Put me on the list.
Yesterday I watched some teachers the Kai En English school, here in Shanghai. I saw some great things and got some new ideas. One of the teachers I spoke to referred me to a list of 11 qualities of a good teacher, by a guy called Alan Haskvitz. I think the list obviously meant somnething to my teacher friend. Perhaps it could provide the starting point for a discussion here.
Haskvitz is a renowned educator with some interesting insights. I offer his list below, but without his descriptions of why he chose the each point. It would be nice to have your feedback on what you think he means by each. After that, I could fill in the blanks (by posting the rest of the article) and give my own 2 cents worth. Here it the list:
Be unsatisfied
High expectations
Create independency
Knowledgeable
Humor
Insightful
Flexibility
Diverse
Unaccepting
Unconforming
A communicator
I’m wondering about your thoughts on this issue. What, to your mind, makes a good (or great) teacher? Do you have comments on the list? What does he mean by these points? Do you disagree? Comments are welcome.
*At the risk of sounding facetious, I think a good educator also needs to write grammatically. This list is (grammatically) all over the place, as it were. (I’m not even sure that words like ‘unaccepting’, ‘unconforming’, and ‘independency’ actually exist.) For now, however, let’s ignore that and just look at the contents.
Ken Carroll
RESULTS - In high school I had a class where the day\’s routine included many students crunching up sheets of paper and tossing them to the front of the class. It was noisey, undisciplined, unmotivated. The class activities were however well paced, there was equipment, and the teacher started and stopped each activity on a precise schedule. She for the most part ignored the students. It\’s one of the few classes I still can recall, and what I learned there probably has had the most effect on my life on a day to day basis. My typing teacher, Mrs. Howard.
GRRR!!!! I spent the last 30 minutes creating my comment and the security code deleted it!
OK, here are my thoughts:
Be unsatisfied : Teaching and learning methods can always be improved. Continuous improvement means that you are constantly looking for innovative ways and not be afraid to experiment with new techniques. For example, the internet has opened up an entirely new avenue over traditional teaching methods.
High expectations : A teacher should expect superior results from both his students and himself. If one’s teaching methods meet a certain standard of excellence, this will transfer to the students almost automatically. If the students attain only mediocre results, it is not necessarily poor learning or lack of ability on the student’s part…it’s time to re-evaluate your system.
Create independency : Superior results are achieved if the learning system is interesting enough and challenges the student to think for himself and go beyond the scope of the program.
Knowledgeable : This goes without saying. Students look for credibility in their teachers. If knowledge is sub-standard, the teacher simply does not have credibility and will not be able to motivate the students to succeed, no matter what system is in place.
Humor : There is something about a humorous delivery that enables the student to retain what is taught. Humor in a learning system heightens the interest level in a subject.
Insightful : Insightful fulfills the same function as humor. It is an element which provides “added-value” and heightens the interest level. The cultural insights added by chinesepod to the language lessons, are a good example of why it is not sufficient to simply teach grammar rules.
Flexibility : A rigid learning system is doomed to failure. One needs to take risks and experiment with innovative approaches. If you get feedback from your students that your method is not working, you have to be flexible enough to adapt to their needs.
Diverse : Diversity is another “added-value” element in the learning program. If you are able to promote a diversity of themes in your teaching, students will be able to identify with this more readily as opposed to a narrowly defined lesson plan, that may or may not be relevant to them.
Unaccepting : Not sure what this implies. Perhaps the same as “unsatisfied” ?
Unconforming : Probably means not bound by a rigid, prescribed system and incorporates many of the elements already discussed (flexibility, humor etc.)
A communicator : You can be the best Mandarin speaker in the world. It would not do you any good however if you cannot deliver the program to your students in a clear and interesting way.
Thanks Ken.
Be dissatisfied.
The word “unsatisfied” is a grammatical error.
Considering the present setting I would like to turn this on its head.
Rather than considering a standard learning setting, consider the newly empowered self-motivated learners. You could turn this list around and apply it to the student. What makes the ideal student?
I would suggest that taking a certain level of responsibilty for your own eductation is key. Studying with all the resources available today is no longer a passive action.
If Chinesepod is the teacher then the most important item on this list for both student and teacher is possibly flexibility at the moment.
