essence of being a teacher essay

Essay About Being a Teacher: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

If you are writing an essay about being a teacher, here are some examples to give you inspiration.

Without a doubt, teaching is one of the most important professions one can have. Teachers give children the lessons they must learn to face the future and contribute positively to society. They can be considered the gateway to success stories such as Oprah Winfrey , Adele , and John Legend , all of whom have cited their teachers as major inspirations to their careers.

Many educators would say that “teaching is its own reward.” However, it may be difficult to see how this is the case, especially considering the fact that being an educator entails massive amounts of stress and pressure. Teaching has actually been reported to be one of the most underpaid jobs , yet many teachers still love what they do. Why is this?

If you want to write an essay about being a teacher, whether you are one or not, you can get started by reading the 5 examples featured here.

1. Reflections on being a teacher … by Darren Koh

2. teaching in the pandemic: ‘this is not sustainable’ by natasha singer, 3. why i got rid of my teacher’s desk by matthew r. morris, 4. stress is pushing many teachers out of the profession by daphne gomez, 5. doubt and dreams by katheryn england, top writing prompts on essay about being a teacher, 1. what makes teaching so fulfilling, 2. what can you learn from being a teacher, 3. why do people become teachers, 4. should you become a teacher, 5. how have teachers helped you become who you are today.

“Although strictly speaking, based on the appointments I hold, I really do not have time to do much of it. I say teach, not lecturing. The lecturer steps up to the lectern and declaims her knowledge. She points out the difficulties in the area, she talks about solutions to problems, and she makes suggestions for reform. The focus is on the subject – the students follow. The teacher, however, needs to meet the students where they are in order to bring them to where they have to be. The focus is on the student’s ability.”

Koh writes about how he teaches, the difficulties of teaching, and what it means to be a teacher. He helps his students hone their skills and use them critically. He also discusses the difficulty of connecting with each student and focusing their attention on application rather than mere knowledge. Koh wants students to achieve their full potential; teaching to him is engaging, inspirational, and transparent. He wants readers to know that being a teacher is rewarding yet difficult, and is something he holds close to his heart.

“‘I work until midnight each night trying to lock and load all my links, lessons, etc. I never get ahead,” one anonymous educator wrote. ‘Emails, endless email. Parents blaming me because their kids chose to stay in bed, on phones, on video games instead of doing work.’”

Singer writes about the difficult life of teachers trying to balance in-person and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of the standard class routine, being a teacher during the pandemic has entailed the burden of handling students who opt for remote learning. They are faced with additional struggles, including connection issues, complaining parents, and being overworked in general- it’s as if they teach twice the number of classes as normal. This is exhausting and may prove detrimental to the American education system, according to the sources Singer cites.

“What it means to me is that I am checking (or acknowledging) my privilege as a teacher in the space of the classroom and in order to facilitate a more equitable classroom community for my students, erasing one of the pillars of that inequity is a step in the right direction. I am comfortable in my role as the head member in my classroom, and I don’t need a teacher’s desk anymore to signify that.”

Morris, an educator, writes about what teaching means to him, highlighted by his decision to remove his teacher’s desk from his classroom. Being a teacher for him is about leading the discussion or being the “lead learner,” as he puts it, rather than being an instructor. His removal of the teacher’s desk was decided upon based on his desire to help his students feel more equal and at home in class. He believes that being a teacher means being able to foster authentic connections both for and with his students.

“Teachers want to help all students achieve, and the feeling of leaving any student behind is devastating. The pressure that they put on themselves to ensure that they serve all students can also contribute to the stress.”

Gomez writes about the stress that comes with being a teacher, largely due to time constraints, lack of resources, and the number of students they must instruct. As much as they want to help their students, their environment does not allow them to touch the lives of all students equally. They are extremely pressured to uphold certain standards of work, and while they try as hard as they can, they do not always succeed. As a result, many teachers have left the profession altogether. Gomez ends her piece with an invitation for teachers to read about other job opportunities.

