Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Great Teachers: What do they all have in common?

I agree that the administration can be a big stumbling block for teachers. I have had teachers who will straight out tell me what is in the way of my child getting a more appropriate education, and then I go to the school and ask for what they need. And then I have had teachers who don't communicate with me at all -- I am not sure why -- and those years were tough for my child.

Excellent thread. While all of the items listed may be great attributes to have in a teacher, these attributes may be increasingly difficult to find in public school teachers in the United States.

and Fortunately or unfortunately, US public schools are seeking to close "the achievement gap" and "the excellence gap" among various demographic groups. This may often mean capping the growth of students at the top. In the United States, public schools, public school administrators, and public school teachers are being evaluated on the basis of closing gaps. There is extensive data collection, from preschool to workforce to support this measurement. A public school teacher whose class shows gaps may receive a negative evaluation and lose his/her job to a public school teacher who will help close gaps.

This often results in public school teachers being less willing to answer advanced questions, which are beyond the prescribed curriculum.

This is what I do not understand - if the lesson plans do not include a particular topic (let us say, a 2nd grader wanting to know a single extra detail about tectonic plate movements which is out of the teacher's scope and knowledge - after the teacher talks about tectonic plates in the class), what effect does answering this question have on the "achievement gap" between students in a public school classroom? If the teacher took 2 minutes to answer that question, the whole class would have learned something new and the topic is guaranteed to never appear in a 2nd grade standardized test and hence has zero effect on capping the growth of top students or widening any gaps in knowledge between students. So, why shut a genuine question down? The student obviously thought a lot about a concept and wishes to understand some thing.

There may be many answers to this question; This is just one answer with three facets:
- A teacher answering a particular child's question may be perceived by some as favoritism toward that child; the child may be viewed as privileged. Especially if the child is told that his/her question is a good one, and if the other children in the classroom may be aware that the child is "smart" or advanced or gifted, etc. The child who asked the question may be encouraged whereas other children may feel poorly as they they have not been complimented.
- If the teacher provided an answer, that answer may be understood by the child who asked the question whereas other children may not absorb the information. For some children, the presentation of that extraneous information may hinder the uptake of other necessary information.
- Capping the growth of the children at the top may include removing their desire to ask questions.

This old post includes a list of some practices used to close the achievement gap on paper, generating the same grades for a wide range of students.

The antidote?
- Remembering that students are individuals, not demographic statistics.
- The aim of "schooling" should be a personally meaningful education for individuals, not the contrivance of statistics.

It is possible that going forward more of the Great Teachers as described in this thread may be found in private, independent, parochial, or alternative schools where they are free to teach curious minds as much as possible, and are rewarded for doing so.

Thank you, I had not thought about this angle. Killing curiosity could definitely cap the growth of the child.

DH, who is in charge of training newly qualified teachers as part of his position as head of the science department (and gifted ed coordinator, but there isn't that much to coordinate, as usual) would say the necessary ingredients are as follows:

A) excellent grasp of the subject matter

B) a normal personality (no mental illness, alcoholism etc).

The rest is commentary. As in, how to then be a good teacher of said subject matter can be taught and learned as long as these ingredients are present.
If someone does not have an excellent grasp of the subject matter after having picked your subject(s) of all the subjects available to study and having spent four years on it (this is Europe, so that's all you do at university after all), something is clearly wrong. If you are only one step ahead of your students yourself, you will never have the confidence and self awareness to understand a struggling students mistakes, or a gifted students probing questions, and will never be able to admit to a mistake or to having to look something up.

And as long as you have a normal personality and aren't looking at teaching as your or anyone else's salvation or as going back to school where you feel safe from the big bad world or as a way to be able to not be challenged because everyone in the room is smaller and weaker than you are, you will learn to be a professional, how to support children, and not hurt them, not feel you have to take them down a peg if you feel challenged by them, not react like a disappointed lover and lash out if they don't act the way you want them to.

I've seen a lot of teachers who lacked one or both of these attributes, and it's a disaster every time. But if both attributes are there excellence is achievable.