6 Traits of Successful Teachers
Thursday December 25, 2008
Every good teacher is a unique mix of qualities that add up to pedagogical and leadership success. So, while the 6 Traits of Successful Teachers is not a fool-proof formula or blueprint to be emulated, it is an earnest examination of what I feel are the key traits that the most inspiring and effective teachers share.
Did I miss anything major? What do you think is the most important trait of a successful classroom teacher?
Comments
Your remarks about successful teachers are excellent and universal. I teach high school and college undergraduates, but I always make time to review your remarks because they so often apply to all teaching endeavours. I have difficulty imagining any major points you have left-off. I suspect they would be more exercises in hair-splitting on what you have written.
One remark of yours that struck me was the following; “The best teachers live outside of their own needs and remain sensitive to the needs of others, including students, parents, colleagues, and the community.”
It dovetails too well into a remark of Nietzsche from his work, Human, All Too Human.
“Anyone who is a teacher is usually incapable of doing something on his own for his own benefit; he is always thiking of the benefit for his students, and any knowledge gives him pleasure only insofar as he can teach it. He considers himself finally as a pasageway of knowledge and generally as a means, so that he has lost the abiity to take himself seriously.” [section 200 of chapter four]
Would you agree that the best teachers have “lost the ability to take [themselves] seriously?”