“Then I re-evaluate what I want for myself, and what it is that keeps me working towards my dreams. Through the goals I’ve set for myself, I can maintain focus, move past my self-doubt and succeed. By focusing on my goals, I can make a difference in the world directly around me.”

Taken from a collection of short essays, England’s essay is about why she so desperately wishes to become a teacher. She was previously able to work as a teaching assistant to her former elementary school teacher, and enjoyed imparting new knowledge unto children. Even in moments of self-doubt, she reminds herself to be confident in her dreams and hopes to be able to make a difference in the world with her future profession.

Essay about being a teacher: What makes teaching so fulfilling?

When it comes to teachers, we often hear about either “the joy of teaching” or the immense stress that comes with it. You can explore the gratitude and satisfaction that teachers feel toward their jobs, even with all the struggles they face. Read or watch the news and interviews with teachers themselves.

Research on the skills and qualifications people need to be teachers, as well as any qualities they may need to do their job well. What skills can you get from teaching? What traits can you develop? What lessons can you learn?

Despite the seemingly endless barrage of stories about the difficulties that teachers face, many people still want to teach. You can explore the reasoning behind their decisions, and perhaps get some personal insight on being a teacher as well.

Based on what you know, would you recommend teaching as a job? If you aren’t too knowledgeable on this topic, you can use the essay examples provided as guides- they present both the positive and negative aspects of being a teacher. Be sure to support your argument with ample evidence- interviews, anecdotes, statistics, and the like.

Teachers, whether in a school setting or not, have almost certainly helped make you into the person you are now. You can discuss the impact that your teachers have had on your life, for better or for worse, and the importance of their roles as teachers in forming students for the future.

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

View all posts

MyU : For Students, Faculty, and Staff
Academic Leaders
Faculty and Instructors
Graduate Students and Postdocs

Center for Educational Innovation

Campus and Collegiate Liaisons
Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club
Teaching Enrichment Series
Recorded Webinars
Video Series
All Services
Teaching Consultations
Student Feedback Facilitation
Instructional Media Production
Curricular and Educational Initiative Consultations
Educational Research and Evaluation
Thank a Teacher
All Teaching Resources
Aligned Course Design
Active Learning
Team Projects
Active Learning Classrooms
Leveraging the Learning Sciences
Inclusive Teaching at a Predominantly White Institution
Assessments
Online Teaching and Design
AI and ChatGPT in Teaching
Documenting Growth in Teaching
Early Term Feedback
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Writing Your Teaching Philosophy
All Programs
Assessment Deep Dive
Designing and Delivering Online Learning
Early Career Teaching and Learning Program
International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Program
Preparing Future Faculty Program
Teaching with Access and Inclusion Program
Teaching for Student Well-Being Program
Teaching Assistant and Postdoc Professional Development Program

Your teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning. It's a one to two page narrative that conveys your core ideas about being an effective teacher in the context of your discipline. It develops these ideas with specific, concrete examples of what the teacher and learners will do to achieve those goals. Importantly, your teaching philosophy statement also explains why you choose these options.

+ Getting Started

Your reasons for writing a teaching philosophy may vary. You might be writing it as an exercise in concisely documenting your beliefs so that you can easily articulate them to your students, peers, or a search committee. It might serve as the introduction to your teaching portfolio. Or, it can serve as a means of professional growth as it requires you to give examples of how you enact your philosophy, thus requiring you to consider the degree to which your teaching is congruent with your beliefs.

Generating ideas

Teaching philosophies express your values and beliefs about teaching. They are personal statements that introduce you, as a teacher, to your reader. As such, they are written in the first person and convey a confident, professional tone. When writing a teaching philosophy, use specific examples to illustrate your points. You should also discuss how your values and beliefs about teaching fit into the context of your discipline.

Below are categories you might address with prompts to help you begin generating ideas. Work through each category, spending time thinking about the prompts and writing your ideas down. These notes will comprise the material you’ll use to write the first draft of your teaching philosophy statement. It will help if you include both general ideas (‘I endeavor to create lifelong learners’) as well as specifics about how you will enact those goals. A teaching philosophy template is also available to help you get started.

