Social Qualities of a Teacher

A teacher is a social being, just like everyone else in the community. Every society shares values and ideas about what is right, and a teacher should try to become a good person by those values. Behaving in a way that suits the society, and respecting the culture and values the community holds together, is part of a teacher's duty.

A teacher is also an alert and aware member of society. The children sitting in a classroom today will run the society tomorrow, and the teacher has a real share in deciding what kind of future each of them will have. That is a heavy responsibility to carry.

Nine social qualities are expected of a good teacher:

• Impartiality
• Speaking clearly and frankly
• A spirit of service and cooperation
• Skill in building human relationships
• Being active
• A good sense of humour
• The ability to lead
• Knowledge of the community
• Knowing many subjects

Partiality means favouring some students over others, and it is one of the biggest barriers to a student's intellectual growth. A school brings together children from many different communities and backgrounds. A teacher must never treat any of them unfairly, and no student should feel, even slightly, that they are being treated unequally.

Why does this matter so much? A student who feels treated unfairly stops respecting the teacher. Once that respect is gone, the student cannot learn what the teacher is trying to teach. So partiality does not only hurt one student's feelings. It damages the learning itself.

Students differ from one another physically, intellectually, psychologically and socially, and their abilities differ too. A good teacher stays fair towards every one of these differences.

Picture a teacher who always asks questions to the quick students on the front bench and never calls on the shy ones at the back. Nobody is scolded, yet this is still partiality. An impartial teacher gives every student the same chance to answer, to ask and to be corrected.

A good teacher is a clear speaker. Whether the person in front of them is a student or a parent, the teacher should state their views openly, without hiding anything and without playing tricks. A teacher must have the courage to call a right thing right and a wrong thing wrong.

This quality helps in two ways. Students who watch such a teacher learn the habit of judging for themselves what is right and what is wrong. The teacher, too, becomes better at presenting their own ideas in front of other people.

Suppose a parent believes their son is doing very well, but the teacher knows he has been copying his homework from a friend. A clear speaker tells the parent this politely but plainly. Keeping quiet would help neither the boy nor his parent.

A teacher is also a close friend to students. When a student struggles to learn, the teacher should help selflessly, expecting nothing in return. Sometimes a small problem is quietly getting in the way of a student's studies, and the teacher has to step in as a helper so that the student can learn again.

For example, a girl who missed two weeks of school through illness may feel lost when she returns. A teacher who stays a little after class to go over the missed lessons with her is showing the spirit of service.

A teacher is also a responsible member of society, so their help should reach the society as well as the students. In particular, a teacher should feel a duty of service towards people who are disabled or unable to help themselves.

A teacher needs the skill to build warm human relationships with students, parents and other people in the community. A helpful attitude, a spirit of service and genuine closeness are the qualities that let a teacher mix well with the community. The table shows what each of these relationships makes possible.

Suppose a student suddenly stops coming to school. A teacher who is on good terms with the parents can find out quickly what is happening at home and help look for a solution. For a teacher who has never met the family, the same task is far harder.

A teacher should be active. Students copy their teachers, so a teacher is a role model whether they mean to be or not, and every habit a teacher has can be picked up by the class. An active teacher becomes an example for the whole community, not only for the school.

An active teacher is alert and curious, and is always creating something new. A teacher who starts a school vegetable garden, organises the library or makes their own teaching materials is showing exactly this quality.

A teacher needs a good sense of humour. Students enjoy lessons taught in a cheerful way, with lively examples, far more than lessons given in an atmosphere of fear. In a humorous teacher's class, no student has to hide their talent out of fear.

Humour, however, must never become rudeness. A teacher's nature should be gentle and humble, not harsh. A humble teacher can influence the whole society, and courteous, polite behaviour lets a teacher build good relationships with everyone. A teacher also needs to be humble to help students develop positive thinking.

A teacher must be able to take the lead. Leadership is needed for all of these tasks:

• guiding students along the right path
• getting students to take part in group work
• getting students to take part in creative activities
• managing the classroom
• saying what needs to be said in front of the students

Leadership is more than giving orders. A teacher also needs the leadership to spot the talent hidden inside each student and guide it in the right direction. Noticing that a quiet boy draws beautifully, and then putting him in charge of decorating the school wall magazine, is leadership of exactly this kind.

Every community has its own way of living, its own customs, traditions, economic level, social condition and culture. A teacher should know about all of these.

Why? The students in a school come from many different communities, and a teacher cannot understand a student without understanding where they come from. Children from farming families, for instance, may miss school during rice planting and harvest. A teacher who knows the community understands the reason and plans lessons around it instead of simply marking them absent.

A teacher should also be able to build relationships with everyone in the community and work together with them.

A class has one teacher but many interests. One student loves sport, another music, another science or story writing. Since the teacher has to guide all of them, a teacher needs to know about many subjects.

Students want their teacher to be good at everything. Meeting that wish keeps their confidence high, and respecting every kind of interest and ability is what makes teaching succeed. No single teacher can be an expert in every subject, but every teacher still needs enough knowledge of many subjects to guide the students who love them.

Alongside these social qualities, a good teacher needs a set of overall professional competencies. A teacher should have:

• deep and up-to-date knowledge of the subject they teach
• knowledge of different ways of teaching and of the latest teaching technology
• an understanding of the stages of children's physical, mental, social and emotional development
• the skill to find out what students already know
• the ability to make learning easier for each student by responding to individual differences and special needs
• the habit of studying and researching to gain new knowledge and skills
• awareness of new research and new ideas in their own subject area
• the practice of self-reflection on their own work
• discussion, interaction and communication with colleagues, students and parents
• a lifelong, continuous effort to keep learning
• skill in using information and communication tools that help teaching and learning
• knowledge of the laws in force, the code of conduct, the dignity of the post and ideal professional behaviour, and conduct that matches them
• the ability to carry out their responsibilities and answer for them

For example, if more than half the class did not understand a lesson, a teacher who asks, 'Where did I go wrong, and which example would work better next time?' is practising self-reflection. A teacher who does this becomes a little better every year.