While I was teaching in a weekend-elementray school, a fellow teacher once told me: "Oh, I have no idea how to teach these kids ?". The first answer that came to my mind was "just imagine yourself in their place and ask yourself how do I want my teacher to be like". This approach of improving my performance as a teacher was running on my mind before my colleague asked me. I tried once to ask my students on the qualities they believe would make a teacher a good one. Apparantly, I did not do my questionaire on the right moment, since most answers were related to "playing with us" ... [honestly, some of them said quite interesting things].
I dont consider myself lucky with the timing of performing the survey, but I am sure that the UNESCO was way more succesful when doing this report. Its title is "What makes a good teacher? Children speak their mind". The project is quite old but has a quite interesting idea. It aims at finding the characteristics of a good teacher from the prespective of children. The idea is to ask children from around the world about the qualities of good teachers. Then, summarizing them in a number of qualities which were:
1. is a friend,
2. love all of us
3. treat us equally
4. likes the job
5. is clear and competent
6. is not too strict
7. is a role model to us
8. helps us grow and develop
9. guides to the future
Children though realizes that the job of a teacher is demanding (something that teachers and politicians need to recognize as well). For instance, four different students from different countries wrote that a teacher must be 1) be smart academically, 2) have an atheletic body ! [these kids are not as simple as you think ! huh ?! :) ] 3) like to be with us even at recess time, and 4) do something to save the world !!
The report is certainly a creative idea. The writings of the children were amazing too and unexpected and intelligent in some cases. I think that every school must do such evaluation surveys every year and takes the results of these surverys into consideration to improve the performance of its teachers. At the end, it is the children lives that we are dealing with [as teachers]. Yes, some students would say "Oh, a teacher must play all time with us ! " as it was the case with me once, and surely was the case with the authors of this report - but I am sure that some of these opinions (if not all of them) would really be useful.
I give in the follow some quotes that I truly liked followed by my comments.
[A teacher becomes a bad teacher once he become afraid of learning from his students]
I advice you to read it yourself. Its style is very simple and attractive.
I dont consider myself lucky with the timing of performing the survey, but I am sure that the UNESCO was way more succesful when doing this report. Its title is "What makes a good teacher? Children speak their mind". The project is quite old but has a quite interesting idea. It aims at finding the characteristics of a good teacher from the prespective of children. The idea is to ask children from around the world about the qualities of good teachers. Then, summarizing them in a number of qualities which were:
1. is a friend,
2. love all of us
3. treat us equally
4. likes the job
5. is clear and competent
6. is not too strict
7. is a role model to us
8. helps us grow and develop
9. guides to the future
Children though realizes that the job of a teacher is demanding (something that teachers and politicians need to recognize as well). For instance, four different students from different countries wrote that a teacher must be 1) be smart academically, 2) have an atheletic body ! [these kids are not as simple as you think ! huh ?! :) ] 3) like to be with us even at recess time, and 4) do something to save the world !!
The report is certainly a creative idea. The writings of the children were amazing too and unexpected and intelligent in some cases. I think that every school must do such evaluation surveys every year and takes the results of these surverys into consideration to improve the performance of its teachers. At the end, it is the children lives that we are dealing with [as teachers]. Yes, some students would say "Oh, a teacher must play all time with us ! " as it was the case with me once, and surely was the case with the authors of this report - but I am sure that some of these opinions (if not all of them) would really be useful.
I give in the follow some quotes that I truly liked followed by my comments.
"A good teacher should treat all pupils like his own children. He should answer all questions, even if they are stupid" - Fatoumata - Tchad[I totally agree on the stupid questions parts. Yet, sometimes, some questions are so non-sense and it is very hard to be calm answering them, and this is one of the things that make the teacher job hard]
"To be a good teacher, you not only teach the children [the students], but you also learn from them" - Tasha-Leigh, Jamaica.
[A teacher becomes a bad teacher once he become afraid of learning from his students]
"I like a teacher who helps me think and get answers for myself" - Bongani Sicelo, Zimbabwe[I like this teacher too !]
I advice you to read it yourself. Its style is very simple and attractive.
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