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1. Knowledge of the subject matter
You can’t teach what you don’t know. All teachers need not be experts in their fields, but possessing knowledge is important. Teachers must continue building their understandings of their subjects throughout their careers.
2. Patience
No teacher should be expected to have much patience with individuals whose lack of discipline, immaturity, or indolence interrupts the work of other students. Patience with students who are trying to learn, however, is part and parcel of the teaching profession. Impatience with sincere students is an indication of the teacher’s own shortcomings.
3. Intellectual curiosity
All good teachers are intellectually curious and naturally driven by their interests in keeping abreast of changes in their fields.
4. Confidence
Good teachers are confident in their abilities to sense where students are in the learning process and in their students’ abilities to learn material that is presented in a logical and graduated fashion.
5. Compassion
Talented teachers are able to work with students with varying levels of maturity and knowledge. A college professor I know once made the following statement about his experience as a teacher: “Each year teaching is more challenging for me, because I grow a year older and the students stay the same age. The widening age gap forces me to stretch in order to reach them.”
6. Achievement
Experienced teachers have clear thoughts on what their students should know at the end of the term, and they understand what they must do along the way in order to reach those goals.
7. Planning
Teachers must have plans and stick to them. This goes deeper than rigidly following a course syllabus. Effective teachers sense when students need more time to absorb the material and, within limitations, are willing to give it to them.
8. Awareness
Teachers in elementary and secondary schools must have eyes in the backs of their heads. They need to be aware of everything that happens in their classrooms and in adjacent hallways. Teachers who are awake are able to stop nonsense before it starts and keep students on track.
9. Mentorship
Teachers often serve as mentors to their students. The desire to influence students positively is a core motivation of many teachers when they enter the teaching profession.
10. Maturity
In no profession is maturity more important than in teaching. Students experience emotional ups and downs, and insightful teachers are able to sense the changes and respond to them appropriately. Teachers must be pillars, consistently encouraging students to grow as human beings and to develop academically.
11. Community involvement
Maintaining good community relations is part of being a teacher, and teachers’ contact with parents, administrators, and community leaders enhances their effectiveness in the classroom.
12. Organization
One-on-one tutoring is easy compared to leading a classroom of students in a single direction. Teachers must be able to manage students’ multiple personalities and organize their subject matters so that a maximum number of students benefits from their presentations.
13. Vision
Teaching encompasses far more than passing information from teachers to students. Teachers should be illuminators who provide their students not only with interesting and useful material, but also with visions of where they might end up if they learn well.
14. Context
Every subject has a context, and teachers are responsible for providing it to their students. Since no one learns in a vacuum, teachers must show their students how the information they are learning might be used or might lead to the development of some other useful skill.
15. Mission
Perhaps the most important thing teachers communicate to students and to the community is a sense of satisfaction with their choice of teaching as their life mission. Teaching at its highest level is a calling, and good teachers feel it to their cores.
16. Enthusiasm
Excellent teachers never lose enthusiasm for their profession. They might become temporarily burdened by administrative hassles or isolated problems, but their underlying engagement with their work is unwavering. Students feel this energy, and teachers who project it are much more successful than those who do not.
These are the salient qualities of excellent teachers. If I’ve missed something, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comment box below.
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A sense of humour is also essential. Being able to laugh at your self as well as laugh with the students is an essential part of teaching. Laughter or a joke can break the most reluctant student and bring joy back into the classroom.
Knowing when and how much to lighten the atmosphere certainly is important. Thanks for your comment, Carol.
I agree completely. Sense of humor may be the first and foremost important quality.
The notion of a sense of humor overlaps several of the qualities of a good teacher. The best teachers work to move their students forward in myriad ways, while maintaining light hearts and not taking themselves too seriously. Thanks, Lyssa, for your comment.
I agree completely. Humor is so important to not only managing the stress of educating, but also to helping people learn. As Herbert Gardner once said, “Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything.”
I agree with you as it is said learning without play makes Jack a dull boy
“No teacher should be expected to have much patience with individuals whose lack of discipline, immaturity, or indolence interrupts the work of other students.”
I disagree with you. These students need a teacher’s patience because they need to learn discipline and respect so they have the chance to mature. They need the teacher. Do otherwise and you tell them there is no hope for them.
