CHARACTERISTICS
OF AN IDEAL TEACHER
“No
system of education can rise higher than its teachers”. “The way to
child-centered education can only be through teacher-centered school”.
Cicero said 2000 years ago – what greater or better gift can we offer
the republic than to teacher and instruct our youth? His words are as true
today as they were 2000 years ago.
The quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its schools and this
depends primarily upon the quality of teachers.
The Mudaliar report stated “We are convinced that the most important
factor in the contemplated educational reconstruction is the teacher, his personal
qualities, his educational qualifications, his professional training the place
that he occupies in the school as well as in the community.
As the teacher is to guide the pupils by his example as well as by his
precept, he must possess certain definite qualities. The best teachers are
those who have certain natural qualifications for the job. What are those
natural qualifications we shall now proceed to describe.
Characteristics
of an Ideal Teacher:
i.
The teacher must be good looking. The dress
should be decent and sober.
ii.
Teacher should have calm nature, sweet
looks, charming face, pleasant demeanor, so as to exert a good influence on
both the public and the pupils.
iii.
His character should be above reproach.
iv.
Good mental and physical health is another
essential to be a good teacher.
v.
Sociability is another essential trait for
a teacher.
vi.
The teacher must have a sense of humor.
vii.
Teacher should be a person with whom
children can have normal human relationships.
In short, the teacher must possess a well-rounded, chiseled personality. He should be particularly careful about the following.
a.
He must be a punctual to the minute.
b.
He must be just fair and impartial in all
dealings and should be known as such.
c.
He must have pleasing manners and should be
courteous to all.
d.
He must respect pupils opinion and should
invite free discussion in the class.
e.
He must be able to earn respect.
f.
He must be responsible in his talk and in
his behavior.
g.
He must not be rigid, too strict-yet should
be prompt and business use.
h.
He must be kind and sympathetic.
i.
He must be extremely honest.
j.
He must be self-reliant and self-directive.
k.
He must be an enthusiastic in his subject
and matter of method.
l.
Last but not least important, he should
know himself.
He effects eternity; He is the
backbone of society. He is a social engineer and useful social worker, He is a
superior guide, He is a nation builder.
TEACHER COMPETENCIES
The minimum levels of learning were laid down at the Primary Education
for the quality improvement of the children. A set of values were also laid
down for developing competencies. The minimum level of learning strategy
essentially aims at attaining mastery level for all children as a part of
Universalisation of quality education. For such an approach the competencies
and qualities of the teacher will have to be worked out specifically and
pragmatically.
As such the NCTE and several
other national seminars formulated the following 10 inter-related categories of
competencies. They are:
i.
Contextual Competencies
ii.
Conceptual Competencies
iii.
Content Competencies
iv.
Transactional Competencies
v.
Competencies related to other educational
attitudes
vi.
Competencies to develop teaching-learning
material
vii.
Evaluation competencies
viii.
Management competencies
ix.
Competencies related to working with
community and other agency
i.
Contextual
Competencies:
Under contextual
competencies the primary school teacher has to acquire a total understanding of
the socio-economic cultural, linguistic, religious contexts of specific family
and community profile. Teacher’s job is the integral part not only of the total
education system but also of the social and cultural systems of community. The
teacher should have the understanding of National, State & Global
functions. Teacher should also have the understanding of various other issues
like developmental activities, urbanization, unemployment, value inculcation,
political dynamics and growing impact and technology development.
ii.
Conceptual
Competencies:
It is equally important to develop conceptual
competencies among students, teachers to have the right perspective in
education. It is to help them through understanding of meaning of education and
the impact of socio-economic and socio-cultural factors o them. The teacher
should know the educational implications with reference to the physical,
mental, social and cultural needs of the child at different stages of child
development. The knowledge of sociometry of the class too would help the
teacher to organize curricular and co-curricular activities quite effectively
in the classroom and outside.
The student teacher should appreciate
the constitutional provision of universization of elementary education and the
three components viz.
a)
Universal enrollment
b)
Universal retention
c)
Universal quality education concepts like
globalization and modernization etc. also have to be clearly understood by the teachers
to translate them effectively into teaching-learning process. The conceptual
components will help them into meaningful learning experiences.
iii.
Content
Competencies:
Teachers should
have full mastery over the content competencies identified in the competency
based curriculum. Content competencies identified by Dave Committee report or
its adaptation by the state must be achieved mastery by the student teachers in
their teacher preparation programmes at the teacher training institutions. They
should identify hard spots of learning and where there is enough scope for
joyful activities in the curriculum.
iv.
Transactional
Competencies:
Teaching learning
process in education involves interaction between teachers and taught resulting
in desired competencies. In teaching there are three stages. They are:
a.
Planning
b.
Teaching-Learning
c.
Evaluation
During transaction teachers put the
plan into action and evaluate its impact in terms of competencies achieved at
the end of transaction. It is observed that the achievement level of the
learners is low by Acharya Rama Murthy Committee and NPE 1986 because of less
importance given to practice by the teacher rather than theory.
Since the children have short span of
attention for teacher directed learning more time should be devoted to group
learning, self-learning by the children. Hence emphasis should be given for
workbooks and for variety of activities. Such as story-telling, singing, games,
field visits, celebrations of national, social, cultural events with a view to
make teaching learning joyful and participatory. At primary level multi grade
teaching may be introduced. All these require transactional competencies of the
higher order both on the part of student teacher and teacher educators.
v.
Curricular activities develop
cognitive area of children but for the total development of child other
educational activities. Such as Morning prayer/assembly, celebration of
national events like Independence Day, Republic Day, Children’s Day, Teacher’s
Day etc. will help to develop the human values among children.