X + 1. I think all of the above qualities are really just variations on a theme, the great teachers create a +1 situation, they explain things just enough, they motivate you just enough, they listen to what you say/need and add just a little more. Those that say too much are lecturers.
Something I’ve been meaning to post for a while, I’m finding more and more that my various approaches to ’studying’ Chinese are really all just a form of maintaining my interest while my brain figures things out on it’s own. I like reading about grammar but I don’t see it directly moving into my speech, but the reading let’s me see sentences with explanations and comprehension. The advanced lessons in it’s current format I can follow along and they will probably be another bit of input but not a direct vocabulary builder. The lower level podcasts I think helps to learn vocabulary, if only because a word is gone over 10-20 times in the podcast. In the advanced show a new word or phrase is only output 3-4 times, that’s not enough for ‘memorization’. As a variation, it would be interesting to see an ‘advanced word’ or phrase introduced in an elementary podcast structure, which means with English, lots of repitition and variations.
As a confirmed pedant there are some things I can’t resist.
Independency??
I’m all for independance of thought, but random neologisms? I intially thought it was a mis-spelling of interdependency, which is a word, and an interesting phenonomenon to boot. Bearing in mind that it’s not about the teacher but about what the learner does, the notion of learning as an interdependent, i.e. social, activity is really growing in currency right now.
Anything the teacher can do to foster active learning should be on the list, which therefore gets very long indeed.
Teaching at a low level is often taken to mean putting things in heads. Sadly reflected in many schools. At a high level it should be about getting stuff to come out of the heads, which leads to the provocative flavour of Haskvitz’s list of attributes.
Be unsatisfied - Be cognizant of your accomplishments as a teacher, but recognize that every teaching moment is new. The minute you rest on your laurels, your teaching will be robbed of energy and inspiration. Keep a sharp lookout while teaching — formatively, during the instruction, not just at the end of your units or weeks: are your students meeting learning objectives? How might you help them do that even better? Always evaluate and revise your teaching.
High expectations - All other things being equal, teachers who communicate high standards tend to get better results. Most educational fields have as their ultimate goal the creation of authentic practitioners of the field. Engineering school aims to create engineers, Business school to create business people, etc. Aiming low hobbles your students, either for their next course, or worse, for the real world.
Create independency - Help your students develop the ability to think critically (insert boring Bloom’s Taxonomy blurb here), and to think for themselves. Again, as with communicating high expectations, you want to cultivate the attitude in your students that they own their own learning processes. Students who embrace this concept tend to be better able to handle the twists and turns that real world applications invariably entail.
Knowledgeable - Yeah, you have to know what you are about. But more than basic knowledge, you need to be the voice of experience. Your knowledge should be employed not in helping students cover material, but in — as Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe phrase it — “uncovering” knowledge for students (e.g., What are the gotchas? What are the things you need to know not to do? How do you know when to do them?). And most importantly, students need to encounter recieved knowledge in a field as the product of a long, organic process of dialogue and discovery among pioneers, rather than as a stack of facts. Can you bring knowledge to life?
Humor - This one seems so obvious that I can’t find anything to say about it, beyond the idea that laughter is one of the best ways to put your students at ease (so long as you aren’t laughing at them!).
Insightful - The biggest challenge, IMO, and the mark of the best teacher, is whether or not he or she can engage students in a process of discovery (much like the process that results in all of that received wisdom they have to learn) that helps them articulate knowledge and data in the context of professional discourse. That is, can you model what it means to take knowledge, consider it with others, and thereby make new knowledge and find new understandings?
Flexibility - Nothing ever goes exactly the way I want it to, whether I’m teaching face-to-face, fully online, or in a hybrid format. Learn to think on your feet. Hey, again, this is one of the hallmarks of the successful professional — your students will have to be able to do this too. If students learn inflexibility from you in the face of changing circumstances, you have done them a disservice.
Diverse - Or, more to the point, know your learners. What do you know about them culturally? Linguistically? Geographically? In terms of their learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic — Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences)? How can you tailor the learning experience to best meet the needs of a group of students with divergent learning styles?
