What could be more important than to see our young people grow and develop into confident, competent, capable and knowledgeable young men and women? If we think back to our own schooling, I'm sure there are teachers who still hold a very special place in our hearts. Why do memories of these teachers stay with us during our life? Maybe because they seemed to really understand us, or relate to us. Sometimes they turned our lives around and sometimes they turned our days around because they were caring, understanding and empathetic.
One of my favourite quotes, written by a dear friend, inscribed in a book called "Hugs for Teachers" is: " A teacher affects eternity, she can never tell where her influence stops."
It's so true and sometimes I think teachers forget the powerful impact and life altering effect that they can have on the boys and girls and young women and men in their charge. It goes without saying that teacher quality matters or rather the quality of the teacher matters most!
One of the best books I've come across on teacher effectiveness is a book written by James Stronge called: Qualities of Effective Teachers (2007, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Stronge has also written for teachers a great practical Handbook to accompany the book.
In a nutshell when we talk about teacher effectiveness, we are talking about a teacher's capacity to improve a student's learning outcomes. At the end of the day, we are looking at ensuring students are successful after school, in work, university and further study and importantly as a citizen.
According to Stronge, the important qualities of a teacher who is effective can be distilled to the following:
An effective teacher is a person who:
- Is Caring - someone who brings out the best in a boy or girl through encouragement and affirmation, listens, understands and knows each student very well.
- Fair and Respectful - effective teachers establish rapport and credibility with students by emphasising: Respect, Modelling appropriate behaviours, Practising respect and fairness, someone who is consistent and shows no favouritism, no gender bias and treats students equitably.
- Interacts in and beyond the classroom with students in a friendly, personal manner maintaining appropriate teacher-student structures and norms. Someone who gets involved in sporting events, concerts, cultural events, talks to students during recess and allows students to participate in decision making.
- Is Enthusiastic and Motivating - the teacher's enthusiasm for teaching, learning and expertise in their subject matter is important in supporting positive relationships with students in encouraging student achievement. Research consistently demonstrates that high levels of motivation in teachers relates to high levels of achievement in students. High levels of enthusiasm is particularly important in motivating older students. (See research by Aaronson, Barrow and Sander (2007), Teachers and student Achievement in the Chicago public high schools. Journal of Labor Economics 25, No. 1)
- Is Passionate about students, and teaching and learning - Students are very intuitive and pick up very quickly if a teacher is not interested in them, the subject or the school. A teacher should not hide her or his light under a bushell - let students know how passionate you are about them and your work.
- Attitude is everything in teaching - effective teachers exude positive attitudes about life and teaching. They believe that extra hours spent preparing and reflecting upon teaching and learning are well worth the student outcomes. They believe that all students can learn and they can help their students learn!
When we consider that the destiny of each of our student's lives can depend on how caring we are, how helpful we can be, how enthusiastic, how fair and respectful, how encouraging we are and how expert we are in our teaching and learning, how can we be anything but the very best teachers we can be?
It doesn't matter if we have been teaching for one or twenty years, we can all improve on each of these qualities. All of us can make a difference to the young people we teach.
The principles of teaching and learning, the qualities of effective teachers, are in fact the principles by which we can all live - teacher or not - we can all affect eternity of the people we come in contact with in our day to day lives.
Mother Teresa sums up the way we can choose to live our lives:
"Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier." Oh, what a better world it would be if we could live by this mantra. :)
Karon GrahamPrincipal
Caloundra City School