The student teacher should acquire
skills and competencies in planning and executing all such educational
activities, as they entail various competencies for the student teacher to
develop as a teacher as also as a community leader.
vi.
Competencies
to develop teaching-learning material:
Student teacher has
to develop the competencies in preparation of different kind of
teaching-learning material such as text books, work books, self-learning
material for group and individual learning. Teachers handbooks and similar
other material may be used by the leaders in order to improve their own professional
standards.
The classroom teaching-learning
material like charts, pictures, maps, diagrams, tables may be prepared and used
by the teacher to enrich the quality of their teaching. Teaching-learning
materials based on new technology and audio-tapes, video-tapes, slides, radio,
TV, Computer and similar other gadgets may be used by the teachers for
effective teaching.
Teachers should also make use of
locally available learning resources such as bank, post office, hospital etc.
to enrich the teaching learning experiences.
vii.
Evaluation
Competencies:
When competency
based curriculum is introduced it is necessary to that competency based
evaluation should be adopted. The following points need to be given due consideration.
1.
The concept of 35% marks pass, have to be
done away and every learner should acquire highest proficiency.
2.
Illuminative evaluation may be adopted by
the teacher which includes self-analysis on the part of the teacher.
3.
The ideal concept of continuous
comprehensive evaluation in the classroom should be adopted.
In addition to the above periodical
evaluation may be taken up in formal way for diagnostic purpose comprehensive
evaluation or the annual evaluation is necessary according to the rules and
regulations.
viii.
Management
Competencies:
Every teacher is a manager in the
classroom. Hence every teacher should be taught skills of classroom management.
In addition to subject teaching the teacher has to develop several other
managerial competencies dealing with community and to handle multi grade in a
single teacher system. Hence the student teacher while undergoing training
should acquire all such managerial competencies.
ix.
Competencies
related to working with parents:
The role of parents is quite crucial
with regards to un-enrolled children and dropout children in the context of
universalization of elementary education. The facts are:
1.
In order to achieve universal enrolment
parental contact is a must because parents may be illiterate or poor or they
are not aware of their children’s future. As such teachers should seek parental
co-operation in universal enrolment, retention and quality of education of
their children.
2.
Parents will co-operate with regards to
punctuality and regularity of their children.
3.
Teacher should provide progress reports to
the parents in order to discuss their wards progress.
4.
To discuss the weakness or brightness of
the children with their parents. Teacher education programme should develop
competencies in teacher trainees doing the preparations as teacher.
x.
Competencies
related to working with community and other agencies:
To improve the school situation, the
teachers seek co-operation of the community. For this some professional
orientation is required. Since independence some commendable actions have been
initiated in being the school and community together. For this teachers should
be made competent in activitiy like community survey, school mapping etc.
In order to establish rapport with
members of the community it may be useful to prepare a community profile
containing basic information like historical, cultural elements related to
society along with population, literacy level etc. This profile will be useful
to elicit community support and also from an integral part of teacher education
programme today.
TEACHER COMMITMENT – AREAS
Social cohesion is one of the major objectives before education in 21st
century. Teachers should respond to the social, cultural and economic realities
in the society and get expertise for their profession. In doing so the teacher
should acquire certain human qualities in transaction of classroom teaching.
Only such teacher would become a true teacher who sincerely loves each and
every child. In fact, the teacher have to be quite sensitive to the emotional
needs of children. Teacher’s tolerance, humility and modesty could endear them
to their pupils to the community and the person alike. Teachers must have a
well defined self image which will make them understand their role model as
teachers.
1. Commitment to the Learner:
Teacher should have
a commitment to the learner. He should see that the learner enjoys learning.
Learner should feel that learning is joyful and rewarding commitment to the
learner implies teachers genuine love and affection for children tolerance
towards his mistakes.
The teachers should do self-analysis
of their own aggressive behavior. Self analysis is an important tool for
commitment building. Commitment is quite crucial on the part of the teachers in
making the learning effective and that ought to be inculcated in them through
teacher education programmes.
2. Commitment to the Society:
Teachers should
remember that they are responsible for the local community individually and
collectively. He should serve the community faithfully - The service may be of
different types – serving the children deprived of education, children coming
from poor families. The adult of this section may be encouraged to join to
adult education programme.
The teacher who is committed to the
society would very soon create a sense of belonging among its members. Once
this is achieved there will be not any difficulty in mobilizing the resources
needed by the school.
Teacher should understand the local
community and participate in various activities related to the development of
school and community.
3. Commitment to the Profession:
Teachers should feel that this is a
noble job and have to develop with pride being in the teaching profession,
educating children is indeed empowering them. This process needs total
involvement. A committed teachers mind remains always occupied with thoughts of
children and their growth committed teachers seek all round development of the
child. They observe professional ethics to be fitting the nobility of
profession. Commitment to the profession deserves to be an integral part of
teacher education.
4. Commitment to attaining excellence for
professional action:
Professionally
committed teacher’s first love is their quest for knowledge and excellence both
for their own and for the students. They try to attain excellence in the entire
teaching learning process through their constant quest for becoming best
teachers. Hence teacher education must try to develop this first love among
teachers during their pre-service teacher preparation programme.
5. Commitment to basic values:
The values that are to be followed by
the teacher are honestly co-operation, love, truth, objectivity regularity,
punctuality in addition to the values prescribed in the Indian Constitution in
addition to the social values that differ from one society to the other.
Observance of these values impresses the children. Hence the teacher education
programme takes it as a part of the pre-service training programme as well as
in service activities which reflect in teacher education curriculum.
