What personal quality do you think is the most important for being a good teacher?

Presence.

whitecarnatkons Can you elaborate a little more?

I would say passion about the subject which implies the ability to make it relevant for the students. That’s what is the most important to me, as a professor.

Enthusiasm is contagious.

When the teacher cares about the students.

Enthusiasm about your subject.

Freedom to choose when, and what to explore is what motivates me. I’ve never groaned when I was given the freedom to choose what I wanted to learn.

discipline and empathy

Please forgive me if I have suggested this before, but the wonderful book: Teaching with Your Mouth Shut by Don Finkel (last name is not a coincidence) is worth looking at if you are in the world of education.

Listening and being open enough to accept what we hear. Teachers can become so tied up in what is coming out of their own mouths that they forget to listen to their students.

I learn from my students constantly.

My son answered this for me….

By Individualizing each students needs and capabilites…He said if a teacher can multitask in that way he will help the most students reach their potential(s) Basically he said instead of attempting to teach the herd as a group….teach and guide each cow or group of like minded students based on their abilities instead of expectations.

empathy

Great answers above but I would add patience as a big need.

No matter how good the teachers or how able the students, at some point someone is going to need to go over the same material repeatedly. Losing your patience breaks the agreement with the student that you’re there to help them.

Part 2: to have patience you need to have time… so too many students or not enough time can make it impossible. Having an opportunity for individual attention can go a long way, but 35 students in an hour just isn’t possible. You end up picking your battles.

One of my sisters is a teacher, she teaches younger kids aged 4–7 and based on what she’s told me about her job, I think an endless supply of patience is the most important.

I have been reading about project based education and the more I hear about it, the more sense it makes. The method is based on the constructivist model of learning. You can’t put ideas into somebody’s head. Knowledge is built by constructing ideas based on experience. The skill set for a teacher using project based learning is different from what is required when the teacher lectures in front of the class. The teacher has to act as a coach, a monitor, a resource and a motivator. It is not clear how well project based learning can be used in lower grades, but students are definitely ready for it by the time they reach middle school.

One thing that I know is that students are capable of much more than we, and they, usually give them credit for. I do math tutoring work for an online tutoring company. They tell us to get the students to do as much of the work on their own as possible. This turns out to be surprisingly easy. Typically, a student will come online and complain about having no idea about what to do on a problem. After I ask a few leading questions, and perhaps make a few corrections, the student is off and running solving the problem on his/her own.

Patience.

Cruiser Your son gave a great answer. I think individualized attention is one of the most important and probably one of the most challenging things that a teacher has to try to do to bring out the most potential in their students. It’s difficult to do as a group and the larger the group, the harder I would think it would be.

I am not a teacher and I love one on one conversation because it really takes one on one conversation in most cases to really see and understand the other person. Maybe this is a good reason for group discussion and class participation. It allows the teacher to respond to the students more as individuals. I always sucked at class participation because I was so shy. I used to sit in my chair dreading that the teacher might call on me and ask me to contribute. Luckily I was a good student and didn’t need the extra help. If I had needed it I don’t think I would have asked for it. I did raise my hand to talk and I was comfortable with that even though I was consistently asked to “Speak up!”. God how I hated that. I would struggle to get a few more decibels out of my mousy little self! What I found harder to do was to just jump in and talk without the teacher giving me the atention and permission to talk.

marinelife Enthusiasm makes such a difference. In 8th grade there was a teacher that loved history and had such a passion for her subject matter that she made us all love it too. Her excitement about what she was teaching was so infectious.

LostinParadise “The teacher has to act as a coach, a monitor, a resource and a motivator. ”
This encompasses much of what I would think of as a great teacher.
Your answer is really interesting. When your students are feeling “stuck” maybe a lot of times it is a sort of lack of confidence they are feeling. By giving them a little guidence and pointing them in the right direction without over explaining and doing it for them you make them see they can do it themselves. That gives them additional confidence for the next time they are stuck. Plus you force them to think for themselves and develop their problem solving skills. GA.

The connection to real life examples for everything that is taught.

A sense of humor, for many reasons. It builds rapport with the students, makes lessons way more interesting, keeps the job manageable, helps kids feel safe, makes parents feel more relaxed, helps colleagues work together and makes the day less exhausting.