Teacher Dispositions

Not everyone is born to be a teacher. Some people are naturally more inclined to work with kids, or have effective communication skills. However, not everyone born with the skills to be a teacher has the passion or drive to teach. Teaching is hard work, and educators must have an internal motivation for teaching. It is not a career for making money or being famous. Teaching requires a high level of dedication and commitment. The passion needed for entering the teaching profession isn't something that can be taught. Those kind of dispositions must come from within a person. It is hard to enhance something that cannot be taught, but I think there are some things teachers can do to enhance teaching dispositions. First of all, new teachers should learn from and ask questions of more experienced teachers. Because teaching is a profession of learning on the job, it is very helpful for inexperienced teachers to learn from the mistakes of those who have already gone through their first couple years on the job. Secondly, future teachers can get as many teaching experiences as possible before entering their own classroom. This can include anything from babysitting to tutoring to volunteering in an actual school classroom. The more time spent with students in a learning environment, the more that person will think about what it takes to be a teacher and the experience will enhance their dispositions. Finally, everyone entering the teaching profession must go into it with a humble attitude and a hard working mindset. Teaching is not easy and the dispositions needed to be a good teacher must come from within.

Stress in the Teaching Profession

Lots of people think teaching is easy. Spending 8 hours a day with children teaching them multiplication tables and reading books isn't nearly as difficult as teachers say it is, right? Little do people who think like this know that what goes into teaching is so much more than just babysitting a bunch of kids and reading books. There are lesson plans to write, meetings to go, parents to talk with, papers to grade and the list goes on and on. Even most college students preparing to be teachers don't fully understand everything that a teacher does on a daily basis. The only way to fully appreciate a full teacher's workload is to spend a substantial amount of time in a classroom. At Luther College, education students are required to spend a month in a classroom actively observing before applying for the teacher education program. However, I don't think that this short amount of time is enough for someone to fully grasp all of the duties of a teacher. While the college student may observe papers being graded, it is rare in the month of January that they will see report cards being made or many of the other things that occur before Christmas break, or at the end of the year. I have spent a J-term in a social studies classroom and I worked in an elementary general music classroom for an entire semester. There were lots of things I learned about teaching throughout the entire semester in the music class that I didn't even get a glimpse in during my month in the social studies classroom. While it is very important to have college students interested in teaching observe classrooms, many won't fully understand what it takes to be a teacher until they get into their first real teaching job. Teaching is hard, tiring work, and every teacher will tell you, the first three years are the hardest. College graduates often feel overwhelmed because teaching isn't something that can be effectively taught to them while in college. Good teaching is developed with experience of working with kids and time in the classroom. Half of all teachers change professions after 3 years of teaching because they didn't go in fully understanding the immense amount of work it takes to be a teacher, and as a result get burned out. Teaching is such a fulfilling career, but it doesn't come without a lot of work and time.

Confidence and Humility

Teachers are humans. They are sometimes wrong. Confidence is necessary for a teacher to be professional in their classroom, but genuine humility is also needed. It is important for a teacher to be knowledgeable and competent in their subject area, especially in middle and high schools. A history teacher would not generally not be the best math teacher because that is not their speciality. They are not as knowledgeable about math as they are about history so they would not be as confident in a math classroom. Students need confident teachers to help them understand new material. If a teacher is struggling with the information themselves they are going to have a very difficult time teaching that material to students to whom the concepts are brand new. It is necessary for the teacher to be extremely competent with the classroom material because they need to be able to teach it in a variety of ways. Not every student learns the same and in order for every student to understand the new concepts the teacher may need to explain it several ways. However, some teachers take this confidence too far and project the image that they are all knowing and are never wrong. Teachers are humans, and just like students, can make mistakes. Humility is a quality that every teacher must have to be successful in their profession. There are lots of different teaching methods and philosophies, some of which work better than others. Teachers should be keeping each other accountable for student learning, and offer constructive criticism in a positive way. Even teachers who have been in the profession for decades know that they can always improve and continue learning. Students need teachers who are constantly striving for excellence in their own teaching while trusting that teachers are confident in the material they are teaching.

Collaboration

In high school, people either loved to hated group work. For the highly talented students group work is torture because they feel like they have to do all the work. And for the slackers in the class group work is their time to do nothing and let the motivated students do all the work. However, group work is very beneficial to students in preparing them for the future. After reading Global Achievement Gap I learned the importance of teaching students how to work with other people. One of the seven most important skills for students to have when entering the workplace is communication and collaboration with other people. In the real world people will have to work in groups with others to solve problems and do work. It is important for teachers to incorporate group work into the classroom on a regular basis. Group work should hold all students accountable for their portion of the work to assure that every member is equally involved. I think an important part of group work is individual reflection. The work should be done in groups but each student should take time to think about their own learning and areas for improvement. Group work and collaboration is also important for teachers. Teachers must be able to work with other teachers in order to insure the best learning experience for all students. Oftentimes when a student is struggling in one subject area it is most likely that they are struggling in another. By working together, teachers can help that student succeed in all classes. Group work is very important in the real world and should be incorporated in the classroom to prepare students for the workplace.

