What Makes a Good Teacher

¶ … Teacher Wars: A History of Americas Most Embattled Profession In her book "The Teacher Wars," Journalist Dana Goldstein describes the numerous trends that have given shape to the present form of, according to the writer, "the most controversial profession in America." Along with the description of the past and the present education scenario in America, especially in the public schools, Goldstein has shown that all the attempts to try educational reforms in American schools have been tried and have essentially failed to achieve the aims set put for.

She also raises some interesting topics which forces us to ask questions to ourselves about the teaching scenario and the teachers and the general atmosphere of education in the society as well as among the polity. Dana Goldstein writes: "even as we were obsessed with the very worst of teachers, we were worshiping an ideal, superhuman few." While we as students and even as parents of students, are often obsessively scornful of the teachers who do not do well.

The general perception is that the majority of the teachers does not do their duty of teaching well and are not attached to the profession which is often defined as a noble profession. However we must also agree that during our school life we do come across one or two teachers who are exceptional and different from other and who set themselves up as examples for the students they teach as well as for those who he/she doesn't.

This raises several questions the primary among them is that do we really believe that most of the teachers in our public schools are non-performers and probably not qualified to do the job that they are doing? Is there a general lack of commitment and love towards the profession of teaching among such teachers? Do we spend too much time criticizing and scorning the worst of the teachers rather than admiring the ones who are exceptional? This also leads us to question about what is the role that students need to play in identifying the teachers our schools who do not perform well and how could the best be brought out from them.

In the book Goldstein further writes: "what I do believe is that the education reformers today should learn from the mistakes of history. We must focus less on how to rank and fire teachers and more on how to make day-to-day teaching attractive, challenging job that intelligent creative and ambitious people will gravitate toward." This is one of the more important topics about educational reforms that have often occupied center stage in polity discussion as well as discussing topic of policy change.

In the earlier comment by the writer where she writes about our obsession with the worst of teachers as being of the same level as our obsession with e best one or the ones we idolize. In this comment, the writer suggests one of the ways in which the performance of the teachers can be improved and which should be one of the aims of the education reform efforts rather than ranking teachers or firing them.

Teaching is one of the most controversial professions in America and has raised several questions about the reforms efforts.

Should the reform efforts be concentrated in grading teachers according to performance and should the worst performers be fired? Is there need for knowing the reason of underperformers of a section of teachers? Is the general lack of interest in the profession the primary reason for the underperformance of teachers? There is also need to question the evaluation parameters of teachers and questions are being raised about whether teachers, who should command respect from the students in particular and the society in general, be graded? This comment also raises questions about whether the teaching profession should be so designed -- not only in terms of pay packages, but also transform the job into a challenging one for the teachers so that more individuals a=who look for a challenging profession get attracted to wards teaching? How can the teaching profession be designed so that it can support the demands of the creative as well as the ambitious? It can be said that if this can be achieved through educational reforms, the problem of substandard or de-motivated teachers would be solved.

In another part of the book the writer says: "Schools transferred some of their best teachers out of the earliest grades, kindergarten through second, and into the tested grades, third through eighth, despite evidence that good instruction in those early years has the most profound impact on children's long-term reading ability." In the earlier comment by the writer she talked about the ranking of teachers. In this comment she talks about the transfers of some of the best teachers out of the earliest grades.

Such grades start from kindergarten to second grade and from third to eighth grade.

These are the formative years for students and questions are raised about whether specialized teachers who have gathered experience of teaching students in these lower grades be replaced? Questions should be asked about whether teachers who have worked for sometime in the lower classes and gathered experience to teach the students in their formative years when they learn to read and write, be transferred to other grades? Does this policy of transfers affect the performance of the students in any manner or does it negatively affect the students when a new teacher comes? Dies this form of transfer affect the functioning of the teacher and their ability as they have to reorient themselves to teach new syllabi and tech students.