Unaccepting - For me, this is related to being unsatisfied, with the following distinction: being unsatisfied means you are never completely content with results. To be unaccepting means, to me, to refuse to be defined or limited in your teaching goals by external limitations and circumstances. For example, I teach online, and many of the courses taught online are standardized, with very strict guidelines about what an instructor can or cannot do. I’ve seen many teachers fold their arms in this situation and do only what is required, claiming that they can’t do any more because of restrictions. That’s crap. Find a way to achieve your teaching goals. You might say that, counterintuitively, this is very closely related to the flexibility characteristic.
Unconforming - So the teachers around you do something a certain way, and they’ve done it that way (often for very good reasons) for a long time. If a way of teaching has become received wisdom, take yourself back to the criteria of being insightful. Find ways to make your own teaching practice over anew.
A communicator - For me, as I teach in a variety of media, it’s important that teachers be able to express themselves cogently, professionally, and humanely in teaching situations. You’d be blown away by how many people can talk your ears off in person but who are virtually illiterate online (no sense of tone, dialect, etc.) Part of this is (like the diversity characteristic) knowing your audience. You wouldn’t explain the concept of tone sandhi to college undergrads the same way you would to 5th-graders, or vice versa. Who’s in dialogue with you? The answer to that question determines the shape of your communication.
My $0.02
-Randall Smith
Pandgator,
Really sory for this. It’s driving me mad too. I’ll make it priority number one today to try to get this thing sorted.
Actually, the only thing on that list that is important to me are 1) knowledgable and 2) communicator. If a teacher doesn’t know his subject, then what’s the point? If he can’t communicate his knowledge, then what’s the point?
A good teacher to me is also focused, clear and organized. I want to be shown point A and how to get to point B. The absolute worse teacher I’ve ever experienced was in college. Her lectures were basically just “winging it.” She just rambled all over the place.
Be unsatisfied - Don’t let a small achievement get in the way of success. Always strive to be better. I think this also is meant to apply to the teacher’s attitude to their students, which I don’t necessarily agree with in all cases. I function best if I’m never getting complete satisfaction from a teacher, but that’s just because I’m a bit of a teacher’s pet. Many students need good feedback that allows them to keep their sense of self esteem up, or they’ll give up completely. This has to be done on a case-by-case basis, as everybody recieves criticism differently.
High expectations - Expect the best and “think positive”. In principle, I agree, although I think it i also nevessary to have some easily achievable goals to avoid losing heart.
Create independency (independence) - If a student can’t do an exercise without your help, he’ll be eaten alive in the real world. While you need to guide them in the first stages of learning, they will need to try it on their own at some stage, preferably in a safe teaching environment where it’s accepted that you’ll make mistakes. Unless it’s something like brain surgery, making mistakes is how we learn, so let them learn by practical practice rather than theoretical practice.
Knowledgeable - If you don’t know what you’re teaching, you’ll be in trouble. I had a history teacher in high school who was re-learning the syllabus as she was teaching it, so I read ahead a few weeks and kept tripping her up. Nasty, but it shows the importance of knowing what you’re teaching. A thorough knowledge is also necessary for those sticky questions that students always seem to find. Some students have a knack of finding the single unimportant flaw in an argument and pointing it out. You need to be prepared to address it.
Humor - You will make mistakes as a teacher. Use humour to defuse the situation. Use humour to teach - it helps people remember.
Insightful - If you just teach the bare factsm then your students won’t get anything out of the class. It won’t help them to know the date that Mao Zedong died if they don’t know who he is and what sort of an impact he had on the world. It’s all very well to know an idiom, but to use it properly, it must be understood what the origin and use of the idiom is.
Flexibility - Be prepared for something different to occur. If you have to change tack all of a sudden, or someone has special needs, you should be able to address that difficulty easily without losing your train of thought. The inflexible teacher will be caught off guard by a difficult question and lose focues, or will ignore the particular needs of a class because it’s not in the lesson plan.
Diverse - It’s well accepted that people learn in different ways. Let them. Prepare different exercises and options so that your students’ needs are addressed. Remember that the goal of teaching is that your students learn, not that they pass.
