Pre-determinate Qualities of a Teacher

It is an open secret, now a day, that most of the Teachers do not have the primary qualities of a teacher, rather than having strong desire for job security, salary and perks, besides having an opportunity to facilitate their own personal activities instead of promoting their professional qualities. Many of the teachers neglecting their professional advancement, but giving importance to the salary and perks and place of work to their place of residence. The teaching learning process has become a normal routine activity without taking care of the all round development of the student. The Teaching methods for effective teaching learning process have been ignored, though the teachers had an opportunity to learn these methods in their training period.  Only formal teaching methods are being taken place in the class rooms, in order to satisfy the students to have first-hand information on the contents in the Text books.

For implementation of the effective teaching learning process, the teachers must have some primary qualities for successful academic instruction in Schools and Colleges, besides academic commitment, patience, professional growth, and skillful teaching learning activity. Let us discuss certain principal qualifies of a Teacher in the modern society to fulfill the needs of the students, parents in particular and  the society as a whole in general.

Knowledge of the Subject matter:

The first and foremost important quality of a teacher is the acquisition of knowledge of the subject matter concerned. Every teacher must have mastery over his subject. Unless he had full knowledge on the subject matter, he neither fulfills the academic needs of the students nor do justification to his job. The Teacher must have thorough knowledge on the subject matter and he should try to elicit more and more information on the content and topics. He should be in a position to elucidate the material on the subject matter and try to inculcate sufficient knowledge in the minds of the students about the content, text, and topic etc., so that the students may easily grasp the subject knowledge and understand the content satisfactorily. First of all, the teacher himself to become a learner. His learning ability leads him to the best place of knowledge and content. Then only he will be able to satisfy the students in his teaching learning process. Teachers should have pedagogic skills in their career to develop the academic instruction in the class room. For the purpose of acquiring knowledge on the subject matter concern, every teacher must explore the possibilities to identify several text books, reference books and other connected books on the subject, and go through the said books with critical analysis and find out the essence of the content to explain clearly and categorically to the students. This would facilitate mastery knowledge on the teacher concerned with the related subject. This will not only gives self confidence on the teacher concerned, but also provide enough satisfaction to the teacher that propagate wide range of information on the subject matter.

 The Teacher should analyze the content, topic in such a way that the student assimilates the essence of the content without any difficulty. The academic instruction of the teacher must provide sufficient knowledge and understanding to the student about the subject matter and application of the knowledge and understanding in his normal life. Simply bookish knowledge does not serve the purpose.  Analytical knowledge brings the students brighter and brighter in his own career and life. For this the teacher must strive hard to get the students over the mastery of the subject, content and topics of the lessons. Teachers are expected to continue building their knowledge and understanding of their subjects throughout their career, so that they can be able to satisfy the academic needs of the students in their subject concerned. Continuous learning provides professional expertise to the teachers. Professional expertise acquired through hard work, training and continuous efforts put forth by the teacher to acquire professional experience, help the teacher to withstand as an effective teaching professional in the minds of the students. It would be very easy to explain the topics to the students clearly if the teacher possessed the complete knowledge of the content and textual topics, as well as the possession of necessary command over the subject matter he teaches. Hence possessing the knowledge of the subject matter is primary activity of every teacher to become an effective teaching professional.

Intellectual Curiosity:

Every teacher must have curiosity to learn by doing research work on the subject concerned. Curiosity is nothing but strong desire to know or learn. It gives more enthusiasm in the minds of the teachers to learn more and more on the subject concerned in order to explicit information in the minds of the students in an analytical  way. Intellectual curiosity expands the caliber of the teacher to gain knowledge on the subject matter and thus strengthens the professional attitude of the teacher academically, besides creates more confidence and commitment to his job. Intelligential attitude always find an important place in the academic arena of a teacher, and that the teacher will become a paradigmatic monumental character in the eyes of the students. This tendency of the teaching community guides a lot in the academic field rather than any other field, thus it gives rise to the professional expertise in the teaching learning process. If the teacher develops the intellectual curiosity, he would be able to expound the  topics, subject, content in a broad manner to the students so that the students can easily grasp the subject matter and gain sufficient knowledge and understanding.   As the Teacher is the only person who prepares the future citizens in the class room, he only got the opportunity to serve to the nation in building the characterization of the pupils for which the intellectual curiosity of the teachers prepares themselves as all round developers in academic arena.

