What in your opinion makes a good teacher?

[Barciad]

I'm fresh out of University with a Maths Degree under my belt, and strangely enough I am going to use it to become a maths teacher. Rarely if ever does a proffession get as bad a rep as this one. Off the top of my head, I can think of only three fictional teachers that I would want to hang out with, Lupin, GTO, Kakashi.
Thus, I need to know what is it that makes a good teacher. How can I be respected and liked (I would say loved, but I am teaching Maths. Maths teachers are never loved), etc. Just what is it that makes a good teacher?

 

[Echolocating]

Have you never liked any of your teachers?

 

[Barciad]

Have you never liked any of your teachers?

I respected my Maths teachers. They were the McGonagall type, strict, fearsome, but very effective. The only Maths teacher I had that was in any way charismatic wasn't actually that good.
Most of the science teachers played the Victor Meldrew (i.e. grumpy old man) card to varying degrees of success. There was this one welshman who was funny, but he taught biology, and I hated biology.
I had a great history and good english teacher in years 7-9. Personally, I think it is easier to be likable in an arts subject. More room for flair, imagination, creativity. Also, the way the GCSE syllabus is managed does no teachers any favours. In years 10-11, English was very, very dull. It didn't help having a nice bloke for a teacher, it didn't help that we were doing great books. When you have a thing called the National Cirricullem, all things start to get a little tedious.
Though back to my original point, Maths has never traditionally lent itself to being taught by likeable teachers. In my opinion, mathematics, the subject matter, is a very difficult thing to love. You can respect it immensely, but like? I do know a few who do hold such feelings, though they are most definately the minority.

 

[Echolocating]

I'm fresh out of University with a Maths Degree under my belt, and strangely enough I am going to use it to become a maths teacher.

What grade (or education) level do you plan to teach?

 

[rustybadger]

When i've had to teach kids, i've always;

(<useless

talked to them as normal people.
When they argue,
say that they are wrong,
if they argue,
send them home
/>)

but then i'm an external contractor, and can talk to kids how i want (within reason), so i'm not that helpful.....

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

Thus, I need to know what is it that makes a good teacher. How can I be respected and liked (I would say loved, but I am teaching Maths. Maths teachers are never loved), etc. Just what is it that makes a good teacher?

The best math teacher I had was Mrs. Sharif. She was a Pakistani Doctor who was middling around in the highschool system while getting her american doctorate at night school (her degree from Pakistan wasn't recognized in the states).

What she had going for her, was an objective understanding of the class' intention which was to teach concepts. If you demonstrated an understanding of the material and concepts she was much more lenient on scoring your work.

Addittionally, she had the rare ability of explaining the context of alebraic equations in a concise manner. Typically, she would physically graph a problem out as we worked out the formulaic iteration of the problem. Usually, a student would work the problem on one side of the board and she would graph it next to them as if she was providing sign language.

At first, her graphing of the solutions seemed irrelevant but once you understood that certain formulas were mathematical observations of simple geometric rules, then you grasped the context and it didn't seem like abstract arbitrary equations anymore.

 

[Barciad]

I'm fresh out of University with a Maths Degree under my belt, and strangely enough I am going to use it to become a maths teacher.

What grade (or education) level do you plan to teach?

Secondary School (ages 11-18)

 

[Barciad]

A teacher with an iron fist, and no tolerance for BS. That makes a good teacher in my book.

That is probably my major concern. By nature, I am not a nasty or aggressive person. Generally, I try and be as amiable and as agreeable as I can, probably not something best suited to my chosen profression, or quite possibly any modern profession at all. I do have a darker side, but only for those whom I deem to deserve it. I once attacked a spectator in sports match, not one of my finer moments I know.
To be honest, teaching is all about acting. If you can act tough convincingly, if you can get angry, if you can threaten, and look genuine, then you can pull it off. A liked drama at at school.

 

[Cpt. Red]

... Maths has never traditionally lent itself to being taught by likeable teachers. In my opinion, mathematics, the subject matter, is a very difficult thing to love. You can respect it immensely, but like? I do know a few who do hold such feelings, though they are most definately the minority.

Hey! I love maths! What I would want from a math teacher is that they put more value of understanding then having the correct answer.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

aside from the anecdote and more precise to your question...

1) Don't condescend to your kids.
2) Hold them to a higher standard of expectations than they are capable of.
3) Be concise.
4) Don't bullshit with projects and psuedo art/math assignments. Cut to the meat and potatoes and get them learned.
5) Don't equally weigh your class with homework versus tests so that bad testing kids can get by with a C as long as they do all their homework. Kids that suck at tests, suck because they didn't do the homework anyways so you're just punishing the smart kids with more work and not helping anybody.
6) Don't treat people fairly.. you will know who the asshole in the class is, so blaim him for everything and leave the normal kids alone from your tirades and group punishments.


that's all i got at the moment.

