Nathan Miller

9:55 Class

10/4/04

What is a Good Teacher?

I can still remember being back in high school days and having to listen to my friends whine about that particular teacher that they didn’t like. “He is the worst teacher I’ve ever had,” they would complain. But after inquiring them about their reasons for such remarks, they really couldn’t come up with clear-cut answers. It appears that now, however, I can see what the differences are between good teachers and bad teachers. By interviewing parents, teachers, taxpayers, students, and administrators I have found many common themes among the characteristics of a good teacher.

It seemed, through my interviews, that many people would declare their best teacher as one who could explain things well. What is very interesting to note is that while interviewing a high school student he stated that a particular teacher of his was very good at explaining. Later on in the day as I was interviewing another student, this same teacher’s name came up, but in a negative sense. This second student claimed that the same teacher was very poor at explaining concepts. This led me to wonder how this could be. Learning styles differ from student to student, and teachers who only teach toward one learning style are possibly making it very hard for the other students to learn. In this case, the teacher was teaching toward however the first student learned, but not necessarily toward how the second student learned. This all brings us back to the main question; is this a good teacher? My answer would be no. Because having a teacher able to explain things thoroughly is such a highly ranked attribute of a good teacher throughout my interviews, I believe that without these qualities it would be very hard to classify him/her as a good teacher.

Teaching to different learning styles, as Avril McClelland highlights in Human Diversity in Education, is a relatively new idea, which is why many teachers are unpracticed in doing so. More and more schools are adding students with disabilities to a regular classroom. This is causing these handicapped students to feel more a part of their class while also helping teachers to adapt to their individual learning style. Teachers can take what they learn through their classes those students with disabilities to help teach the rest of their students more effectively.

Marilyn Cochran-Smith did numerous studies on what quality teaching is, and in one of her studies she just straight asked, “What is quality teaching?”. The most popular response, almost half of the people polled, said that quality teachers design effect instruction that interests students. This statement is exactly what learning style is. The teacher has to be more creative and flexible to try and create an atmosphere for all students to learn in. A teacher’s lack to do these things will probably result it poorer class work then could be achieved had the teacher responded to the student’s specific needs. Also in the same study from Marilyn Cochran-Smith came other results that are also related to the learning styles of students. In the same study, only nineteen percent of the total people interviewed thought of quality teachers as having a great understanding of the subject matter. When compared to the almost fifty percent who believe the other way, this seems to suggest that people see good teachers as being able to convey whatever knowledge they have, not just knowing a whole lot of knowledge. The research that I did, by interviewing people, seems to go along with the findings of Cochran-Smith. None of the interviewees mentioned anything about level of education or other knowledge of the professor as being the most important. They did, however, on multiple occasions, mention the way that teachers teach. They said the things they don’t like and the things they do like about how each teacher goes about trying to teach to their own individual learning style. Some don’t try at all while others are always adapting.

Even though there is this difference, many of the views between the different age group were very similar. Almost throughout the study, people agreed that teachers were a part of the community. Some would argue that they were a small part, just a name that people associate with the community. Others feel that teachers need to be a vital part of the community and should attend numerous community events to show to their students how important the role of community is. Cochran-Smith also sees how the community is needed as a role of a teacher. She sees teachers as having valuable leadership skills, which could be, used daily in the community. A good teacher, therefore, seems to be one who gets involved in the community to help fellow community member or other events.

There seem to be many different characteristics of a good teacher, but a couple of the important ones would have to be teaching toward learning styles and involvement in the community. The group of interviewees I think holds the most weight is the students, and they stressed these two points. The students know what a good teacher is like because they are actively involved in the cognitive process of finding one even if they don’t realize it. They know within the first day or two whether or not the teacher is going to be a good teacher depending on how the teacher adapts to them. A good teacher will find a way to adapt to all of the students; seemingly working with each child on an individual basis just by the way the lesson is approached. If more teachers would teach to really get the most out of every student I don’t believe that it would be possible for there to be bad teachers. If teachers really focused on getting the most out of every one of their students then they would incorporate all of the learning styles into their teaching without even realizing it. By using all of the learning styles, students become better educated, serve as better citizens, and can eventually grow to be able to teach to a multitude of learning styles as well.