Is it a person who is able to reach children or the multi-course training that makes a good teacher? The important factor in the profession is not the training or the teaching per se, but the person.
Caring about children doesn't guarantee the remembering of childhood and of silly things done, music enjoyed, words said, gestures used. Wanting to help doesn't insure the ability to stimulate or to challenge even the slowest learner. A good teacher combines guiding students through the "school learning" phase of their lives with recalling what it was like to be exposed to something new. Good teachers remember the time it took for learning to take place. Having knowledge of subject matter does not always make a teacher capable of arranging thoughts so that a novice will grasp the material.
Superior educators can relate to their students. But, how can our students actually feel we believe in their abilities and trust them, unless we express this in our actions not just our words? I had a student whose sensitive thoughts came through in his essays. He revealed personal information about his insecurities and his words evoked a reaction from me. However, English was not a comfortable language for him---and his grammar was bad. I gave him 'double' grading so he saw an A for his ability to express himself and a D for his grammar usage. He saw the A, which was more important for his self-esteem and for the communication skills he exhibited. I sent him for remedial grammar, but reminded him to never change his tender style. I told him that I knew he'd grasp the grammar with hard work.
Because he was foreign born, he also felt 'different' in classes. We talked about this privately, as I tried to give him positive strokes. One doesn't have to have come from another country, however, to feel the pains of prejudicial judgments. None should expect it from teachers.
There are college graduates, even after Sociology courses, who continue to be filled with religious and racial prejudice. Some of these graduates become teachers. There are people who lack a sense of humor and animation that is called personality. Many become educators. Persons who bear grudges are common, and they are often filled with desires to 'do unto others what had been done unto them'. Why do these become instructors? Envy and/or jealousy can find its way into persons and can manifest by overtly disliking pretty girls, vivacious youth, non-conformists, etc. Some with such unresolved anger become teachers. Good teachers are open-minded and lead their classes with positive attitudes.
We should spend less time criticizing schools, their physical facilities, the number of department courses necessary to turn out a good teacher and spend more hours helping to make each School of Education undergraduate a good model for the generations of the future.
Undergrads need to be reminded of the teen pressures to conform, the pulling towards independence, the uncontrollable hormones, the way people react to compliments rather than criticism. If the joys they felt, when receiving A's, can be recalled, they might not perpetuate the pompous attitude of instructors who tell their classes, "I never give A's". Before degrees are earned, undergraduates might be told that it's truly okay to not know all the answers, and can allow their future students to teach them.
But most importantly, an excellent teacher doesn't walk into a classroom just to transmit a course topic. An excellent teacher knows there is a person in the wooden lecture chair. We need teachers who can believe in ideals and, before their classes, live them.