Attributes of Highly Effective Teachers

There is so much more to being an effective teacher than simply content knowledge. We've all had those teachers who are really smart, and could tell you anything you would want to know about their subject, but when it came to teaching that material to students they fell short. In order to be effective in the classroom, teachers need to be confident and have a strong work ethic. They need to know their own abilities and be able to recognize areas where improvement can be made as well. Students can read a lack of confidence in a teacher, and often they take advantage of it. Confidence is also important because students won't learn the material as well if it is presented to them with a lack of confidence. The one teaching the material must know it through and through in order to teach it to others. Confidence in student, parent and administration interactions is also a necessary part of teaching. Teachers don't just stay in their classroom, they are constantly in interaction with many others. Parents want to know that their children are learning from confident people. A teacher's work ethic must be strong. Teachers cannot be lazy people. There is way too much work to be done for teachers to relax and procrastinate. It is also important for teachers to demonstrate in themselves what they expect of their students. It just isn't realistic for a teacher to demand students to have a strong work ethic and keep up with the class material if they are unwilling to do that themselves. Finally, it is important for teachers to be aware of their own abilities. It is only through a realization of strengths and weaknesses can a teacher improve their teaching. Everyone has areas for improvement and everyone has limitations. Teachers are no exception. The only way to get better is to know what to practice. A knowledge of content material is not enough to be a teacher. If it were, we would have a lot more teachers in this country. Teaching is about confidence, work ethic and the ability to accurately assess one's own strengths and weaknesses.

Creativity

Creativity is an extremely important skill to have in today's world. In a world where technology is constantly changing, more and more jobs are dependent on workers being innovative and creative. However, we are raised in an education system that is completely focused on passing standardized tests. This makes for an interesting challenge for classroom teachers. On one hand they have to prepare their students for the yearly standardized tests, and on the other hand prepare students for a world that is constantly seeking creativity and imagination in workers. Creativity is hard to teach, and hard to assess because it comes in a variety of forms and is largely self-driven. I think the most important thing teachers, and schools can do is to give students opportunities to express their creativity. This could be as simple as letting students decide how they want to present their research project to the class, giving them choices and allowing their own creativity to come through. Multiple choice tests do not allow for creativity, and while they are an appropriate form of assessment sometimes, other assessments such as projects and presentations encourages creativity while still assessing student learning. Another way that schools can promote creativity is to support and encourage fine arts in the schools. Music, art, dance and theatre programs allow student creativity to come through in ways that cannot be taught in regular classrooms. Fine arts help students to become more well rounded people, and learn to express themselves through other means. Unfortunately, the fine arts programs are often the first to be cut in schools. After school programs are forced to end because of inadequate funding, and less music and art classes are offered during the school day because of budget cuts. Schools that want to prepare their students for the real world, and promote creativity need to think twice before cutting fine arts classes. And administrators who do not see the importance of the arts should go to a choir concert or look at student artwork because they would clearly see how talented students are, even at a young age.

Time for Reflection

"Ok, now what did you learn from this experiment?" is a phrase we've all heard in science class at one point or another. And whether students know it or not, they are participating in reflection. Reflecting is extremely important to learning and processing information. Genuine student reflection allows kids to see the bigger picture of a problem, experiment or project. They are forced to think in a different way, and link concrete learning of a concept with its real life application. In other words, reflection is the time where students take a step back to process what they just experienced, and how that one experience can be related to other experiences. This is one of the reasons why reflection is so difficult. It is easy for anyone to learn how to do a problem. It's another thing to explain why learning that problem is important and useful in solving other problems. Reflection requires a different way of thinking. So much of the world around us is in the 'here and now' barely stopping to think forward to how one situation may serve as a teaching tool for a future situation. Teachers are an integral part of all areas of a student's learning, not just the academic part. Their job is not to simply teach formulas for solving math problems, but critical thinking and problem solving skills that often require reflection. The more a student is forced to reflect on their learning the more they will gain from a specific experience in the classroom.
It is also very important for teachers to reflect on their own work as well. Effective teaching is a learning process. College education students don't step into the classroom with all the answers; they are constantly learning from every new situation and experience that arises. Teachers need to take the time after a lesson that was very effective to reflect on why that particular lesson worked. It's easy to just store the good lesson away and use it again next year, but its necessary to take the time and reflect on why that certain lesson worked so well, and how the same strategies can be used in other lessons as well. Reflection is an important part of every learning process, and needs to be done by students and teachers alike.