Questions to prompt your thinking

Your concept of learning.

What do you mean by learning? What happens in a successful learning situation? Note what constitutes "learning" or "mastery" in your discipline.

Your concept of teaching

What are your values, beliefs, and aspirations as a teacher? Do you wish to encourage mastery, competency, transformational learning, lifelong learning, general transference of skills, critical thinking? What does a perfect teaching situation look like to you and why? How are the values and beliefs realized in classroom activities? You may discuss course materials, lesson plans, activities, assignments, and assessment instruments.

Your goals for students

What skills should students obtain as a result of your teaching? Think about your ideal student and what the outcomes of your teaching would be in terms of this student's knowledge or behavior. Address the goals you have for specific classes or curricula and that rational behind them (i.e., critical thinking, writing, or problem solving).

Your teaching methods

What methods will you consider to reach these goals and objectives? What are your beliefs regarding learning theory and specific strategies you would use, such as case studies, group work, simulations, interactive lectures? You might also want to include any new ideas or strategies you want to try.

Your interaction with students

What are you attitudes towards advising and mentoring students? How would an observer see you interact with students? Why do you want to work with students?

Assessing learning

How will you assess student growth and learning? What are your beliefs about grading? Do you grade students on a percentage scale (criterion referenced) or on a curve (norm referenced)? What different types of assessment will you use (i.e. traditional tests, projects, portfolios, presentations) and why?

Professional growth

How will you continue growing as a teacher? What goals do you have for yourself and how will you reach them? How have your attitudes towards teaching and learning changed over time? How will you use student evaluations to improve your teaching? How might you learn new skills? How do you know when you've taught effectively?

+ Creating a Draft

Two ways of organizing your draft.

Now that you've written down your values, attitudes, and beliefs about teaching and learning, it's time to organize those thoughts into a coherent form. Perhaps the easiest way of organizing this material would be to write a paragraph covering each of the seven prompts you answered in the Getting Started section. These would then become the seven major sections of your teaching philosophy.

Another way of knitting your reflections together—and one that is more personal—is to read through your notes and underscore ideas or observations that come up more than once. Think of these as "themes" that might point you toward an organizational structure for the essay. For example, you read through your notes and realize that you spend a good deal of time writing about your interest in mentoring students. This might become one of the three or four major foci of your teaching philosophy. You should then discuss what it says about your attitudes toward teaching, learning, and what's important in your discipline.

No matter which style you choose, make sure to keep your writing succinct. Aim for two double-spaced pages. And don't forget to start with a "hook." Your job is to make your readers want to read more; their level of engagement is highest when they read your opening line. Hook your readers by beginning with a question, a statement, or even an event from your past.

Using specific examples

Remember to provide concrete examples from your teaching practice to illustrate the general claims you make in your teaching philosophy. The following general statements about teaching are intended as prompts to help you come up with examples to illustrate your claims about teaching. For each statement, how would you describe what happens in your classroom? Is your description specific enough to bring the scene to life in a teaching philosophy?

"I value helping my students understand difficult information. I am an expert, and my role is to model for them complex ways of thinking so that they can develop the same habits of mind as professionals in the medical field."

"I enjoy lecturing, and I'm good at it. I always make an effort to engage and motivate my students when I lecture."

"It is crucial for students of geology to learn the techniques of field research. An important part of my job as a professor of geology is to provide these opportunities."

"I believe that beginning physics students should be introduced to the principles of hypothesis generation, experimentation, data collection, and analysis. By learning the scientific method, they develop critical thinking skills they can apply to other areas of their lives. Small group work is a crucial tool for teaching the scientific method."

"As a teacher of writing, I am committed to using peer review in my classes. By reading and commenting on other students' work in small cooperative groups, my students learn to find their voice, to understand the important connection between writer and audience, and to hone their editing skills. Small group work is indispensible in the writing classroom."