If patience includes allowing the unruly student to continue interrupting the work of others, then any gain the student might experience is offset by the other students’ losses. You seem to be saying that the teacher must firmly and patiently intervene and not allow the behavior to continue, and I couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Dennis, for your comment.
In my experience, it is a balance of both. Great teachers allow their students to make mistakes and fail, hold them to high standards of behavior, determination, and excellence, and the patience to constantly guide them to the right choices and success. Great list btw, going up on the motivation wall in my room!
As you’ve accurately noted, many of the traits of a good teacher require balance. The best teachers are able to make on-the-spot judgments that benefit both individual students and the group. Thanks, Chip, for your comment!
I don’t agree with you dennis.One of the most important things is having patience.When you think of your childhood perhaps you can understand them better.There are always students in the classrooms like the ones who has got no discipline or maturity.It is really easy to teach in the classes without those.That’s the difference of yours about how to manage a class with those.
true,a teacher is a role model thus should be able to teach students morals.so he/she has to be patient with the indiscipline students.
A teacher should always know what they are talking about. One of my history teachers in highschool did not even know what the bloody hell he was talking about. He said jews did not matter, the industrial revolution was started in America, ect.
Happy 4th of July to you Americans!
Knowing what you don’t know is an important skill for everyone to develop, and it’s extremely important for teachers, whose knowledge (or lack of it) affects the lives of so many others. Thanks!
A patient teacher will be open to the possibility that a disruptive child may be handling a myriad of challenges: maybe s/he can’t read, so can’t follow the class discussion; may be hungry or tired; may be in pain (mentally and or physically).
You’re right. Teachers must be aware of a lot of things at once, including outside influences that may affect their students’ classroom behavior and academic performance. Schools and communities need teachers who do not isolate themselves from the problems their students face. Good teachers engage with their students in ways that signal that the students are not in this world alone. Thanks, Venita.
My number 1 would be the love of learning. My number 2 would be enthusiasm – share the joy!
The love of learning goes a long way toward making a good teacher. Teachers who love to learn naturally love to teach, and their students absorb those emotions like sponges. Thanks, Anthony.
A good teacher always finds the potential in each and every student, and stimulates them to develop their strong sides, making them willing to work and reach heights they never thought was possible.
True. Good teachers are artful at moving their classes forward while constantly identifying and addressing the needs of individual students. Lucky students who have good teachers are all able to reach their potentials. Thanks, Georg.
I agree with your 16 points. I’m a history teacher, teaching in Colombia South America at a bilingual school for Colombians. As a teacher you need all of these qualities including a sense of humor. I found myself. laughing at myself plenty of times and the students just absorb it and see that you are not so rigid. Subject matter knowledge is huge. I’m a new teacher so I’m still acquiring knowledge about my subject, but I also think that’s ongoing. You should always be acquiring knowledge and learning more about your subject, even if you’re a veteran teacher. Enthusiasm is also critical. I had so much enthusiasm I was given an award for it by my senior class (very nice). Thank you for sharing this insightful information.
The bilingual aspect of your job makes your teaching experience even more challenging. Thanks for your comment, Kevin!
I enjoy reading this qualities. I hope I can manage to master them. Thanks for sharing this.
An Old New Teacher in Thailand.
It’s difficult to master them, but the fact that you’ve set them as some of your goals as a teacher is excellent. Good luck with your teaching!
4. Confidence: also includes the confidence to say “I don’t know” if that is the honest answer to a student’s question! Re: Patience with disruptors: that’s EVERYTHING! If you can’t do it or wont’ learn how, don’t teach. Great list and comments!
They forgot the ability to navigate school, local, and national politics, the class room doesn’t take place in a bubble.
I couldn’t agree more, Michael! Here’s what the article says about it:
11. Community involvement
Maintaining good community relations is part of being a teacher, and teachers’ contact with parents, administrators, and community leaders enhances their effectiveness in the classroom.
Thanks for your comment!
How about playfulness? School could be a whole lot more fun if we encouraged more experimental behaviour, more risk-taking in a playful life-loving, child-like way!
Thank you for the inspiration. I am taking my certification now.
