"Great" Teachers…
Sunday, December 18, 2011 at 1:01 PM 
Ask Franklin Schools Superintendent Steve Patz or any member of the Franklin school board and they will likely tell you: Franklin public schools have great teachers. Arguably, “great” is relative, but Merriam-Webster defines great this way: An outstandingly superior or skillful person. We do not doubt that Franklin Public Schools has some great teachers, but like any organization it more than likely has its share of not –so-great- teachers, as-well.
In researching what makes a great teacher, we came across a number of websites that attempted to answer the question: What makes a great teacher? You are welcome to Google that question to satisfy your own curiosity, but we settled for an article entitled: Top 5 (Plus 14) Character Traits Of Superior Teachers at a website named: So you want to teach.com.
The article concludes that these are the Top 5 (Plus 14) Character Traits Of Superior Teachers and that if you want to be a great teacher, these are the things you should begin to develop first. How do these traits measure up to your expectation and definition of a great teacher? Meet my hair-pulling fourth grade teacher, Miss Martins:
Top 5 Character Traits of Great Teachers
- Inspired me and never let me settle for anything less than my best.
- Compassionate, caring, made me feel important and welcomed, made a personal connection with me.
- Were demanding, pushed me hard.
- Had a great sense of humor.
- Knowledge of the subject matter.
Other specifics
- Wasn’t afraid of what other people thought.
- Passion for the subject matter.
- Challenged me to think beyond just the answer in the textbook.
- Listened to my ideas.
- Taught me new things.
- A terrific fund raiser.
- Kept things interesting.
- They were interactive.
- Added personal elements to the classroom.
- Organized.
- Wasn’t fake or shallow with comments to students.
- Discipline.
- Confidence.
- They were problem solvers, rather than simply problem identifiers.
THE FRANKLIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL is a member of Michelle Rhee’s studentsfirst.
Here is Rhee discussing studentsfirst.org, school reform and great teachers.
RELATED MEDIA
Not a “Facebooker”?
Fortunately, we no longer have kids in Franklin Public Schools and feel comfortable writing about this subject without fear of reprisals to our kids from teachers doubling as union reps thug-enforcers.
