Introduction to Teacher

A doctor needs kindness towards patients and the knowledge to recognise an illness. An engineer needs accuracy in measuring and calculating. A farmer needs to understand soil and weather. Whatever the job, the person doing it must have the qualities that job demands. We call these professional qualities.

Teaching is no different. Being appointed to a school and given the title of teacher does not, on its own, make anyone a good teacher. A teacher's conduct has to be good, and their habits, behaviour and way of speaking have to be pleasant. It is not only the students who watch how a teacher lives; the whole community does. So a teacher is expected to be a model for society.

A teacher is a person who gives knowledge or education of any kind. In Sanskrit, the word for a teacher is guru, a word English has also taken in. A guru is also described as the person who leads others out of darkness and into light. The darkness here is ignorance, and the light is knowledge. Taking someone from not knowing to knowing is exactly what a teacher does.

In ancient times the title of guru belonged to the person who taught music and the arts, or who passed on the Gayatri and other Vedic mantras. A guru is not only such a person, though. Anyone who teaches in a school today, whether the subject is maths, science, Nepali or English, is also a guru and a teacher. The village teacher who shows a small child how to write their first letter and the professor lecturing at a university both fit this description.

Many things are needed before a lesson can happen in a classroom. The curriculum decides what is to be taught. The textbook supplies what is to be read. Teaching materials make ideas easier to show and understand. The lesson plan decides what is taught on which day, and how. The teaching method sets out the way of teaching. Each of these plays an important part in the teaching and learning process.

None of these works by itself, however. A textbook left in a cupboard and a chart hanging on the wall teach nothing on their own. Someone has to put them into practice in the classroom, and that person is the teacher. Without the teacher present, none of them can be carried out. That is why the teacher is the central person in everything that happens in a classroom, and an essential part of the whole teaching and learning process.

In the classroom the teacher plays two main roles: facilitator and guide.

Here is an example. To teach that plants need water to grow, a teacher has the students sow seeds in two pots. One pot is watered every day and the other is not. After a week the students see the difference for themselves and draw their own conclusion. Here the teacher is a facilitator. Later, when one student shows a keen interest in science, the same teacher advises her on which subjects to choose in class 11. Here the teacher is a guide.

Students learn not only from what a teacher says but from what a teacher does. So the way a teacher lives and carries out their duties should be worth following for everyone. A teacher therefore needs qualities that others can copy and respect.

In ancient times the guru was regarded as all-knowing: a person filled with all the knowledge the world held. For this reason teachers have been honoured since ancient times.

The Eastern teaching tradition is the way of teaching that grew up in Nepal and the countries around it. The Western education system is the one that developed in Europe and America. When the Western system arrived, the Eastern tradition changed a great deal. Yet even after that change, the teacher's place in society has remained one of respect.

The clearest proof is the trust of parents. Parents send their children to school in the teacher's care. A child who leaves home in the morning spends the whole day under the teacher's watch, and the parents go about their work without worry.

For their students, a teacher does all of the following:

• Gives education at every stage, from a child's very first letters up to higher education.
• Awakens interest in study and the motivation to keep learning.
• Teaches new knowledge, new skills and new ideas.
• Passes on the experience of the past.
• Teaches students to work hard in the present.
• Gives guidance for the future.

Because of this work, a teacher is known in three ways. A teacher is a guide who sets children on the right path. A teacher is a shaper of destiny who gives children their future. And a teacher is the centre of the nation's hope and trust. The students sitting in a classroom today are tomorrow's doctors, farmers, leaders and teachers, and it is the teacher who prepares them.

Times change, and ways of teaching change with them. Many classrooms now have computers, projectors and the internet, and new subjects and new skills are needed. A teacher who only repeats what they learned twenty years ago cannot prepare students for tomorrow. A teacher in step with the times has to keep their knowledge, skills and art of teaching up to date, and must be familiar with technology and able to use it well.

A teacher carries great responsibility, and the aims of education are met only when that responsible person is a good one. This is why a teacher must have ideal qualities.

To be a good teacher, a person needs good qualities, above all personal, social and professional ones. Two Americans, Charters and Waples, researched what qualities teachers should have. According to the conclusions of their research, a teacher should have these qualities:

• Adaptability
• An attractive appearance
• Carefulness
• Sympathy
• Cooperativeness
• Consistency in behaviour
• Skilfulness
• Good health
• Honesty
• Leadership and self-confidence
• Cleanliness and neatness
• Originality
• Progressiveness
• Following rules
• Politeness and morality
• Scholarship
• Loyalty to responsible work
• The ability to make logical and quick decisions
• Kindness and patience
• Dedication to work

Here is how a few of these qualities look in a real classroom:

• Adaptability: on a day the power goes out, teaching just as well by drawing on the blackboard instead of using the projector.
• Consistency in behaviour: not making one rule today and another tomorrow, and treating every student the same way every day.
• Logical and quick decisions: knowing at once what to do when a student suddenly falls ill in class.
• Originality: finding one's own fresh ways of teaching instead of only copying others.

When the qualities above are studied together with those named by other scholars, the qualities of a good teacher can be divided into three groups: personal qualities, professional qualities and social qualities.

• Good health: standing, speaking and teaching all day needs a healthy body and mind.
• An attractive physical personality: looking clean, tidy and confident.
• A pleasant way of speaking: gentle, clear speech that lets students listen and ask without fear.
• Interest and enthusiasm: real keenness for the subject and for teaching.
• Patience and tolerance: explaining again, without anger, to a student who is slow to understand.
• Love and sympathy: caring enough to understand a student's troubles.
• Self-confidence and strong willpower: belief in oneself and determination to finish what one starts.
• Moral and of good character: truthful, honest and upright.
• Originality: having one's own new ideas and ways of working.

• Good knowledge of the subject matter: knowing the subject taught in real depth.
• Teaching skill: the ability to make difficult ideas easy to understand.
• Knowledge of child psychology: understanding how children of different ages think and learn.
• Knowledge of the education system: knowing how education in the country is organised and run.
• A sense of responsibility: feeling answerable for one's own work.
• Knowledge of teaching methods and materials: knowing which method and which materials suit which lesson.
• Curious and studious: wanting to know new things and continuing to study.
• Skill in experiment and research: able to test new ways of working and to investigate.
• Knowledge of the learning process: understanding how students actually learn.
• Knowledge of extracurricular activities: knowing how to run activities outside lessons, such as sports, speech contests and quizzes.

• Impartial: never favouring or disfavouring anyone for being rich or poor, a boy or a girl, or from a particular caste.
• A clear speaker: able to put across one's views plainly.
• A spirit of service and cooperation: a willingness to help others.
• Skill in building human relationships: making and keeping good relations with students, colleagues and parents.
• Active: always busy and ready to step forward.
• A good sense of humour: a cheerful nature that makes the classroom enjoyable.
• The ability to take leadership: able to lead work in the school and the community.
• Knowledge of the community: understanding the local people, their customs and their problems.
• Knowledge of many subjects: informed about many things beyond one's own subject.

Imagine a teacher who knows maths extremely well. That is a professional quality. But if the same teacher loses their temper at every small mistake, they lack a personal quality such as patience. And if they are kind only to a few favourite students and ignore the rest, they are not impartial, so a social quality is missing. In such a classroom many students are afraid and learn little. This is why a teacher can be a good one only when all three kinds of quality, personal, professional and social, are present together.