You are welcome! Teaching is one of the highest callings, a marvelous profession. I am confident that you won’t regret your choice. Good luck with your certification!
“Good teachers are rare, and few people, including school administrators who hire teachers, know what it takes to be one.”
I’m sorry if that’s been your experience. I do hope good teachers aren’t all THAT rare! I agree with all your points, as most people seem to, particularly the teachers that have commented.
Unfortunately, I do believe that good teachers are quite rare. I can count on the fingers of one hand the good teachers I had in elementary, secondary, university, and post-graduate studies. When I have the opportunity, I poll my friends and acquaintances with the question, and uniformly, they cite two or three teachers who stood out during their schooling. To me, the interesting question is whether it’s possible to teach someone to be a good teacher or if teaching skills are inborn qualities that some people have and others can’t acquire. At least part of the trick to teaching someone to teach is that the effort is based on the assumption that those who teach aspiring teachers are good teachers. It might be a good subject for another article. Thank you, Jess, for your comment!
Interesting point. I personally found my english teachers to be the best teachers but having said that, I feel it was the whole school environment that was the most inspiring to me.
I would also be interested in exploring the question “It is possible to teach someone to be a good teacher or if teaching skills are inborn qualities that some people have and others can’t acquire?”
English teachers do seem to have a subtle advantage with respect to teaching skills, but I don’t have solid reasons to back up that statement. If it’s true (a questionable supposition), perhaps it could be because the language is the basic tool used to communicate the ideas of most areas of study. Even mathematics textbooks contain a good amount of written text to explain the concepts. Your observation about your school environment is fascinating, and I agree that that may be the most important thing. If the atmosphere is inspiring, the students will naturally engage with the materials at hand, and in spite of teachers’ foibles, the education moves forward magically. Thank you for your comment, Carmela!
I thoroughly agree with your 16 points. But I would like to add EMPATHY to the list. If we can’t relate to children and see their struggles through their eyes, then we can’t cater for their needs. We need to at least try to walk a mile in their shoes. I believe the heart is the key to good teaching.
Also when you suggest “mentoring” I believe that should extend to other teachers as well. In order to be considered “Good Teacher” you need to share your expertise, resources and knowledge with others.
I agree that empathy is incredibly important. It operates on a variety of levels, from discovering the student’s knowledge level to sensing personal problems that come from home, understanding peer pressure, recognizing bullying, etc. Mentoring other teachers is also important. Teaching new teachers how to teach is a learning experience for both the aspiring teacher and the mentor. Thanks, Donna, for your comment!
Here’s something I’ve been reading about and thinking about lately – and I’ll propose that it be added to your list: being able to set out workable routines and fall in with whole school routines; to teach / rehearse them, to follow them, to keep to them or keep getting back to them if you waver and to make time for managing the fall out when pupils don’t keep to them. In summary to make routines, to make them engaging/practical and to share good practice with other colleagues.
A good teacher knows:
– What the students know – don’t know.
- The next steps in their learning.
- The steps they’ve just taken.
- The gaps they have in their knowledge and how to fill them.
Absolutely! Thanks for the comment!
I think that a good teacher also has to make sense of his importance in nation building. In South Korea and the Philippines, teachers are regarded as nation builders. Students are encouraged to find their own little solutions affecting the community and country. Through an enrichment activity, students find themselves as problem solvers–that their own little voices could make a final difference. In line with this, a good teacher is honest in sharing to his students that skills needed to communicate effectively to the world do not lessen their sense of national pride. Though painful and limiting, acceptance of the lessons of history and realization on how to teach them may start as a burden but in the end a social responsibility.
Education is unquestionably community building and civilization building, and teachers are a cornerstone of that process. Thanks for your comment!
Good teachers don’t have double standards, and also, good teachers make good students.
A good teacher should also be practical and not theorical.because student/pupils understands practicals better.
I think teachers should open their curtains. It is ok to share your life with students. I think students react and learn more when they know they are learning from a real person. A person with talents, interests, problems, opinions and so forth.
TEA + CHAIR — do not make a good teacher, teachers are not made they are born, certainly they are rare now a days.
