What I Learned about Great Teachers

Something I learned about teachers came from a training session this past week. As we were discussing curriculum and instruction, the following information was provided from the Atlantic Monthly:

Great Teachers
• Set big goals for students
• Perpetually look for ways to improve their effectiveness
• Avidly recruit students and their families into the process
• Maintain focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning
• Plan exhaustively and purposefully - for the next day or the year ahead - by working backward from the desired outcome
• Work relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls. - Atlantic Monthly, 2010

Think about the best teachers you know - to what extent do they have one or more of the above qualities?

I also learned that great teachers routinely "blow up" their practice. They constantly reflect, change, and adjust their practice. They are never satisfied. They are their own toughest critics. They are continually restless about their teaching.

I learned that great teachers can't separate teaching from learning. They view their job as the dynamic between themselves and the students. They observe and judge teaching only through the reflection of student learning.

I learned I want great teachers for my children every second of every day.

Toby