One. Good teaching is a much about passion as it is about reason. It’s about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It’s about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion to everyone, most important to your students.
Two. Good teaching is about listening, questioning being responsive, and remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It’s about pushing students to excel, at the same time, it’s about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.
Three. Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It’s about getting only 10% of what you wanted to d in a class done and still feeling good. It’s about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other.
Four. Good teaching is also about style. Should good teaching be entertaining? You bet! Does this mean that is lacks in substance? Not a chance! Effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixates on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teacher work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are the conductors and the class ids the orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies.
Five. This is very important – good teaching is about humor. It’s about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.
Six. Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It’s about devoting time, often invisible, to every students. It’s also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.
Seven. Good teaching is about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one’s peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded, and poor teaching needs to be remediated through training and development program.
Eight. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards, like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
By: Annaliza S. Manalansan | Master Teacher I | JC Payumo Jr. Memorial High School | Dinalupihan, Bataan