Wow. Is there any other profession on the face of the earth that is expected to have all of these attributes? How could ANYone, much less many people, be the educator you think all of us should be? Many teachers I know feel criticized, judged, and unappreciated. Perhaps lists like this add to the negative attitude people have towards teachers. I’d love to see you write articles that put teachers in a positive light, but those don’t generate much blog traffic, I guess.
“Teaching at its highest level is a calling, and good teachers feel it to their cores.”
This is absolutely indisputable. When one loves what one does, the spirit certainly is infectious. The teacher’s transparency of the know-how and know-not creates a lot of trust and respect in the student. I have always realised that it is interactive learning between the student and the teacher and if patience prevails, there is praiseworthy progress from the student. Teaching and learning is cyclic in the teaching profession.
I would modify the quote: “Each year teaching is more challenging for me, because I grow a year older and the students stay the same age. The widening age gap forces me to stretch in order to reach them.”
…to become:“Each year teaching is more challenging for me, because with every year I grow older, my experience and my knowledge of the students puts more pressure on me…no child should be left behind.”
Great article! I am very impressed with the list you have come up with and it is a sobering thought that we as teachers need to reflect and see if we have all these qualities within us, and gain them through time and experience if we don’t. Over my 20+ years of experience with every teaching situation I have been in, I really enjoy working on my own now as a private tutor and love working with students locally and all over the world one-on-one the best. That helps me stay enthusiastic, always learning, always opening my eyes to new challenges, and I also have started small classes for homeschoolers that I really enjoy as well.
I definitely agree that a sense of humor is essential – maybe it goes with the Enthusiasm trait, and being real with students is important too. I think friendly and professional is the best combination.
I posted it on the walls of all my teacher friends on Facebook, and used this to teach English to my Russian student today – great lesson!
Thanks, Laurel! You’re right about the number of students–the fewer the better, if you want to teach effectively. One on one is ideal, and it seems that more opportunities exist for getting involved with private tutoring than ever before. It sounds as if you’re having fun teaching, and that always makes you a better teacher. Thank you for your comment!
a teacher is a very sensitive profession. All eyes on you. A small mistake in life , the world sees you negatively. Would it be unfair on the part of a teacher. Nobody’s perfect. We learned from our mistakes. And that learning really help us in our teachings because experience is the BEST TEACHER . What important for me is how you produce your children/pupils/student to be good academically and a person with good moral values.
thanks for being part of this site. It really helps me a lot especially in my profession, how to be a good teacher. through this there will be more good or excellent teachers will come in every part of the world…
I would add – a sense of humor and acting ability! As a former actress, this helps me get across the meaning of a word or phrase!
A good sense of humor certainly helps, and dramatizing your points can make classes more fun and interesting. Thanks for your comment, Chaya!
What makes a good or not a good teacher is a huge question. I’m very interested in continuing an ongoing research on teacher and student disposition to improve my own teaching. If you have a recipe that works for you, please share. I just don’t know if I can come up with a one size fits all list. If you are interested in conducting the research with me, please email me at nelliemuller@email.phoenix.edu
I agree that what makes a good teacher is difficult to identify with precision. Good teachers have some characteristics in common, but in the end, a more abstract quality seems to enter into the equation. The topic for me includes not only what makes a good teacher, but also whether teaching someone to be a good teacher is possible. I would like to think that we can train teachers to be good, but my experience tells me that truly good teachers are born with a hidden talent for connecting with students that cannot be learned by teachers who lack that underlying ability. So we can teach talented teachers to be better, but teaching mediocre teachers to be good may be beyond our reach. Thanks for reading the article and for making your comment.
The 16 characteristics contained in Doug’s article are ideal. We can add some other features but more likely than not they will already be subsumed within the 16 qualities.
Having taught intelligent but disruptive socially disadvantaged students in Australia, dealing with discipline in a calm and measured way was crucial. As teachers begin to know themselves as a teacher and begin to know the students they teach, they can place themselves in a position where they can consult with students away from the classroom, where the disruption often begins.
I used many techniques in dealing with negative behavior. One of the first was not showing emotion. Quietly relating the facts to the student was one method but I found that asking questions such as “Why have I asked you here (in the office)?” and “Do you think your behavior is making you a better person?” were strong starting points. Allowing them to answer without interrupting them was significant. The answers they gave were important springboards to develop a stronger rapport and keep the meeting on a positive track.
