1/5

Written Assignment for the Orientation Course, ASC, A.M.U. 10 March to 06 April 2010

Qualities of a Good Teacher

The title is provocative in the sense as it is likely to encourage an adolescent temptation to seek the best possible adjectives for creating an ideal image of a teacher. Such an image may look beautiful but always from a distance. And as we zoom in we discover for our astonishment that such a picture looks good only in the frame hanging on the wall. My contention in terms of writing about the qualities or characteristics of a good teacher lies in the position where I will try to re-consider the traditional deterministic approach in the understanding of a good teacher. An ethical understanding of the role of a teacher should primarily be based on pragmatic grounds. The quality of a good teacher is not always determined by the way s/he changes the life of a student. If a student is determined to remain the same for not really good reasons then s/he may need a different kind of counseling. It does not qualify to be a quality if a teacher supposed to give a lecture on Shakespeares Hamlet consumes half the time with a moral lecture just because

2/5

s/he realizes a few students need it. Moreover, it is unfair to take the other students for granted who are eager or desperate to know as much about Hamlet as possible. A good teacher will always try to be focused and precisely talk about the subject.

If discipline implies a dictator oriented and teacher-centric hegemony the student is bound to feel intimidated and the class is likely to become a prototype of a certain monarchy where any kind of resistance, whether in the form of a question or argument, is not appreciated. The eminence of a teacher should be established on the fact how s/he is able to retain the essential human paradigm implicit in the phrase be yourself, which implies a certain level of equanimity necessary for any interpersonal transaction. The degree of transformation must considerably vary when we enter the classroom space and an interrogation chamber. One of the great English writers Oscar Wilde, whose life was pregnant with nonconformities and controversy, wrote that the worst punishment you can give to a student is by stopping him/her to attend the school. By which he meant that a school must be so entertaining that nobody would want to miss a day. Pedagogy should be treated as a kind of art. It largely depends on the skills of a teacher to make the dissemination of knowledge an entertaining enterprise.

3/5

The capabilities of a student cannot always be judged by his/her behavior. The so called ill-behaviors can be working as an impetus for a certain genius. There is no dearth of examples to support this point-of-view. For instance the Nobel Prize winner economist and mathematician John Forbes Nash is a popular story. There are countless such examples from artists, poets, writers and scientists who are as much notorious for their eccentric and nonconformist life style as they are remembered for their great contribution to mankind. The mental illness of Sir Isaac Newton, Vincent van Gogh, Beethoven, Edgar Allan Poe and many more has generated a lot of discussion and debate for years. However, there are certain limits to the madness of a genius after which any justification is futile. But we can at least consider some of the simple gestures that we often over-state as highly objectionable. For instance, it is not always bad to be aggressive as long as it is motivated by a constructive anxiety. Sometimes it requires more energy to execute what we hold to be true and just. Before preaching a generalized version of the ethics of human behaviors a good teacher would always try to analyze it in the specific context.

The students in a classroom are often arbitrarily divided into three categories; like average, below-average and above-average. For a teacher the real challenge lies in understanding the real reasons for such a disparity. It is no good to boost the

4/5

morale of a below-average student if s/he does not show any sign that would suggest his true inclination for the study s/he is perusing. When it comes to higher education, which provides a specialization in any given discipline, it becomes imperative to make such a choice useful for the future prospects of a student. And it takes a good teacher to identify such a case and take initiatives to rectify the disparity before it is too late. At the higher education level the general age group of the students is between 18 and 24 year olds. Considering the highly vulnerable age group of the students teaching becomes a profoundly sensitive business. A great care needs to be taken in order to channelize the students according to their individual aptitude. The abilities of a teacher are judged on the basis of transforming the life of a student without changing his/her inherent archetypal sensibilities. In the making of an overall personality such a transformation should involve an orientation to develop a sense of responsibility; sensitivity towards the surroundings; to think analytically, critically and aesthetically; and to realize ones potential for self-development as well as the development of the nation or the world. One of the best attribute of a good teacher is to instigate a sense of passion for life and work among the students. Passion is the driving force that gives us energy to take challenges. As we know life is not always a happy-go-lucky thing. At every point as we step into future we are confronted with new challenges like rapid

5/5

climate change, species extinction, economic collapse and poverty, overpopulation, a threat to internal security, various forms of discrimination and the violation of human rights anticipating issues concerning the survival of humanity. We are in need of more beautiful minds, more kind souls and more brave hearts to safeguard our future. It is in this sense we must treat and train our students as the warriors of the future. A teacher needs to be well-equipped to perform such a profoundly crucial task. The efficiency of such training is only possible if a teachers methods and strategies are motivated by these foresighted concerns.

Wasim Mushtaq Wani Department of Fine Art, A.M.U Aligarh