HOW TO BE AN IDEAL TEACHER

The Ideal Teacher

Source :  Cecilia. O. Okoro . 2011. The Ideal Teacher and the Motivated Student in a Changing Environment (Journal of Educational and Social Research Vol. 1 (3) October 2011). Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

            Ideal refers to a standard of perfection, beauty or excellence. It is the highest and best conceivable, regarded as exemplifying, a mode for imitation of the highest conception. It includes doing things right or producing the desired goals to the admiration of others.

The teacher is viewed as someone who has acquired some knowledge, skills, attitudes, ideas or
appreciation in other to create or influence desirable changes in behaviors of his students. These views agree with most author’s ideas, such as Clark (1995) who is of the opinion that a teacher is one who creates an interaction between him and his students in order to bring about the expected change in the students behavior. Also Gbamanja (1997) is of the view that a teacher is an educationist who underwent pedagogical training, including a good knowledge of the principles and practice of education, in addition to his teaching subjects or discipline. Others include Kosemani (1994) sees the teacher as the person whom the society delegates the education of children to , in a formal setting. This individual is specifically selected, trained and educated for the job of dispensing knowledge to others according to their needs and capabilities.

            Obanya (1994) gave a brief description of a teacher, as somebody who is:

1.      Educated, in the sense of a broad-based form of disciplined knowledge,

2.      Specialized, in the sense of in-depth knowledge in a given subject area,

3.      Professinally trained, in the sense of internalisation of knowledge, skills, attitude and values needed for promoting learning,

4.      Professionally competent, in the sense of applying one’s skills to really promote learning, and

5.       A lover of learning, in such a way that one’s own personality inspires learner.

            From all these, one can accept that the teacher is one who systematically attempt at helping someone to change his knowledge, skills and attitudes in a desired direction. This means that no education can rise above the quality if its teachers and these qualities are reviewed below.

Attributes of an Ideal Teacher

            A number of attempts have made to categorize the characteristics and skills of an effective teacher, a good teacher, an excellent teacher etc. (Clark and Peterson, 1986; Clark, 1995; Awotua-Efebo, 2001; Akpe, 2003; Green and Osah-Ogulu, 2003). We will look at these different characteristics, which are in five interrelating categories. These are;

1. Professonal Attributes

2. Personality Attributes

3. Social Attributes

4. Leadership Attributes

5. Classroom Interaction Attributes

1. Professional Attributes

This involves the organized body of specialized knowledge, skills and attitudes that has been acquired

Through long and intensive preparation, maintained by force of organization or concerted opinion, high

Standards of achievement and conduct, and committing one to continued study and to a kind of work for

Rendering of public service. The professional attributes are;

a.       Professionally trained in a broad-based form of knowledge, skills, attitudes and specialized in in depth knowledge of a given subject area.

b.       Mastery of the subject matter, involves having a good working knowledge of the subject and the ability to impart it to the students.

c.       Updating the subject matter through attending seminars, workshops, conferences and in-service trainings to follow up in current trend of events in ones field of study.

d.       Being a lifelong student, that is being a practical scholar, a student of academic discipline, as put by Awotua-Efebo (2001), must be ready to learn at all times through one’s colleagues, students and the environment.

e.       Professional devotion in achieving desired changes in individuals.

f.       Admit ignorance and acknowledge mistakes when necessary.

2. Personality Attributes

            This is concerned with the variables of individual differences. It refers to one’s outstanding characteristics, his abilities, emotions and social traits, his interests and attitudes. Other terms used frequently in connection with personality according to Lovel (1981) are temperament and character. The first involves innate bases such as natural tendencies, organic drives and glandular balance on the emotions, while character is evaluated against current standards of a cultural pattern, such as truthfulness, reliability, honest or their opposites. The teacher must be;

a.       Loving, warm and understanding

b.       Responsible

c.       Helpful and encouraging. That is he must be there always to assist students and encourage them in their academic work.

d.       Patient and compassionate

e.       Cheerful and optimistic

f.        Honest, truthful and a person of integrity

g.       Sincere in act and words

h.      Open-minded and approachable

i.        Tactful and alert

j.        Empathetic, by understanding the feelings of one’s students

k.       Self-controlled and not easily upset

l.        Comport himself with decorum as this will enhance the public image of the profession.

3. Social Attributes

            These are behaviors that a teacher exhibits that influence others and in turn is influence by others too. This

is very much related to personality attributes. These are;

a.       Punctuality, the teacher must always get to his class on time. Report to duty regularly and on time.

b.       Always insist on students regularity and punctuality to classes

c.       Be dedicated to work

d.      Possess a good knowledge of learners and their characteristics

e.       Accept all students and do not discriminate

f.       Always be neat and clean in appearance so as to present a model of neatness to your students.

g.      Must be happy, attractive, pleasant, good-natured, with a good sense of humor and make students feel at ease.

h.      Insists on high standards of work and behavior.

4. Leadership Attributes

            A teacher who enters a class to teach automatically becomes the leader of that class. Leadership attributes include,

a.       The ability to exercise authority judiciously and control the class. Although a democratic is usually encouraged, but the need to exhibit one’s authority over the class must go with the power to influence or command the thoughts, opinions or behaviours of the students.

b.      Creation of conductive atmosphere for learning by showing the tendency to promote and assist learning to take place

c.       Exhibit competency in the class by possessing the suitable requisite qualities

d.      Organization- This deals with the ability to arrange the class in a coherent unity or functioning whole

e.       Must be a disciplinarian by enforcing order. Also, corrects moulds or perfects the mental faculties and moral characters of the students. It also involves the enforcement of obedience in the students

f.       Must have the ability to inspire learning through influencing, moving or guiding the students to greater heights.

g.      Show respect for one’s students and make wise decisions

h.      Must upholds all that dignifies, by doing things right or producing the desired goals. In other words the teacher must be effective.

5. Classroom Interaction Attributes

            This refers to the techniques/strategies the teacher uses when interacting with the students. These are;

a.       Skillfulness- Skill is the ability to perform some tasks well, especially as a result of a long practical experience. It can also be referred to as a fact or a particular technique where it is the entire body of procedures or methods. Green (1994) defined skills as developed proficiencies or dexterity in the scientific art, which may require training or as a natural gift for competence and deftness in its practice, execution or performance.

b.      Creative teaching- this is a self-developing teaching and technique which encourages independence of the learner, self-discovery of the leaner both in and out of the school system. Thus a creative teacher is one that is innovative, fluent, unique, flexible, original and resourceful. He utilizes every situation/condition to promote learning and readily able to reverse a difficult situation to a simple manageable one. Also in the absence of standard equipment, the teacher must be able to improvise if possible, as well as generate new ideas.

c.       Involve students in active participation in the class, so that they can depend more on their own ability to think than on the teacher. The students therefore develop a sense of confidence through

participation, as more attention is given to the individual or small group work. Learners are encouraged under guidance to seek solutions to problems.

d.      Hold discussion classes to allow student compare their experiences, exchange ideas in particular

topics and learn from one another. It has democratic properties which includes students involved in free guided and purposeful expression of views and ideas on given issues, problem or situation. So it is usually between two or more persons interacting verbally with each other. This assumes that every individual can make meaningful contributions to topics during discussions.

e.       Always give take home assignments clearly mapping out the problems or topics assigned. Highlight the important points emphasized in class. Also introduce study techniques, so that they can use some basic physical movements during activities or work through the application of the mental faculties to the acquisition of knowledge or to accomplish a desired goal.