Unaccepting - Don’t accept dodgy excuses for not trying. Don’t let people tell you that you can’t teach people something. Caveat: as a new teacher it might also be wise to take heed of previous experiences. Someone says you can’t teach X with method Y. OK, use method Z.
Unconforming - If you’re different to all the other teachers, your students will pay more attention. It’s harsh, but the human mind will blend all the same-ish things together, and they’ll remember the teacher that made them stand on their desks. That’s part of the reason such movies as Dead Poet’s Society, To Sir With Love etc. are so popular - the teacher tried something different. Caveat: If you’re different and still a bad teacher, they’ll remember how bad you were.
A communicator - A teacher who isn’t a communicator is an academic and a bore (and probably a boor). You’re there to teach, and it’s not only the students who are the active participant. They’re there to learn, sure, but you have to inspire them to study and explain the concepts to them in a way that facilitates learning. This is probably one of the most important parts. An inspired student can learn from a teacher who isn’t a communicator, but everyone else will be left in the cold and you’ve wasted an opportunity.
Is there a similar list for students? Although I’ve never actually taught a class, I probably will, and I dread the thought of teaching uninterested students who are only there to pass, and don’t care if they do so without learning anything new. Perhaps something for a forum thread.
(Second try…)
Be unsatisfied - If you are satisfied you have stopped growing and improving.
High expectations - Aim too low and you won’t know what could have become.
Create independency - The whole point of educating someone is to let them use their newfound knowledge and skills on their own. If they always need you as a teacher, you aren’t doing your job.
Knowledgeable - What can you learn from someone who doesn’t know the subject matter.
Humor - Let’s keep thing interesting. Dull and boring lessons aren’t going to stick with the students.
Insightful - Being able to see and relate practical and novel applications of lessons and being able to see what type of delivery students take to is invaluable.
Flexibility - If you can’t touch your toes, you shouldn’t be teaching gymnastics. I mean, when a lesson isn’t going as planed, don’t stick to something that isn’t working just because that’s the way you teach it.
Diverse - Variety is the spice of life.
Unaccepting - Don’t accept attitudes such as “I can’t.”
Unconforming - The tried and true is good, but if you are always following you are not leading. Don’t be afraid of doing something different.
A communicator - If the smartest person in the subject can’t demonstrate and convey their knowledge effectively, who will learn from them?
Qualities of a good student? Someone with an open mind who genuinely wants to learn.
(second try)
There’s some really terrific stuff there. I’ll reserve my own opinions for little while lnger. It does trike me that with 11 options you could pretty much the entire universe of possible answers. Interesting that Lantian thought in terns of efficacy, straight off the bat. I must say I have a lot of time for that approach because it is objective - if the learners are gettign higher grades then who can dispute thah some kind of learning is happening? I also find his opthe rdescription (characteristically) insightful - simply find ways to maintain a high level of interest in the subject (through interesting input, I would suggest) and let your brain do the rest.
There are tons fo other interestintg insights here. Chris cleverly takes it from the perspective of the learner - are we not a learner-centered in our approach here? Useful.
Actually, thereare so many things here with which I agree that I may have to change this to the perspective of comments that I don’t agree with. Need time. Back later.
Ken
Good list. I’d have to add Encouraging. This probably reflects on High Expectations, Creating Independence and some above interpretations of Diversity. I often do the best, especially in language learning, when Ifeel confident. I don’t think that teachers should praise a student because 2+2=5 is such a creative thought, but I do believe they should pay careful attention to their students’ emotional responses.
Being among other language students here in China, I’ve observed that language learning is so subject to the “affective filter”* that a student’s whole day of learning can be wrecked by one negative interaction. I think of a well-intentioned school director who caught a student off-guard by asking him a question in Chinese in the hallway. The student choked and felt embarrassed. He went on to have a lousy day of learning, unable to shake off his feeling stupid. This need is not the same for all students but after 11 years teaching from kindergarten to AP Calculus, I know that a student’s emotional state has a lot to do with her learning.
*affective filter–describes the shutdown of a student’s ability to learn or perform due to negative affective (emotional) factors
Good teachers don’t need lists to tell them what to do.
They can write their own lists, and they do so. There are many to choose from. Such lists are great when used to provoke thought and discussion like we are doing here now, and even greater if several are evaluated at different times for inspiration.