Teacher Enthusiasm

I have found from my experience that lots of students dislike history. They find memorizing people, events and dates boring and uninteresting. Being a history major, and possibly a future history teacher, I often wonder what made me love history as much as I do. I was never one of those kids who knew all the presidents, or could name all the generals in the Civil War; history has not always been one of my passions. But looking back on my years in high school, most of my favorite teachers taught social studies. It was in my social studies classes that I enjoyed learning the most and was interested in more than just getting an A. And it was those teachers who I could tell absolutely loved the subject they were teaching. They had so much passion and got so excited every day about what we were learning in class. I remember my AP US history teacher, Mr. Keir who always had history stories that couldn't be found in the textbook. It was obvious that he loved history so much and brought that energy into the classroom. I looked forward to going to his class every day because I knew he was going to make history enjoyable for me. Another class I loved because of the teacher was economics. I had no idea what to expect from economics class, but it ended up being my favorite class senior year of high school. My teacher, Mr. Stanke loved teaching high school economics more than anything in the world. He never stopped learning; he was always taking classes to learn more about economics. Economics class wasn't just about learning the material from the textbook, but we did projects to apply it to real world circumstances. Students can see the passion in teachers. A class cannot be enjoyable unless the teacher absolutely loves what they are teaching, and passes that enthusiasm onto their students.

Authentic Teachers

Ask any kindergartner where the principal of their school sleeps and many of them will say on the bed in the health room. Most kids are shocked when they finally realize that teachers and principals are real people who have a life outside of the school walls. Why, then are teachers afraid to be authentic with their students sharing personal experiences and beliefs? I had one teacher in high school who refused to share anything in the classroom that was not directly related to classroom material. And on the other hand, I had some teachers who spent more time telling about their personal life than they did teaching. There must be a balance for teachers between focusing on teaching and being a real human being in the classroom. I'm not saying that teachers should go around sharing all of their personal information with students because that isn't appropriate and that's not the kind of relationship that a teacher should have with students. But teachers need to some degree show that they are real people in the classroom. Real people continue learning all their life, and sometimes real people even make mistakes. Some teachers try to put out the image that they are like gods; always right, never wrong but that's not how people are. Students need to have role models to show them that its ok to make mistakes sometimes because that's part of being human. A few teachers out there feel the need to be all business and act like they know everything in order to gain respect. But I think that students respect a teacher more if the teacher is willing to continue learning and developing as a person. Ultimately the goal of getting kids through school is to make them people who are ready for the real world. People in the real world make mistakes and learn to adapt to new situations. I think it's important for kids to start learning those lessons in school, and what better way to learn them than to have teachers setting the example of how it's done. Teachers should be themselves, and more often than not, it leads to students feeling more comfortable in the classroom because they realize that teachers don't have any 'magical' powers or gifts, but they are just ordinary people doing extraordinary jobs.

Compassion from a Teacher

Teaching is not only about passing along content information to students, but a large part of being a teacher is getting to know and truly care about the well being of every person in the classroom. Students are human beings who need adults to look up to. Kindergarten through 12th graders are learning so much more than just academic content through the course of their school years. They are developing socially and emotionally as well as academically in need of role models who are compassionate and care about them as people. Teachers play an integral role in this development because of the number of hours spent with the same kids day after day for an entire year. It is extremely important that students feel that teachers care about them as people. From my experience, the teachers who make the most impact are not the ones who are the smartest in their subject area, or write the best tests, but the ones who take the time to get to know each and every one of their students, and are willing to put in the extra time to help a student whether its concerning school work or not. Early on in my senior year of high school I got very ill and was out of school for several weeks. From this situation I learned first hand which teachers cared about me as a human being who needs extra attention, and which teachers just saw me as their job. My economics teacher, Mr. Stanke, once stayed after school with me on a Friday afternoon until 5pm to help me get caught up. He could always tell when I wasn't feeling well when I came to make up a test and always gave me the option to wait until I felt better before taking the test. He didn't help me because it was his job and he got paid to do it, I felt he genuinely cared about my overall well being. I hope that I can one day thank Mr. Stanke by showing the same compassion to one of my students. I was so blessed to have a teacher that cared about me as a person, and when I become a teacher I want to give the same to my students.

Respect in the classroom

When I asked my church choir of kindergarten through 3rd graders what it means to be respectful they gave me the typical answer, "Be nice and be kind." This is what we are taught is respect, to raise your hand to answer a question, listen when others are talking, keep hands to yourself and be nice to your classmates. But I think respect can be seen in so many other ways in the classroom. Not only do students need to respect teachers, but teachers need to respect their students as well. In order to expect students to listen and pay attention when the teacher is talking, the teacher needs to, in turn, actively listen when students are expressing their opinions and feelings about a particular subject. There needs to be an understanding on the part of the teacher that all students learn and think differently, and part of respecting students is to address and accommodate these differences. Students need to have control of their learning. At my first rehearsal with my children's choir of 4th-7th graders, after explaining my expectations of them, I asked them if they had any expectations they wanted to add to the list to make this year the best year it can be for them and for the teacher. Teachers cannot make demands of their students without giving something in return. It is only when students feel respected and responsible for their learning that students will feel comfortable and willing to share their ideas freely. A lack of respect from the teacher results in students not getting the most out of their educational experience. And in order for anything to get done in the classroom, students need to respect the teacher and their fellow classmates or too much time will get wasted on discipline that could have gone to learning. Respect in the classroom is more than just 'being nice and being kind.' It is an extremely important part of being an effective teacher, and giving students a valuable learning experience.