Communication and Presentation Skills:

One of the most important attribute of a good teacher is to be a good communicator. Every teacher must be in a comfortable position to explain and elucidate the things before the students. The beauty of communication and presentation skills definitely bring joy and interest amongst the students towards his class teacher and the students enjoy the fruits of communicative capabilities. It is the academic  responsibility of every teacher to acquire proper communication skills, and present the subject matter in a convenient manner so as to enable the students to receive the communications of the teacher in a pleasant manner, as otherwise, the students may feel boredom  about the teaching pattern of the teacher  and try to escape from his class.  A clear cut communication and presentation system will bring happiness in the minds of the teachers, and it will pave the way for getting academic interest amongst the students. Teachers should have capacious skill in communication and presentation of the subject matter.  Lacking proper communication skills amongst the teachers will result in unsatisfactory teaching learning process in the class room and thereby the students do not have any understanding capacity on the subject matter and will lead to poor academic standards. One of the factors for effective teaching learning process in the class room is the best skill in communication and presentation of the subject. Teachers must be in a position to identify the needs of the children in the learning process and try to establish a multifaceted personality before the minds of the children to clear their doubts in a proper and systematic communication as well as presentation of the issues to retain confidence in them. Students expect beautiful communicative winds from the side of the teachers in the form of their lessons, topics, issues, and gain textual knowledge while listening and observing the communication skills and presentation skills of their teachers. The role of the teacher strengthens on account of improvement of the communication and presentation skill and laid a foundation stone in the hearts of the children to listen to their teacher more perfectly and honestly. Teacher is also an Audio- Visual aid and therefore, his acts, feelings, styles, movements, observations, commitments, creates interest in students if his communication and presentation skills are added as an additional component to his line of teaching.

Appreciation of the students by the teachers

Teachers always try to encourage the students in all aspects of their abilities, feelings, interests; hobbies, likings etc., and make them the best in their activities without discouraging them. Teachers must inculcate moral values in the students. Students’ activities in and out of the school are to be keenly observed by the teachers and appreciate the students in their activities by encouraging their skills, interests, hobbies so as to enable the students to move further in their skillful activities.  If the student is interested in singing, the teacher should encourage that student to improve the skill of singing so that the student may get expertise in such creative activity. So also if a student is interested in games like foot ball, hockey, bad-Minton or so, the teacher has to give him good support in his games so that he may be in a position to go further better. Students activities should be touched upon at every point of time so that the students may flourish in their curricular, co-curricular and extracurricular activates. Teachers should take into cognizance the self confidence of the students. Whatever the achievements gained by the students must be taken into consideration and praise the students, so that the simple appreciation of the teacher will become a best medicine to the students to proceed further in their activities to get good academic results. This will facilitate the students to improve their creativity in all aspects besides doing well in their academic studies. Naturally all students are in a position to do something or so in order to show their identity in the society and in this course of time, they used to create some sort of new inventions with a view to know more and more about their activities, which in turn lead them to became experts in their arts and culture in future. For this kind of activities, the teachers must identify the talents in the children and appreciate them to do better and better the things they are trying to do, so that the students may become worthy artisans in future. The effective teacher must try to identify the hidden talents of the students in every walk of life and encourage the students to make efforts to promote the talents for a bright future. No one can know who will become what?  If the teacher really wanted to know the talents of the children, he should create an atmosphere to the students to get the creativity activities of the students into lime light so that the students will be free to expand their mental caliber and capacity to do more activities leading to various inventions and developments in their scholastic achievements.

