Dispositions

I don’t feel that a person can be taught dispositions. I think that one can learn about dispositions, and see examples of them, but to really learn the dispositions a person has to reflect upon their own experiences and relate them to their lives. To enhance the dispositions of teachers, all teachers need to be aware of the dispositions and reflect on them on a regular basis. Only with reflection and a little experimentation can teachers truly improve upon their dispositions.

Resilience

There is no way to really prepare a teacher for the stresses of teaching. They can be warned in advanced, given tips of how to deal with certain situations, and be given support resources, but in the end each teacher is going to have to experience it for themselves and find their own ways of de-stressing. The only way to keep 50% of teacher from changing professions early on is to give them as many skills as possible before hand, get them into classrooms while still in college, and give them a support system for when they have a classroom of their own.

Humility

I know that within every day I am wrong about something. So the last time I was wrong was earlier today. I don’t know everything I don’t hope to know everything. Confidence is extremely important, but teachers also need to know when they are wrong. A teacher needs to know the limits of their own knowledge and admit to that, so if they encounter something they are not familiar with they can say they don’t know the answer. With humility a teacher can then explore the limits of their knowledge and learn more.

Collaborativeness

An effective team has at least one leader, and if more, then leaders who know how to work together. The other members of the group need to be able to be civil with each other and compromise when needed. Collaboration is different in that collaboration is not necessarily forced, but usually voluntary, where both parties are working together towards the same goal, rather than a group that is forced to work together.

Efficacy

A highly effective teacher needs to be self-aware otherwise they will go off on tangents, lose control of the class. They need to be confident and have a belief in their own abilities because without it they cannot inspire the students, and their students will not learn effectively. They need to be persistent for the students that may not be motivated, to reach out to all students. They must have a good work ethic because being a teacher is not easy, it’s hard work. These attributes are hard to develop, and cannot necessarily be taught. A teacher needs to keep these things in mind and constantly work to improve them.

Intentiveness

Schools currently seem not to teach and reward creativity. Schools seem to only focus on memorization and test scores, not on the creativity of the individual students. This to me is the wrong system. Creativity is one of the most important skills a person can have these days. Being creative is the one thing that a machine cannot do for a human. Creativity is also hard to outsource. Being able to recall information is outdated, anyone can retrieve information by going online and doing a bit of research. People need to know how to take that information and be creative with it, synthesize new ideas.

Reflectiveness

Reflection is hard, and time consuming, but reflection is also important to make improvements. Looking back at where you have been is the only way to move forward with any clarity. The reason reflection seems to be at the heart of the teaching process, is that teaching is all about finding better ways to teach students. At the end of each year all teachers look back at their successes and failures over the course of the year, and learn from them. I personally try to find time to reflect every day, and learn from my own successes and failures.

Passion

My junior year of high school I took AP psychology. My psychology teacher was so passionate about the subject. Every day of class was fun and exciting. This was also one of the hardest classes I took in high school. I didn’t do particularly well in the class, and yet it is still one of my favorite classes from high school. This is because of how passionate my teacher was. This is also the high school class I remember the most from. To this day I can still name all of the parts of the neuron, and many of the larger concepts. The passionate teachers are the teachers who will inspire students to learn, and students will walk away from their classes with useful knowledge.