What Makes a Good Teacher

Sometimes the simplest questions in life are the hardest to answer. Much has been said and written about the role of the teacher in an ever changing world, but the voices of children and adolescents are rarely raised or heard.

Recent surveys reveal that in some countries children spend more time watching television than going to school and that the media have more influence on their attitudes and aspirations than the education they are receiving in the classroom.

Urgent action is required to improve and enhance the situation of teachers. Only by improving their training and working conditions can we hope to meet the children’s needs and aspirations and hence contribute substantially to peaceful world and a healthy and harmonious way of life.

In this project we have tried to find out which is the perfect formula of a skilled and prepared teacher. The project comprises four parts. In the first part, the three types of teacher are presented, i.e. the liberal/laisser-faire teacher, the democratic teacher (who is the most indicated and adequate teacher) and finally, the authoritarian teacher. The three types of teacher are described in relation to the learning process and the students’ outcome.

The second and third part is designated to the teacher’s skills. In these parts, the teacher’s responsibilities, skills, desirable behaviour and personality are fully detailed. Also, these parts of the project deal with how to pose questions, give explanations and instructions, etc.

Finally, the last part presents the classroom management, which portrays and explains the methods, strategies and techniques of what makes an effective and productive classroom.

1. So, who’s best: the liberal, the democratic or the authoritarian teacher?

No doubt, there are teachers who have been teaching for years in public schools, universities, extracurricular programs, adult basic literacy and adult enrichment classes; and maybe some of them have been using the same method without knowing or wondering if it’s best or not. However, knowing how to deal with the students, how to keep their attention awaken, to intrigue them and captivate them is nevertheless an art. So, in the end, how should a teacher be, so as to create that “flow” that makes both students and teacher happy?

Liberal Democratic Authoritarian

Discipline Positive aim lack Self-discipline as a educational component Teacher makes discipline

Freedom Students do what they want Mutual respect and confidence trust Trying obtain control with respect and power

Control Individual freedom Inwardly limited freedom Students have no freedom in they opinion

Problem Solving Students didn’t solve the problem Students have ideas, they have problems, they want to solve them All problems are solved by the teacher

Evaluation All behavior is allowed Achievement accentuate Mistakes and lack accentuate

Responsibility 0% - 0% 50%-50% 100% teacher’s responsibility

The liberal/laisser-faire teacher

So if the teacher is teaching in liberal style, what we can expect from the students-

First of all, most of the students will be apathetic about what is happening in the classroom. They are fully satisfied that nothing is happening, because the teacher is passive to change the class life, to make the class life more interesting

The teacher does not control their students, that’s why students have total freedom. At the beginning, the approach should consider that the students themselves learn to control their behaviour and make the correct decisions. The greatest risk for the teachers: they find themselves in the situation where the students begin “to climb to the head”. The lesson can turn into a chaos.

Secondly, the students fail to solve their own problems, because the teacher does not want to get involved and help them to solve problems. Students mostly push the problems to the edge, however, the problem is not solved.