What is a good teacher made of?
In today’s education system, most evaluations of students are standardized. Whether students perform well on tests like the SATs or graduate on time are largely depending on one influence – teachers. More than schools and curriculum, teachers matter most.
Take for example two students – same age, same socio-economic status, same reading levels, only thing different is the teacher. By the end of the year, one student makes huge improvements in their skills while the other remains the same. Looking at factors, the difference in the end result comes from teaching. So what makes a teacher effective at taking a struggling student to an academic success?
According to the in-house professor at Teach for America, an organization that places teachers in low-income schools for two years with the hopes of raising academic levels, there are certain traits that great teachers possess. Here are the traits he has determined to be the most profound with raising children’s test scores:
- Set big goals for students: Just getting by is not enough, they want their students to achieve at a high standard.
- Perpetually looking to improve effectiveness: They are continually reevaluating their teaching strategy and adjust things that aren’t proving successful.
- Recruited student and family involvement: They made the learning process all inclusive.
- Maintain focus: They concentrated on making sure everything they did contributed to student learning.
- Planned: They strategized exhaustively and purposefully for the next day or the year ahead working backward from the desired outcome.
- Persistence: They work relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined perils of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortages.
So back to the example given earlier; what would bring a student down in the ranks up? The mind-set of the teacher would. A great teacher will persevere even when faced with challenges in the classroom for their students to succeed.
