowed to have a break and we a confined to stay in class because we were very noisy and would not listen to what the teacher said. It was so unfair, because the bunch of us sitting up front was not noisy, we paid attention. But the guys at the back were noisy, as punishment what we did not commit we were also punished for. The teacher was being a bit too harsh on us. Of course back then we really hated him, but now I realized that it was for the better,

It is really difficult to be fair; teachers are also human beings and the saying Nobody’s perfect is applied to every living soul. It is absolutely impossible for students to expect that any teacher will demonstrate perfect equality in all situations and circumstances.

Next is having a sense of humor, having a laugh or two is class can wake up a sleepy class when a subject is really boring. This quality is most sought for in a teacher by a student of all ages. A good teacher must be able to make learning fun. A students mind can be distracted by passer-bys (especially guys when girls pass their classes), hunger or even lust. It is proven in a study, that a typical adolescent male has a sexual thought an average of once every three minutes.

Teachers can never be too nice because students tend to take advantage. They step all over you and become rebellious and when teachers get a bit ticked off they forgot how nice the teacher was. Teachers have feelings too, students should then understand that and realize that they are there to teach and guide, not a plaything. I understood this and when I realize I made a mistake I apologize. They quickly accept as if it never happened; now these are cool teachers.

This reminds me of a teacher I met when I was on attachment to SOAS College, under the ministry of education to observe English students. An Indian teacher, who has been teaching here in Brunei for over 30 years now and has thought many of the high-ranking officers in the ministry. Many remember him for his lively way of teaching, and how his sense of humor can put a smile on every students face. His experience in this profession is very vast as he has seen every attitude of a student and he knows that a little joke can always get their attention. A little humor never hurt anyone.

Lastly, is to become an effective person. This meaning that he or she is a reasonably well-adjusted human being. Well-organized, tidy, well dressed, his or her physical appearance already shows what kind of person he or she is. For example, A male teacher arrives to class with scruffy looking hair, wearing the same tie everyday and wearing it crooked, dresses funny i.e. wearing baggy trouser, portrays an image that he is a very dull teacher because he looks like he can’t take care if his life, what makes it any difference that he can teach his students.

Other than ‘you-are-what-you-wear’, students may also label a teacher good, when he or she is able to practice the values and norms; For example, honesty, self-discipline and helpful. After all teachers are role models who shape the future generation.

Patience is also an important characteristic, which comes under being personally effective. Because, when facing trouble or unexpected circumstances, a teacher must be patient and try to think of ways to resolve the problem. In a class environment a teacher must dealt with the different characters of his or her students. This is highly regarded by students that he or she is a tough teacher, so we do not mess with him or her.

And so these are to me, the common attributes of a ‘good teacher’ as perceived by a secondary school student. I was once a secondary school student and from my personal experience a good teacher must be cool, open-minded, good sense of humor, charismatic, patient, fair, helpful and compassionate. I just realized that through experience a teacher could become a good teacher and a better teacher. It is easy to know if our past teachers are good teachers, the ones we remember the most they are the good ones.


Reference:

Stanley J. Zehm, Jeffrey A. Kottler, (1993) On being a Teacher, Corwin Press.

Vickie Gill, (1998) The Ten commandments of Good Teaching, Corwin Press.

[A reproduction of my first year paper for Introduction to Education - PF1201. I got a really good grade for this.*Smiles*]