Go back to the notes you made when getting started and underline the general statements you’ve made about teaching and learning. As you start drafting, make sure to note the specific approaches, methods, or products you use to realize those goals.

+ Assessing Your Draft

Assessing your draft teaching philosophy.

According to a survey of search committee chairs by the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, there are five elements that are shared by strong teaching philosophy statements:

They offer evidence of practice (specific examples)
They are student-centered
They demonstrate reflectiveness
They demonstrate that the writer values teaching
They are well written, clear, and readable

Now that you’ve completed an initial draft, ask whether your statement captures these elements and how well you articulate them.

You might find it useful to compare your draft to other teaching philosophies in your discipline. It can also be useful to have a colleague review your draft and offer recommendations for revision. Consider printing out a teaching philosophy rubric from our “Rubrics and Samples” tab to provide your reviewer with guidelines to assess your draft. These exercises will give you the critical distance necessary to see your teaching philosophy objectively and revise it accordingly.

+ Rubrics and Samples

Rubrics and sample teaching philosophies.

Here are links to three teaching philosophy rubrics to help you assess your statement. We have included four different rubrics for you to choose from. These rubrics cover similar elements, and one is not necessarily better than the other. Your choice of which to use should be guided by how comfortable you feel with the particular instrument and how usable you find it.

Teaching Philosophy Rubric 1 This rubric allows a reader to rate several elements of persuasiveness and format on a scale of 1 to 5.
Teaching Philosophy Rubric 2 This rubric contains prompts for assessing purpose and audience, voice, beliefs and support, and conventions.
Teaching Philosophy Rubric 3 This rubric contains prompts for assessing content, format, and writing quality.
Rubric for Statements of Teaching Philosophy This rubric was developed by Kaplan et. al. from the University of Michigan.
Marisol Brito – philosophy
Benjamin Harrison – biology
Jamie Peterson – psychology
The University of Michigan has a wide variety of samples organized by field of study.
Research and Resources
Why Use Active Learning?
Successful Active Learning Implementation
Addressing Active Learning Challenges
Why Use Team Projects?
Project Description Examples
Project Description for Students
Team Projects and Student Development Outcomes
Forming Teams
Team Output
Individual Contributions to the Team
Individual Student Understanding
Supporting Students
Wrapping up the Project
Addressing Challenges
Course Planning
Working memory
Retrieval of information
Spaced practice
Active learning
Metacognition
Definitions and PWI Focus
A Flexible Framework
Class Climate
Course Content
An Ongoing Endeavor
Align Assessments
Multiple Low Stakes Assessments
Authentic Assessments
Formative and Summative Assessments
Varied Forms of Assessments
Cumulative Assessments
Equitable Assessments
Essay Exams
Multiple Choice Exams and Quizzes
Academic Paper
Skill Observation
Alternative Assessments
Assessment Plan
Grade Assessments
Prepare Students
Reduce Student Anxiety
SRT Scores: Interpreting & Responding
Student Feedback Question Prompts
Research Questions and Design
Gathering data
Publication
GRAD 8101: Teaching in Higher Education
Finding a Practicum Mentor
GRAD 8200: Teaching for Learning
Proficiency Rating & TA Eligibility
Schedule a SETTA
TAPD Webinars

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, the essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters ∗.

Studying Teaching and Teacher Education

ISBN : 978-1-83753-623-8 , eISBN : 978-1-83753-622-1

Publication date: 10 August 2023

The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the specialist knowledge, skills, and abilities that underpin expertise in teaching and to do so through their practice with their students of teaching. In schools, teachers do not commonly experience a workplace culture whereby the explicit discussion and critique of pedagogical purpose and reasoning occurs. Therefore, it is all the more important that teacher educators bring such thinking to the surface in their teaching about teaching. Teaching is not just about the “doing” of teaching; it is also about the “why” – which leads to the development of informed and meaningful practice to enhance student learning. This chapter considers some of the principles that underpin thinking about teaching as more than transmission and therefore shapes what teacher educators need to know and are able to do.