There were times — every student is different — when being negative or unpredictable made the students focus more on my approach. Sometimes a long hard stare without speaking could unnerve them but this also helped them to be more attentive to what was being discussed a little later.
Questions such as “Would you prefer to move to another school?” were useful. In every instance, each recalcitrant student answered “no”.
Eventually word got around that speaking with me in the office was something to avoid. This was because I always followed up with teachers and parents when students met with me or with me and another staff member.
Basically, the hallmarks of a very good teacher have been outlined very well in Doug’s piece. I usually say that good teachers diagnose, prescribe and communicate. Those three elements cover many qualities including discipline, pedagogy and attitude.
There is a time for humor and the good teacher knows when to use it and knows very quickly when it didn’t work.
Terry, thank you for reading the article and for taking the time to make this thoughtful and excellent comment. It’s great to hear from a school administrator about how to keep students on the right track. Your technique of asking questions that shift the burden of responsibility to the student strikes me as creative and sound. Thanks again for your contribution!
A very inspiring article indeed ! Doug’s list of a good teacher’s qualities gives no room to insert a new one, yet I would like to add that a good teacher is that who has the ability to adjust his level of understanding with that of his learners. Understanding and realizing the difficulties of learners putting ourselves in learners’ positions is really something valuable. This helps understand learners’ attitude, potentials, and inhibitions which surely enables a teacher to build a useful rapport with his students, and we do know the value of a good rapport with the students which is a key become a successful teacher.
I could not agree more! Teachers’ abilities to put themselves in their learners’ positions is paramount. Good teachers understand what their students know (point A), what they need to know (point B), what’s missing (gap between points A and B), and how to get them from point A to point B. With respect to breaking down students’ inhibitions, I’ve found that asking numerous simple questions that students can answer successfully is one effective method of developing self-esteem and self-confidence. Thank you,Muhammad, for an excellent and insightful comment.
Having a sense of humour and the ability to withstand children who are acting wrongly and not working well – calmness.
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I think another VERY important point which many people look over is just the fact that teachers need to like kids, especially the age that they teach. Also, just remembering that at the end of it all, the students are the most important part of your job, and they need to be put first. Parents, fellow teachers, administrators, and tests are all secondary to simply making sure your students are getting the most out of your lessons.
I myself was going to school to be a music teacher and realized close to the end of my degree that it really wasn’t what I wanted to do. It seems that a lot of teachers get through their degree and jump straight into the profession without thinking about these qualities and if they are actually able to fill them in a consistent manner. I was glad that I figured out it was not the right path for me before I put any students into a situation where they suffered because of my lack of enthusiasm for what I was doing.
I agree with you that a lack of enthusiasm would make becoming an effective teacher unlikely, and it’s commendable that you recognized that before entering the profession. I do believe, however, that young teachers can acquire many (or perhaps most) of the sixteen qualities of a good teacher that are cited in the piece, if they are engaged with their work and have good mentors. Thank you, Katie, for taking the time to read and reflect upon the article.
The effective teacher/trainer is one who encourages and praises the efforts of the students. Even if the student does not “get it”. The good teacher might even ask the student if he/she has any ideas that might help them understand better.
I’m 21 years old and currently still in university, but I’ve known for many years that I’ve wanted to be a teacher. I can also count on one hand the number of truly inspiring teachers I’ve been lucky enough to be taught by – it’s those select few people that have given me an intense passion for teaching and for one day instilling in others the confidence and lust for knowledge that they gave to me. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on the field of teaching and I believe that the way things are currently is not necessarily the best way for children to be learning information in this modern world that we live in. I do, however, very much agree with the points you have made in this really great post. For the most part it was like reading a list of qualities that I’ve found I possess either throughout my academic career or most recently through tutoring a foreign student. Thank you for sharing.
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Identifying the qualities of a good teacher in yourself is an important step in deciding to enter the teaching profession. My experience is similar to yours with respect to the number of good teachers I had in school. Remarkably few of them made lasting impressions on me. I’ve had an opportunity to review your website, and I think you’re going to be an excellent teacher. Thank you for reading the article and for taking the time to comment.
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