[Binder of Demons]

Adjutant Stormy, on 01 October 2010 - 01:22 AM, said:

There are really a lot of things that define a good teacher from a bad one. The big ones come out - motivation, respect, patience, charisma, but in all honesty, those are the obvious points. Boring!

What makes a good teacher GREAT?

Personally, the hallmark of the best teachers I've had through school and undergrad, surprisingly enough, was simply the ability to say "I don't know" (preferably followed by "let's find out" / "I'll get back to you" / "what do you think?") and not bullshit me around, or refer me to the book, or otherwise deflect. The teachers confident enough in their element that they can admit failure, but not give up.

I couldn't agree more. I've seen plenty of the bad teachers do the "read the book again" answer when questioned.

I would also add that the ability to make the students care about the subject is special. And when students actually care about what they are studying, they will invariably do better. I wish i could have had an Irish language teacher that could have inspired me, since it's my greatest regret not being able to speak it fluently when i left school. I just couldn't see the point and my teacher was just going through the motions. I was told repeatedly in school that i was crap at languages, and yet I was subsequently able to achieve a degree of fluency in French, Irish and Spanish and have decent comprehension of spoken Japanese. Now if i could find the motivation to learn these in my own time, how come none of my teachers could inspire this in me when i was a pretty willing student.

My only personal experience of teaching came from teaching field ecology courses to high school students and they were great. However these were in an atypical situation as we were external teachers, and the kids were outdoors. We still had to deal with student apathy, kids trying to show off/impress their friends, and not caring about the subject. My ways of getting them to participate varied on the students, but a good starting point was to explain that if they paid attention, these would be the easiest marks they'd get all year, and that because they were doing stuff with their hands in addition to the books, they'd be much more likely to remember the stuff in an exam situation. which is true.

I also liked to point out that we were outdoors, and that surely made a nice break from the classroom? My only "tough" rule was that you weren't to interfere with other people/groups and their ability to do the work. Also, having had real world experience of using the various surveying techniques and explaining their use seemed to help. I found that if you could relate what we were doing, however silly it seemed, to a real world application, they were more likely to accept it and join in. I often had the "real" teacher remark how amazed they were at the participation levels on our courses.

Now i realise that this is not the same as a classroom, and that is one of the main reasons i couldn't be a teacher. I like educating people, but the rigid school system frustrates me. But being able to recognise that not all students respond the same way is a good place to start.

as an example, my french teacher had previously taught my sister, and treated us the same way, by basically belittling our work in an attempt to get us to work harder. now my sister would get bloody-minded and set out to prove the teacher wrong (and hence do better). I, on the other hand, was genuinely trying my best, and couldn't understand why i was being picked on. So i just got irritated and eventually had a blazing row with the teacher (which i won, surprisingly). But it had got to the point that i was going to another french teacher after school and she couldn't understand why i was being marked so low. Now I still think that french teacher was generally a very good educator (and her students typically did well in the state exams) but I'll always wonder how good she could have been with better personal skills.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Defiance, on 04 October 2010 - 02:23 AM, said:

As long as they don't molest children or try to shove religion down my throat I don't have a problem with them.

Joking aside, this isn't an easily answered question. First, it's highly subjective, and second, it depends on the grade.

In high school, I always enjoyed the teachers who were laid back and could crack some jokes. At the same time they knew what they were teaching. Humor, even if it isn't related to the subject, is a great way to get people to pay attention. Granted, it can go too far. My econ teacher would only teach for maybe half of every class four out of five days a week. He'd spend the rest of the time dissing the class, telling funny stories, eating, and cracking your mom jokes. If you talked when he was teaching he'd grab your pencil or bag and throw it out into the hall. It was an open door classroom, and I think other teachers must have hated teaching by him because we'd spend the entire time laughing. One day we spent the entire period trying to kick a plastic bottle into the trash can. Another time when no one could answer a question about supply and demand he laid down on the floor and relaxed until someone gave the right answer. Nobody knew it, and some kids asked if they could leave. He told them to go ahead, he didn't care. After they left he gave us a 100 point quiz - all we had to do was write our name to get full credit. Next semester, he moved to an outdoor portable classroom. One of the kids decided it'd be funny to hold the door shut so he couldn't get inside. To get in, the teacher ran up to the door and slammed into it with his shoulder. The hinges snapped and the door fell on the kid. Best teacher I've ever had. Granted, I didn't learn a whole lot.

That's not a good/great teacher, that's an epic teacher.

I believe the difference is semantic.

This post has been edited by Adjutant Stormy: 07 October 2010 - 01:07 AM

[Adjutant Stormy~]

[Euler]

I think the more interesting question is: "can you educate someone(almost anyone) to become a great teacher? or are some people just born that way?"

[polishgenius]

foolio, on 24 September 2010 - 06:42 PM, said:

On a serious note their is nothing to me that competes with a teacher that absolutely loves the subject they are teaching. I really think it is contageous. And you can tell when someon is really into theior subject or just going through the motions.