Teacher educator
Scholarship in teacher education
Pedagogy of teacher education

Loughran, J. and Menter, I. (2023), "The Essence of Being a Teacher Educator and Why It Matters ∗ ", Craig, C.J. , Mena, J. and Kane, R.G. (Ed.) Studying Teaching and Teacher Education ( Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 44 ), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720230000044008

Emerald Publishing Limited

We’re listening — tell us what you think

Something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

NAEYC Login
Member Profile
Hello Community
Accreditation Portal
Online Learning
Online Store

Popular Searches: DAP ; Coping with COVID-19 ; E-books ; Anti-Bias Education ; Online Store

Becoming a Teacher: What I Learned about Myself During the Pandemic

Now, more than ever, we need to hear the voices of preservice teachers as well as in-service teachers during this pandemic. How has the pandemic affected them? In what ways has the pandemic enabled them to think about the need to really focus on what matters, what’s important? What were the gains and losses? These are very important questions for our time. In this essay, Alyssa Smith, a senior studying early childhood education, attempts to address the lessons learned from her junior year, focusing on the positive aspects of her coursework and demonstrating an imaginative, growth mindset. This essay highlights the power of students’ reflection on their own learning. But I think it does so much more meaningful contemplation than we might expect of our students in “normal” times. Alyssa gains a new appreciation for this kind of active reflection—the opportunity to think more critically; to be more thoughtful; to stop, step back, catch her breath, and rethink things. As a teacher educator and her mentor, I believe this essay represents how the gift of time to stop and reflect can open space to digest what has been experienced, and how the gift of reflective writing can create a deeper level of thinking about how experiences integrate with one’s larger narrative as a person.

About the Author

Andrew Stremmel, PhD, is professor in early childhood education at South Dakota State University. His research is in teacher action research and Reggio Emilia-inspired, inquiry-based approaches to early childhood teacher education. He is an executive editor of Voices of Practitioners .

I’ve always known I was meant to be a teacher. I could feel my passion guide my work and lead my heart through my classes. So why did I still feel as if something was missing? During the fall of my junior year, the semester right before student teaching, I began to doubt my ability to be a great teacher, as I did not feel completely satisfied in my work. What I did not expect was a global pandemic that would shut down school and move all coursework online. I broke down. I wanted to do more than simply be a good student. I wanted to learn to be a great teacher. How was I supposed to discover my purpose and find what I was missing when I couldn’t even attend my classes? I began to fret that I would never become the capable and inspirational educator that I strived to be, when I was missing the firsthand experience of being in classrooms, interacting with children, and collaborating with peers.

It wasn’t until my first full semester being an online student that I realized the pandemic wasn’t entirely detrimental to my learning. Two of my early childhood education courses, Play and Inquiry and Pedagogy and Curriculum, allowed limited yet meaningful participation in a university lab school as well as engagement with problems of substance that require more intense thinking, discussion, analysis, and thoughtful action. These problems, which I briefly discuss below, presented challenges, provocations, possibilities, and dilemmas to be pondered, and not necessarily resolved. Specifically, they pushed me to realize that the educational question for our time is not, “What do I need to know about how to teach?” Rather, it is, “What do I need to know about myself in the context of this current pandemic?” I was therefore challenged to think more deeply about who I wanted to be as a teacher and who I was becoming, what I care about and value, and how I will conduct myself in the classroom with my students.

These three foundations of teaching practice (who I want to be, what I value, and how I will conduct myself) were illuminated by a question that was presented to us students in one of the very first classes of the fall 2020 semester: “What’s happening right now in your experience that will help you to learn more about yourself and who you are becoming?” This provocation led me to discover that, while the COVID-19 pandemic brought to light (and at times magnified) many fears and insecurities I had as a prospective teacher, it also provided me with unique opportunities, time to reflect, and surprising courage that I feel would not otherwise have been afforded and appreciated.

Although I knew I wanted to be a teacher, I had never deliberately pondered the idea of what kind of teacher I wanted to be. I held the core values of being an advocate for children and helping them grow as confident individuals, but I still had no idea what teaching style I was to present. Fortunately, the pandemic enabled me to view my courses on play and curriculum as a big “look into the mirror” to discern what matters and what was important about becoming a teacher.

