What makes a good teacher? This is a very good yet hazardous debate as one could hastily answer this question and miss the real point. As a matter of fact, the question is multiple and should be several questions instead:
⇒ Are you a good teacher from the families’ perspective?
⇒ Are you a good teacher from the students’ point of view?
⇒ Are you a good teacher according to the profession, academic requirements, authority, hierarchy, books?
⇒ Are you a good teacher to -and from the sentiment of, the community, the group, the individual?
There is no easy answer as of what makes a good teacher. The truth is that there is no good or bad teachers, there are only teachers whom fit better to one’s feeling, philosophy, values, religions and so on.
What on earth is a good teacher then?
From my opinion and experience, even though there is no easy answer, there is yet a pattern towards which one could perhaps look at in terms of what makes a good teacher. Here are a few qualities which to my mind contribute to make the “whole good teacher” thing:
👍 Enjoying being a teacher
👍 Enjoying being with students
👍 Considering students as our equals (just mini versions of ourselves few years back)
👍 Being open-minded
👍 Having a positive and can-do attitude
👍 Being optimistic
👍 Role modeling
👍 Being knowledgeable
👍 Being patient
👍 Being dedicated
👍 Having a minimum sense of humor
👍 Setting boundaries
👍 Being strict and firm while laid-back and easy going at the same time
👍 Always doing what you say
👍 Being reliable (students can count on you)
👍 Listening and understanding
👍 Being aware, responsive and sensitive
👍 Being balanced
👍 Being self-assertive and content
👍 Giving and taking (win-win)
👍 Doing one’s best (it is not always a success, and that’s ok)
👍 Being prepared – sort of
👍 Being fair
👍 Guiding, scaffolding, building upon rather than teaching and professing
👍 Giving choices as much as possible -no more than two though.
👍 Having a time for talking, listening, writing, reading and moving
👍 Setting up a routine
👍 Cultivating curiosity
👍 Encouraging experience and mistakes
👍 Being non judgmental
👍 Avoiding bias
👍 Being capable to improvise at times
👍 Being able to cease a “teaching moment” (which might be out of the lesson plan/curriculum/academics for a while)