Keen observation of the movements of the students:

A good teacher always tries to understand the concept of the different students. As a matter of fact, an effective teacher must observe the movements of the students inside and outside the class room. No doubt every student will observe strict discipline before the teacher in the class room. But the thing is that the behavior and attitude of the student will be quite different outside the class room, because of the indefinite freedom enjoyed by the student outside the class room with exception to his freedom before his parents.  They will maintain politeness, patience, liberality, submissiveness, shy, obedience before their parents. But out of the purview of the parents, the student’s behavior will definitely something different. This is because of free from fear from their parents and teachers. This situation must be tackled by every teacher to find out the true personality, behavior, attitude of the children. The teacher would have so many occasions to find out the behavior of the students outside the class room, i.e., at the Play ground, Committee hall, moving with peer groups, going along with friends and co-students. If three or more students moving together on the road, their behavior will be very different such that they want to express their freedom of speech, freedom of their movements, freedom of their attitude. This is the right occasion to find out the true personality and behavior of the student. If the student’s behavior is something like sarcastic, the true teacher must catch hold of the situation in to his hands and appraise the student about the mannerisms, behavior and attitude in a right direction, so that the student may not have such incidents in future in his life and it will certainly pave the way to go in a right direction. This kind of observation of the teachers certainly turns the characteristics of the students in right direction. This will not only beneficial to the student, but also to the parents as well as the Society as a whole. No children wantonly go in a wrong direction. But the circumstances prevailed at the specific point of time, will lead to go in such a path. It is the teacher who will detect such instances in the student in and out of the class room, and try to suggest the student to lead a good turn to go in a right path, rather than in wrong root. Parents do not have such opportunities to correct their children out of the class room, because of various factors leading to their personal, financial, religious, and social reasons. However, parents will take care of their students in their home and try to give them good suggestions, good behavior and good attitude which will be obeyed by the students in front of them, but the students forget the parents advise when they disappear. It is the teacher who is a real advisor to the student to put him in right path.

Teacher as Guru:

All the teachers are to act as real gurus for the students to become good citizens in the society. A student expects more information from the teachers about their academic programs and tries to elicit considerable material evidence for their understanding and knowledge. Students keep hopes on their teachers to get the knowledge and expertise to bring them in to lime light for their improvement in future aspects of their life. Teacher is a social embodiment to the student to explicit information on the subject matter theoretically as well as practically to gain knowledge and understanding in a clear cut way. Teachers should observe the psychological aspects of minds of the students to determine the individual differences, attitudes; behavior, temperament and culture, in order to make out a strategic plan for his effective teaching learning process so that the teachers would be very conveniently perform their functions as real guru to cultivate the child in all aspects of social life. Apart from the subject matter from the given text books, teachers as guru, should inculcate values, systems, ethics, morality, integrity, and generosity in the minds of the students to become better citizens in the society. The importance of love and affection, the behavior with others, the need for helping hand to others, the generosity, the humaneness, the benevolence must be inculcated in the minds of the students. Love for Nation, Love for Country and patriotism should be explained in detailed so that the students may earn the developmental skills for their future career.

  Teachers should clearly clarify the doubts of the students in all matters, with suitable examples vis-à-vis case studies so that the students may understand the problematic issues easily in order to put them in practice with proper application of mind. Teachers should take the responsibility of the growth of the students in all walks of life, and also make all the students responsible for their growth.  As a real Guru, a teacher sharpens the minds of the students, and makes them open minded. Prosperity and growth of the students are in the hands of the teachers, and it is the endeavor of every teacher to show the ways and means to all students for furtherance of their interests and gainful future.

Teacher as a Transformer of knowledge and culture :

Transfer of knowledge from teacher to the student is a common phenomenon. Teacher, as a transformer, must have some special qualities of communication, presentation, pronunciation, tone of language, vocabulary, beautification in word construction, situational comments, systematic approach, delivery status, and coverage of all students in the class room. Teachers must win the hearts of the students in transformation of information, knowledge and content as well as culture.  As well as the students must have interest in listening the content produced by the teacher with transformation skills and delivery of speech. Ability to deliver full- fledged information to the students is a plus point to every teacher in transforming the knowledge and behavior. Ideas, concepts, feelings should be dramatically transformed to the students to get them understood the idealism and dignity of the teachers in perfection and curiosity. It is a fact that the Teacher is a visual Aid to bring awareness on the students, the feelings, the emotions and movements of the teachers must definitely impress upon the students to gain knowledge and behavior by means of their keen observation.  Thus transformation of information and knowledge through the Teachers is a better way of communication in the class room activity. Teacher, as a communicator, must have an ideology on the psychological factors of the students to get them ready as a society-worthy person, so that the knowledge and culture transformed through the teacher will touch the hearts of the students and make them worthy in their future course of life.

