It's rather easy to think about high school, even grade school, and vividly remember the teacher(s) you loathed. Oppositely; the teachers you loved. For most people, I think, it's the teachers that were personable, friendly, helpful, a good sense of humour, and very smart are the words we would use to describe the teacher we love. I could list plenty qualities of a poor teacher, but I'm sure you could recollect some personal instances that make a much better point than listing adjectives.
It's interesting though, because in the world of educational philosophy (that which I am just tiptoeing into), there is hardly any 'evidence' of what actually makes a good teacher.
Unfortunately, we are as near to discovering what makes a teacher really good as we are to understanding the mind of God, time travel and belly-button fluff. Clearly, teachers need a certain level of intelligence to impart knowledge. Equally, a brilliant scholar who lacks the patience and empathy to explain concepts to a puzzled pupil will not a teacher make.
Self-evidently, teaching is a practical profession, like dentistry. Some term it a "craft" because it requires mastery of skills that are best learnt on the job, in front of a class. But it is also more than a craft. Unlike dentists, teachers have to inspire as well as fix. Imaginative dentistry is a terrifying, not to say bloody, prospect. Teaching is both process and vocation. It can be bloody, too, but the pain is usually borne by the practitioner, not the patient.
So to be absolutely clear: teachers have to be bright but empathetic, patient but enthusiastic, practical but creative, imaginative but organised, confident but not complacent, inspirational but grounded. In what precise proportions, no-one has the faintest idea. Neither is there any consensus over where these qualities should be developed (TES Magazine, pages 10-17).
There's a wealth of material I must read through before becoming knowledgeable on the subject, and I hope to expand and share my thoughts, but one of my education professors (mostly for educational psychology), Dr. Bina John, said that the #1 quality for a good teacher is expert knowledge. That's #1. Now, that might send shivers down the spines of some aspiring teachers, because I, do not quite feel like I'm an expert at music. Considering I'm in "education" at university, there's the stereotype (that's slowly dying [fingers crossed]) that people in education aren't experts at anything. "For those that can't do - teach", etc.
Philosophers are much more concerned with who educators should be. The Socratic Method is something interesting that I've just stumbled upon and hope to further investigate.
My philosophy of education professor, Dr. Elizabeth Gould, let us know that "teaching is impossible." Which, confused quite a few of the students and left us wandering aimlessly in many articles on educational philosophy. We looked at a lot of Deleuze. Anyways, she was interested in us exploring 'philosophy as experience'. Here's the article she had published discussing this concept. (I'd search your schools database for the article if you want it to look prettier (I just put it on a google doc so it's accessible for all)).
Anyways, I'm not going to expand further because it's late, and maybe the only thing you got out of this post was the excerpt, and a little bit of thinking. But I was trying to make things a little more personal. And once I have a firmer grasps on a lot more concepts, this blog will be a lot more useful.
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