Teachers are one of the best people in the world. They are the builders of the future generation where they impart their own knowledge to future individuals in society. Teaching is a noble profession. However, what might be the essential things that teachers must possess in order to teach their students effectively?
As an instructor, I listed twelve of the hundreds of characteristics that a teacher must have. These are the following:
1. Passion. Based on my observation, not ALL teachers are passionate about what they are doing. Even my colleagues will talk about just the income and the benefits that they will gain in order to be successful in life. The main focus of a good and effective teacher is a passion that leads to the commitment to what we do. This is a kind of teacher that every student needs.
2. Parent to Students. It is not only that we love what we do. However, it is also important to be the second parent of the students. It means loving them and looking forward to making everything for the good of their welfare.
3. Mastery of Subject/ Course. As the person who will deliver another mind, ideas, and perceptions to the students, the teacher must be knowledgeable of what they discussed. In higher education, one of the adversary cultures that institutions practice is that some of the instructors will teach courses that they are not familiar with or experts with. Teachers must know the lessons and should have mastery on it in order to craft effective strategies, techniques and assessments to the students.
4. Understand the Purpose. I find it necessary for us to know our purpose as teachers. Teaching is not a profession, but a vocation to those people who are willing to sacrifice time, effort, and even money just to deliver good quality education to the students. Understanding our purpose is focusing on our end goal every academic year. With this, we can have mindsets of protecting the welfare of our students.
5. Willingness to Change. As what the famous statement goes, we need to unlearn ourselves in order to learn. As instructors, we are not as perfect as we portray ourselves to be with our students. With this, we may have a lot of downfalls, disappointments, and failures as an instructor, however, we need to change for the better. This not only ends with this, but we also need to change to be suitable for our working environment- a much mature environment.
6. Don’t Quit! As an instructor, my experience doesn’t end in teaching or instruction only. I am also a job order in our office, a janitor during Brigada, a dancer or singer in some events, master of ceremonies or host on certain occasions, extensionist, researcher, and organizers. In other words, there are so much to work in the academe. Your works will not end, in fact, there are a lot of conflicting works and schedules plus your preparation for your class. With this, we should never quit even if we are overwork and even if our salary could not define our work. We shall never quit. And focus on your end goal that this is a vocation of sacrificing to serve the people.
7. See Yourself! As the necessity to evaluate our daily life, teachers must also evaluate themselves in their everyday class performances. Reflect on the good and bad things that you’ve done at the end of the day and try to cope up and do better.
8. Organize things. It is actually a given fact that teachers have a lot of documents in their office tables. Organize these documents well. Organize your instructional materials. And Organize your works because it doesn’t end up with instruction.
9. Struggle to Improve. This is actually a constant struggle of a teacher. Every day is a struggle to be better. The best thing that we have is that our work is not boring. It is not an everyday cycle. There are actually a lot of unexpected challenges that we need to face every single day. And we just need to make that struggle a challenge to be better.
10. Enough ego. Teachers must have enough ego to survive on the hard days. There are also times that you are feeling humiliated with your boss. There are times that you will have disrespectful students. Be strong enough to face them. Face them with high value with yourself.
11. Humility. It may be shocking to have all the number of tens in our career in teaching. Too much of it will actually destroy ourselves. As a teacher, learn and always be humble. Be humble with your knowledge, your educational attainment, and your skills. Remember that humility is next to Godliness.
12. Collab! Collab! Collab! No man is an island. So does in the academe. You need to work collaboratively with your colleagues such as doing researches, extensions, productions, and crafting assessments or strategies in your different courses. It doesn’t end there, you need to do collaborative works with your students in order for them to know your work ethics and to see you as their role model.
These are the commandments that a teacher must possess to become effective in the vocation of teaching. What are yours?
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