There are a number of dimensions taken together in changeable levels of degree that exemplify the effective teacher. Given that teachers range from preschool through post secondary levels, and are distinctive populace, no two teachers will have the same grouping nor will all of them be present in every outstanding teacher. There are also personalities that effective teachers have that may not be included in this article.
Possibly, the most essential quality of an effective teacher is that she be a learner also. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy refers to this role as “teacher-student” because the teacher presents the material to the students for their reflection, and reconsiders her earlier considerations as the students articulate their own. The effective teacher, therefore, is one who extends a pleasant invitation to her “student-teachers” to enter into a dialogic association with her and the subject matter.
The effective teacher must be a leader who can motivate and influence students through expert and referent power but never coercive power. This teacher knows his subject well and is kind and considerate toward his students. He also has high standards and outlook contemporaneous with encouragement, support, and flexibility. This teacher empowers students and gets them to do things of which they did not think they were capable. This teacher has students who outshine him.
Moreover, the effective teacher is a provocateur who probes, prods, asks persistent why questions, poses problems, plays as devil’s advocate, and stimulates frustration and conflict all in an attempt to “bust bubbles and plant seeds” so that tidy and stereotypical explanations are unmasked and discarded.
The effective teacher exemplifies what Maxine Green, an American educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher, calls teacher as stranger. By keeping students at a healthy emotional distance, this teacher can employ greater objectivity in her capability to balance the needs of individuals with the needs of the class as a whole. This allows the teacher to determine what those needs are but also how they can be accommodated to by imaginative approaches.
The effective teacher is an innovator who changes strategies, techniques, and materials when better ones are found or when presented ones no longer offer a substantive learning experience for her students. This teacher gives importance and uses students’ ideas about how to enhance their own learning. The effective teacher is also an entertainer who uses humor in the service of learning rather than as a diversion from it.
The effective teacher is an unquestionable human being who is able to laugh at herself and the illogicality in the world without being skeptical and desperate. She is a person who can self-disclose so that her students will see both her qualities and imperfections. By being a down-to-earth person, the effective teacher helps her students improve the will, courage and hope to discharge their own potential as human beings.
To sum it up, this teacher is effective because she seeks to all these characters. She values truth more than confidence and the appropriateness of a cause more than personal fame. Moreover, this teacher tries to change the world; she transforms herself and others in the process. Therefore, the effective teacher is innovative because she knows that, with the exclusion of parenthood, her responsibility is the most fundamental one on world.
By: Rosie L. Basilio | Teacher III | Mariveles National High School – Poblacion | Mariveles, Bataan
