What Qualities Will Make You A Great Teacher?

Newstricky| It would be impossible to even try to deny just how important teachers – and educators in general – are to society. Without teachers, we wouldn’t be able to achieve our dreams or move further through life, and very often, it is a teacher’s excellent influence that helps us realize what it is we want to do with our lives in the first place. It can make a big difference to the success or failure of someone’s goals.

This could be why teaching is a popular career choice. Not only can you do something enjoyable, but you can directly influence someone’s life in a positive way; this is hugely rewarding. If you want to be a teacher, how can you become a great one? What qualities do you need? Keep reading to find out.

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You’re Educated

You cannot become a teacher unless you are qualified – this is a fact you’ll need to know because you’ll have to organize the next steps in your education, whether you are leaving high school or changing careers later on in life.

However, there is more to being a great teacher than having the initial qualifications. If you really want to get ahead and be as good as you can be, you’ll never stop learning. This could mean ensuring you gain additional useful qualifications such as a Spalding online EdD program and the certification that comes with it. Or, it could mean that you ensure you educate yourself and stay up to date with all the different methods of teaching, changes to the curriculum, and even technological advances that would make your classroom a more enjoyable learning space. In other words, great teachers never stop learning themselves, which means they can teach others in the best way possible.

You’re Inspirational

When you think back and remember the teachers who helped you the most, whether you were in elementary school, middle school, high school, or even college, what was it about them that you liked the most? What was it that made you learn their lessons more easily than others? In many cases, it will be that the teacher in question was an inspiration to you. They were able to inspire the kids they were teaching to go on and do better, greater things.

So, to be the greatest teacher yourself, this is something you will need to do. Of course, being an inspiration is subjective, and you won’t be able to help everyone. Plus, it’s not an easy trait to learn, but once you know how to engage your class and how to keep their attention, as well as how to help them see their true selves and work on improving themselves, you’ll be able to inspire many students to do much more with their lives. This is something to be proud of and something that the best teachers will try to do as much as possible.

You Challenge The Status Quo

When you are a teacher, you can teach everything exactly the way you learned it, and you can answer any questions by the book. This is fine, although it’s perhaps not very interesting and not very inspiring, no matter how engaging your lessons might actually be.

When you want to push your career further and become a better teacher, you will teach your lessons with an open mind, ready to be challenged and to challenge. You’ll encourage questions that go against what you have just said, and you’ll allow students to discuss why they think this thing or that one. Although your job is to teach facts, it should also be to encourage young people to question things, even if their questions aren’t going to change things.

You Want To Help People

You can become a teacher without feeling the need to help people. You can stand in your classroom and teach your lessons, and your students will learn things. However, in order to be a great teacher, it’s better to have a quality that means you want to help people. If you have this quality, it means you will try harder to ensure that everyone understands what you’re saying, for example.

When you want to help people, you will go above and beyond what your job entails. This will help to make you an inspiration, fondly-remembered teacher who could well be the reason for someone creating a much better life for themselves. Remember, as a teacher, you are responsible for keeping someone on the right track (among other factors, of course), so the more you can do to help them, the better they will do in the future.