Teacher as a Mentor:

Mentoring is a process where the Teacher constantly in touch with the students to develop their academic and non-academic activities in the School. Teachers should also act a Mentor to each and every student to render proper advice for improving the students’ ability to retain knowledge and power and to give suitable suggestions to improve their performance in written and oral tests conducted in the class for the assessment of the performance of the students.  The teacher, as a mentor should try to resolve the issues of the students, if any, either personal or academic problems they used to face in the class room, lab, Library, play ground etc.,  and the teacher should always find the ways and means by which the problems faced by the teachers can  overcome.  As a dedicated Mentor, every Teacher must give advice to the students to maintain the class attendance daily.  The Mentor may, in the case of necessity, contact the parents about the academic performance of the student, and appraise the parents about the knowledge gained by the student in the Teaching learning process undertaken in the class room.  The teacher while discharging the duties as Mentor should conduct counseling to the students to improve their performance in Internal as well as external examinations, tests, essay writings, elocution, talent search examinations, current affairs and day to day developments in the society.  Curricular, Co-curricular and extra-curricular activities conducted in the school must be designed and developed in such a way to participate all the students with anxiety and courage.  When the teacher is one side of the coin, the Mentor is other side of the same coin. Thus mentoring process is a general activity containing both academic and non-academic in nature, described as a tool in the hands of the students to attain the performance based individuality and personality.

Teacher as a God Father:

It is a fact that the students will have more attachment to their teachers rather than their parents. Students free to talk to their teachers, clearing their doubts, getting information on un-known things, making regular contacts with the teachers on academic issues, develop a special love and affection towards their teachers. This type of relation between students and teachers is necessary for the welfare of the students. Students treat their teachers as their God fathers to guide them properly to prosecute further education which they like and interested according to their needs and fashions, to build up their future career for furtherance of their interests, to lead a better life in society. Naturally, every student has a blind belief on their teacher’s guidance unlike their parents. Even if their parents guide them in a proper way, the students may not listen to their parents, but stick on to the sayings of their teachers only, even if it is a wrong guidance by oversight. Such is the confidence of the students on their teachers. Therefore, the teacher has to give proper and systematic career guidance to the students to go in a right path.

Teacher as friend, philosopher & Guide:

All teachers should act as friend, philosopher and guide to the student community. Teachers expected to behave friendly with the students and render necessary advice on the life situations to the students to get them ready as Society citizens. Guidance of the teachers to the students will be more useful in leading their lives. Students never forget the guidance of the teacher even after their adulthood and career path and they used to remember the teacher at any time during their life time and never forget the academic memories of the teacher. Friendly nature of the teachers enhances the affection of the students at all levels. Students expect much more information from the teachers not only in respect of the subject matters, but also matters relating to general nature, politics, socio-economic issues, ethical values, moral aspects etc.  A real teacher will act as friend, philosopher and guide to the students. Students learn ethical values and moral principles on keen observation and close study of the mannerisms, behavior, style, culture, and personality of their teachers.

Teacher as a Personality developer:

Personality development is one of the most and important factor in the life of a student. The future of the student depends upon his personality development. Students always tend to move on the path of their teachers by keen observation of the style of functioning, movements, behavior, culture, personality, creativity, and mannerisms of their teachers. Teachers should explain the principles of personality development, culture, behavior, attitude, and aptitude to the students, to get awareness on the development of the personality. Daily class room instruction will takes place on the subject matter of the concerned course. While explaining the course material on the subjects concerned, the teacher must prepare his lesson plan in such a way that the student should understand the content as well as the general issues that makes him withstand as a total personality. It is in the hands of the teachers that the personality development of a student, shapes well during the course of academic instruction and class room teaching. The teaching learning process must effectively run in order to bring the student community to become good citizens with proper development of their personality and character. Character building and personality framing is the motto of every student with the help of a teacher. Systematic planning and implementation of methods to build character and personality will help the students for their sustainable development in future with fervour.