This is so true. One teacher of Geography I had managed to make rocks interesting through sheer force of enthusiasm. Though they also have to love teaching - I had at least one teacher who was clearly a keen historian but got so irritated by what he saw as poor exam marks (something that came about largely because he was in on maternity cover for a teacher they'd previously not been able to get cover for, leading to... well, crap teaching) that he spent twenty minutes ranting how bad we were then told us he was washing his hands and handed back the papers - marked but not corrected, and with no explanations, leaving us to read them while he sulked.

He lasted about three weeks. Probably the worst teacher I've ever come across.

For some reason the history department at my old school was particularly vulnerable to really bad ones, though it also had really good ones- in every other case I've come across, other teachers are polite about poor teachers in front of students, but three historians were so poor that they were regarded with open contempt by other teachers.



Being able to properly engage with the kids is a crucial thing (and as has been said, that needs respect as well as being liked - I've had teachers who were well liked but didn't teach very well coz their method of control was pandering), but there's no rules to that. All of my best teachers were very different characters, and now that I work in a school (as an interpreter) same goes, there's no two good teachers who are the same.


I do have two pet hates that no great teacher would have, though:

Being unable to tell a kid they're wrong when they clearly are. It wasn't a big deal when I was at school but recently, in England at least, a 'don't put kids down' culture has got so overly ridiculous that 'that's kind of right' or 'yeah, from one point of view' have become virtually mantras. Which is sometimes alright in, say, English, but not acceptable in fact-based subjects... I've heard it in Maths once or twice, ffs. Maybe it's just where I work, but I do suspect not, from conversations I have with others.

The opposite of that, that Adjunant Stormy referred to: Being unable to admit being wrong or not knowing. I know one teacher who, if they don't know an answer, just guesses and hopes for the best, and it's painful coz some of the stuff they come out with is just such complete bullshit. It's a pity because they're good at getting info across otherwise.
Similarly, sulking if a teacher is proved wrong is something I've come across more than once.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 14 October 2010 - 11:32 PM

[Tyr]

Dont know about teachers, but as for lecturers, they should be interesting. Regardless how bad or boring the subject. It should be a joy (comparatively) to sit through their lectures.

[Cougar]

"A beard" is the answer to this question.

[Tapper]

Cougar, on 09 November 2010 - 01:20 PM, said:

"A beard" is the answer to this question.

Don't forget the smell of pipe tabacco surrounding them, and the five year old vest.

[Cougar]

I teach, I am awesome. I have a beard and all I smell of is man.

[Mezla PigDog]

To come at it from a different angle, I have only ever taught small groups of people at undergrad and postgrad level where you teach by interaction. What makes me a better teacher is definitely enthusiastic students!! While on one hand you have an obligation to pitch it right from the start to draw them in, on the other hand I think the students have an obligation to be interested and give you something to feed off as a teacher. At university level, if students aren't going to act interested then I'd rather they didn't show up. When you get a bunch of students who sit and stare at their notebooks and just nod occasionally, you get sick of the sound of your own voice and run out of things to say. It is also really frustrating when a student says they understand but clearly don't, it's crazy how often that happens. It's much more useful when students speak up, it gives you an indication of whether you have pitched it right.

The best teachers I had at high school made what they taught feel relevant. At uni, the best teachers were just obviously shit hot scientists who knew their stuff and had really good structure to their modules. They started off basic and ramped it up quickly enough to be interesting but not so fast that they lost you. Some of them were lucky enough to have subjects that they could make relevant to current affairs but others had to teach really difficult theory. The good ones used lots of repetition and gradual build up, one stupid one tried to teach us thermodynamics using something to do with The Simpsons. I still have no idea what he was talking about. The worst lecturer I ever had was a complete boffin who kept his back to us and wrote on a blackboard for 4hrs a week for 12 weeks. My entire course failed inorganic chemistry that semester so they had to shift the pass mark down to 15% in order to grade us!

Anyway, since experiencing teaching from the side of the teachers, I think students should quit feeling entitled to entertainment. Sometimes learning requires sitting through something really boring and concentrating. I think there's something quietly satisfying about being bored to death but still coming out having learned something.

[stone monkey]

I haven't been in education for like... Well... A long time... Possibly before some of you were born... But... My idea of a great teacher is someone who can communicate their enthusiasm for the subject to their students. This, I would imagine, is rather a hard prospect at the lower levels where what you're teaching is the basics of the subject that you moved beyond years before. Or if what you're teaching is rather mundane.

Having had a certain amount of experience at teaching people things that are extremely dull, but actually happen to be their job (I'm told I'm not too bad at it), the only thing I can say from that perspective is that you absolutely have to engage with your students. They do have to bring a willingness to learn to the table but you have to be able to get that information into their heads. That, to my mind, involves understanding their personality and how they learn things... and a lot of patience.