 

[The Iron Ninja]

My Geography teacher (five years ago now) had this awesome ability to be distracted for an entire class if you mentioned India (despite being very much white he considered India his second home, when he retires he's going to move there). It was so very useful if you were too tired to bother with writing tonnes of notes.

 

[Xvito]

What makes a good teacher is first and foremost his/her ability to teach, secondly comes his/her knowledge about the subject.

 

[Danny Ocean]

What makes a good teacher is first and foremost his/her ability to teach, secondly comes his/her knowledge about the subject.

Yeeeeeeeeeees, good contribution. Now, how would you define someone who had a good ability to teach?

I once had a maths teacher called Jack Daniels (NO joke! That's already a plus point for him.).

He managed to make 20 studends unbashedly adore maths, and even look forward to maths lessons.

He did this by treating us as people, and not being afraid of a little talk at the back.

He kept things interesting by using his 'puter and projector to display maths games on the board, and made us participate in little maths games every lesson to keep us on form.

He never gave detentions, or even shouted, he never needed to. If someone was naughty (we never were), he would simply make them stand up for 2 minutes, then sit down again.
The worst he would do is send you out.

He wasn't afraid of joking sometimes, and didn't give too much homework.

Kids will LOVE you if you give little homework. Seriously, give as little as possible.

 

[Fronken]

Keep the class room disciplined and if someone is bothering the rest of the class with talking or just being stupid over and over again cause he/she thinks its funny, tell them to leave.

And try to connect to the pupils if you are able, some of the best teachers i've had were younger ones that know of the problems one might have and what is popular at the moment, for example, you might ask what the people in the class listen to when it comes to music.

Long story short: Try to be an educational friend, no one wants a sour old teacher that just yells all the time, it makes learning boring and will probably lower the grades, give them the chance to shine and reward them for doing good, for example, if there's a test, you might say: If the entire class passes b+, the next lesson will be optional and you may do your math problems at home or at some other location, something like that can really spur the pupils into reading more and learning more.

 

[Danny Ocean]

Long story short: Try to be an educational friend, no one wants a sour old teacher that just yells all the time, it makes learning boring and will probably lower the grades, give them the chance to shine and reward them for doing good, for example, if there's a test, you might say: If the entire class passes b+, the next lesson will be optional and you may do your math problems at home or at some other location, something like that can really spur the pupils into reading more and learning more.

Exactly that.

 

[Barciad]

Long story short: Try to be an educational friend, no one wants a sour old teacher that just yells all the time, it makes learning boring and will probably lower the grades, give them the chance to shine and reward them for doing good, for example, if there's a test, you might say: If the entire class passes b+, the next lesson will be optional and you may do your math problems at home or at some other location, something like that can really spur the pupils into reading more and learning more.

Exactly that.

That's the thing, I genuinely want to be nice to them. I want to get along and teach them all the cool stuff I know. Ideally, I would like to second as a Classics teacher as well. Maths was only half my degree, Ancient History being the other half. I'd love to teach them Cicero, Aristophenes, Thucydides, and Plutarch. I worry that the appalling English education system won't let me.
Also there is the small matter of this stinking piece of turd called 'The National Cirriculem'. It turns teachers from smart professionals into mindless drones. The whole system in England is run like a massive factory. All about tests, boxes ticked, and endless results which prove absolutely nothing - except how good a child is at passing a particular test. I want to educate my soon-to-be pupils, teach them about the world, about life. Has anybody seen a film called 'History Boys'? You will see what I mean.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

I want to educate my soon-to-be pupils, teach them about the world, about life. Has anybody seen a film called 'History Boys'? You will see what I mean.

I would back down on the cinematic expectations.. the reality of it is more like a cross between baby sitting and lecturing. The ability to connect with pupils is a rare gift that most teachers don't have. Of all the years of forced schooling I only ever had 1 teacher that was able to connect on an inspirational level and that was Larry Jones of Moorpark Highschool and he's mentioned in wikipedia so you know he's on a different level. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorpark_High_School#Academic_Decathlon)

Teaching like that requires a level of comittment that almost all teachers are not willing to give.

 

[Reaper08]

Well since your teaching that age group your going to have to deal with a very diverse group of PEOPLE. You can't treat them like farm stock, but you need to let them know your in charge. The best math teacher I ever had was my algerbra 1 teacher. I chose not to do the homework and resulted in a bad grade and didn't do nearly as well as I should have. She was great teacher and taught the subjects well, but sometimes people just don't want to learn.

 

[hamster mk 4]

My favorite math teacher gave problem of the week questions. We would be given a word problem on the white board that would stay there the entire week. The method for solving that problem would be discussed over the weeks lectures. It got the students thinking about how to solve a problem without actually knowing for sure how to solve it. Then when the teacher presented the technique, it was much more informative.