A Good Teacher

I've had many conversations about this one, and despite being in a faculty meeting and being told that it is an inappropriate topic of conversation, it still interests me.  And I've never understood what makes teachers so scared of this question.  I mean, I get it - believe me, I get it: there are administrators out there that are incompetent, conniving, power-crazed, just plain crazy, etc., etc., etc.

But, on the other hand, good teaching is good teaching and I've always lived by the credo: come get my job.  I'm going to do the damnedest I can to teach the best way I know how and be the most professional I can be, and if I'm that bad, then if some nut-job goes after me, and nobody stands up and calls bullshit, no students, no colleagues, nobody . . . well, perhaps I didn't deserve to be in the classroom anyway.

So, that out of the way, what makes a good teacher?  Of course, most of my conversations on this topic have been with other teachers I consider to be outstanding, and given the respect that teachers get in this society, maybe this is all for nought, but the latest conversation made me think.  I, hardly surprisingly, had/have an opinion: what separates the good teachers from the mediocre/bad/ones that should go get another job: the ones that are always thinking about their practice and thinking about how to improve it.  A friend of mine put it better: adaptability - which covers a much broader range of skills.  I tend to think about how to improve after the fact - adaptability is about adjusting in the moment (not my strength - which maybe explains my frustrations and self-doubt).  Anyway, the overall point here is that good teachers don't tend to be static or stuck in their ways.

The MAT program at Duke U.'s mantra is "A.L.E.R.T.": "A Liberally Educated, Reflective Teacher".  (It's kinda amazing I still remember that after all these years, especially as it was first introduced to me on the, like, last day of classes when we were told that accreditation people would be popping by and if we didn't say anything else we should at least repeat the mantra.)  The point, of course, is to always be thinking about what you are doing so that you can make adjustments if things aren't working well, or could work better.  In that sense, good teachers are born, not made.  I'm not sure you can really teach that, which is why it is so hard to figure out who is a good teacher and who isn't until they get up in front of the class and teach a couple of years.