Teachers and their groups of students vary a lot. I don’t think I could use this list as a basis of an approach to teaching unless I massaged it into saying what I already believe, and I might not even be aware that I’d done that. But others might get a lot out of it as it is, and our end products would be equal but arrived at by different routes.
Ken conceded:
“… if the learners are getting higher grades then who can dispute that some kind of learning is happening?”
True, but it might be more important that the RIGHT KIND of learning is what happens. For example, in visual and performing arts, most of the students will become tomorrow’s audience, rather than artists themselves. The main thing is that while they can’t help learning at least something, they absolutely must come away with a love for the subject sufficient to make them spend money in future years to support those who do it professionally. Am I being practical, or too cynical?
Another example is people who have studied a topic at a high level and passed exams well (statistically reinforcing their teacher’s favourite list), but can’t deal with the unexpected or find practical solutions to challenges at the cutting edge of their field, people who do the job as a duty not a vocation and arouse others’ pity more often than envy. Certainly, much measurable learning has happened. That might be fine for an accountant, but not for a doctor in a war or major earthquake situation, for example.
Used well the list is a great tool, because it can be interpreted modified and adapted, and inspire other lists. Taken indelibly on its own and generalised to all teaching, it would make a lousey career-defining guide.
[apologies for any typos, I can’t read what I wrote]
The most succinct definition of a teacher comes form the “Prophet ” by Kahlil Gibran:
“A teacher is someone who brings the other to the threshold of his own mind”…which must surely be one of the most rewarding thngs to do with your life?
And keeps you humble……..to see the light of understanding across a face is truly beautiful.
Meryl
I’m a new Chinese language teacher myself and I am enjoying thinking about this question.
A good teacher:
-is him or herself a learner with a passion. If you yourself don’t full out love learning, how are you going to infect your students with a love of Chinese and a love of the process of learning Chinese?
- a good teacher is both an authority on the subject, and, at the same time, a humble resource to the student. The student is in charge of his/her learning AND the teacher is in charge of his/her teaching. Two extremes that don’t work are: 1.) the authoritarian teacher who doesn’t allow the student any control, input or respect, and, 2.) the permissive teacher who makes pleasing the student the priority over everything, giving in to any student demand or request, whether it makes sense or not. For example, such a teacher might completely give up teaching correct pronunciation of tones if the student seems frustrated. Such a teacher should find a way to address the frustration, not give up on teaching something so essential.
- a good teacher is personable. A good teacher loves people.
- a good teacher is always trying new approaches, partly in order to find better ways, and partly in order to provide variety and to keep class time from getting too predictable and boring.
- a good teacher has not lost the child-like ability to play.
- a good teacher has a heart-felt belief in his or her ability to teach and in the student’s ability to learn. Unfortunately, I’ve seen way too many teachers who have given up on one or the other or both. Every student can learn Chinese. If you think Chinese is only for native-speakers, or only for a few specially gifted non-Chinese and everyone else is a lost cause, then you will not be a good Chinese teacher.
- a good teacher takes reponsibility: if the student is not getting it, the teacher doesn’t write it off to the student’s lack of talent… the teacher tries different approaches until the student experiences success. If the student is not motivated… the teacher will continue trying new approaches in order to motive the student.
- a good Chinese teacher doesn’t just teach Chinese as a way to export Chinese culture or to help “foreigners” understand Chinese culture. A good Chinese teacher puts just as much time and effort (maybe even more) into helping the language learner use the Chinese language to express HIM or HERSELF.
I’m sure one could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. Thanks for the opportunity to think about this and share my thinking.
As promised, I post below the full article with the ‘11 Traits’. On reading it again, I’m more and more troubled by it. However, it has been a good basis for discussion. I think I’ll reserve my thoughts for a new post. (Btw, I’ve just seen another of his articles, entitled “The Disrespecting of Social Studies“. Ouch! This man has one ugly turn of phrase.)
Ken
Most words were not part of a dictionary at one time. They were added by usage. Unsatisfied is perfectly correct and understandable. The sad part of this issue is that you are doing exactly what Haskvitz’s seeks in a good teacher by trying to debate the point. You are being unsatisfied.