Teacher as a “KALPAVRIKSHA”

Every teacher should determinate himself in advance as a “Kalpavriskhsa”   in the minds of the students to meet to the Educational needs of the children in all aspects. Teacher should pre-determinate himself to be an “ encyclopedia of Britannica” to clarify the academic as well as general and traditional  doubts, clarifications, questions, feelings of uncertainty,  problems to the students and make them clear in their understanding and capacity to application of mind, so that they will become a perfect gentlemen.  Students should not feel uncertainty about their learning activity/process for want of sufficient information from their teachers. Every teacher should get an exercise on the resources for getting required information academic as well as general to feed to their students as and when they come across with the teacher/approaches the teacher for clearing their doubts and solving the problems being faced by them in their day to day life. No teacher should say “not known” for the information called for by their students. It is the bounden duty of every teacher to explore the possibilities to obtain the required information/particulars/subject matter/source of information etc., by means of their academic activity in and around the School complex, searching information in the Library, Laboratory, Workshop, and gathering of the required knowledge from outside sources, so as to enable to inculcate knowledge and wisdom among the students. Every student should feel that their teacher is like divine and will cater to his academic needs throughout his life for his betterment and character building. The intuition in the minds of the students should make them liberty to go in for an effective teaching learning process in the class room with the help of their teacher. Teacher should cultivate the lives of the students in the educational process with all his academic power and knowledge.

Teacher as a readymade academic workshop:

Theoretical knowledge may not always fetch the derived experience to the students, unless the students are experienced with practical aspects of their knowledge and understanding. A student may get the practical knowledge, if the teacher acts as a readymade academic workshop. Creativity makes students perfect in their understanding. Blooms Taxonomy of Educational objectives, such as Cognitive, Affective and Psycho-motor domains should automatically find place in the teaching learning process in the class room to make the students as effective learners and to understand the concept by experience in the Academic workshop of the teacher. The teacher designs, cultivate, mould, fabricate (to make an industrial academic product), engrave the student in all aspects to suit to the needs of the society and to become a trustworthy citizen fabulously useful to the Nation by virtue of his efforts and practical experiments in the Academic workshop. The embodiment of the student image finds its shape and creates an impressive personality to take path in his career development.

Teacher, as an all round developer:

Teacher, as an all round developer, must ensure the day to day progress of the student in all his activities and try to establish suitable personality traits in the hearts of the students to secure adequate  knowledge and understanding on  all the general issues as well as contemporary issues from time to time. Students’ aptitude should be taken into account while guiding them to prepare for better citizens and civilians. Students should be placed in right path in their career planning and development so that they will be able to carry out their activities for furtherance of their interests and for gainful employment.

Teacher as an encyclopedia of Britannica:

Students expect every information to receive from their teachers. Every student has a blind belief that his teacher is a knowledgeable person in all respects, and he can clarify any doubt whatever required/asked by the student. Students are always eliciting information from their teachers. Keeping in view the student psychology, teacher must be get prepared to disseminate information and knowledge upon the students wherever and whenever required. To clarify the doubts and questions, the teacher must prepare himself to secure knowledge and information not only related to his subjects, but also to become mastery on the general topics, issues, concepts etc., as a source of Informatory machine, as well as an encyclopedia of Britannica.

Teacher as an academic care taker:

Generally all the students are under the family umbrella of their parents who take care of them in all aspects in their scholastic as well as in societal life. But as an academician, the teacher must act as an academic care taker of all the students under his jurisdiction, and make the students academically well prepared and school-worthy. Students always reliable on their class teachers rather than their parents, therefore, the teacher must provide appropriate academic knowledge to the student and make them bright in the field of their  Academic line, ensure integrity and regularity in developing the personality traits of the students. Every student feels happy to receive their teachers as an Academic Care Taker in their academic life and fix the teacher as a memorable personality in their hearts. Teacher is a real parent in the academic life of a student. Putting the students in right path and in right career is the first motto of every teacher.

Teacher as a Visionary and Missionary:

Every teacher should have a perfect vision and mission to develop imaginary thoughts for the creation of bright future to the students. Teachers should transform useful information and knowledge on the students to get their abilities generated academically in order to create a sense of responsibility and caring towards the societal issues and to make them understand the concept of individuality and characterization with suitable personality traits. A student may develop his personality and culture with the help of the Teacher who inculcates the concept of vision and mission in the minds of the student.