As I worked through the rest of the course, I realized that this project pushed me to think about my identity as an educator in relation to my students rather than simply helping me understand my students, as I initially thought. Instead, a teacher’s identity is formed in relation to or in relationship with our students: We take what we know about our students and use it to shape ourselves and how we teach. I found that I had to take a step back and evaluate my own perceptions and beliefs about children and who I am in relation to them. Consequently, this motivated me to think about myself as a classroom teacher during the COVID-19 pandemic. What did I know about children that would influence the way I would teach them?

I thought about how children were resilient, strong, and adaptable, possessing an innate ability to learn in nearly any setting. While there were so many uncertainties and fear surrounding them, they adapted to mask-wearing, limited children in the classroom, and differentiated tasks to limit cross-contamination. Throughout, the children embodied being an engaged learner. They did not seem to focus on what they were missing; their limitless curiosity could not keep them from learning. Yet, because young children learn primarily through relationships, they need some place of learning that helps them to have a connection with someone who truly knows, understands, and cares about them. Thus, perhaps more than any lesson, I recognized my relationship with children as more crucial. By having more time to think about children from this critical perspective, I felt in my heart the deeper meaning children held to me.

My compassion for children grew, and a greater respect for them took shape, which overall is what pushed me to see my greater purpose for who I want to be as an educator. The pandemic provided time to develop this stronger vision of children, a clearer understanding of how they learn, and how my identity as a teacher is formed in relationship with children. I don’t think I would have been able to develop such a rich picture of how I view children without an in-depth exploration of my identity, beliefs, and values.

In my curriculum course, I was presented a different problem that helped me reflect on who I am becoming as an educator. This was presented as a case study where we as students were asked the question, “Should schools reopen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic?” This was a question that stumped school districts around the nation, making me doubt that I would be able to come up with anything that would be remotely practical. I now was experiencing another significant consequence of the pandemic: a need for new, innovative thinking on how to address state-wide academic issues. My lack of confidence, paired with the unknowns presented by the pandemic, made me feel inadequate to take on this problem of meaning.

To address this problem, I considered more intentionally and reflectively what I knew about how children learn; issues of equity and inequality that have led to a perceived achievement gap; the voices of both teachers and families; a broader notion of what school might look like in the “new normal”; and the role of the community in the education of young children. Suddenly, I was thinking in a more critical way about how to address this problem from the mindset of an actual and more experienced teacher, one who had never faced such a conundrum before. I knew that I had to design a way to allow children to come back into a classroom setting, and ultimately find inspiration for learning in this new normal. I created this graphic (above) to inform families and teachers why it is vital to have students return to school. As a result, I became an educator. I was now thinking, feeling, and acting as a teacher. This case study made me think about myself and who I am becoming as a teacher in a way that was incredibly real and relevant to what teachers were facing. I now found inspiration in the COVID-19 pandemic, as it unlocked elements of myself that I did not know existed.

John Dewey (1916) has been attributed to stating, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” Learning may begin in the classroom, but it does not end there. Likewise, teaching is not a role, but a way of being. The ability to connect with children and to engage them meaningfully depends less on the methods we use than on the degree to which we know and trust ourselves and are willing to share that knowledge with them. That comes through continually reflecting on who we are in relation to children and their families, and what we do in the classroom to create more meaningful understanding of our experiences. By embodying the role of being an educator, I grew in ways that classroom curriculum couldn't prepare me for. Had it not been for the pandemic, this might not have been possible.

Dewey, J. 1916. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education . New York: MacMillan.

Alyssa Marie Smith is currently an early childhood education student studying at South Dakota State University. She has been a student teacher in the preschool lab on campus, and now works as a kindergarten out of school time teacher in this same lab school. In the fall, she plans to student teach in an elementary setting, and then go on to teach in her own elementary classroom.

Print this article

Our Mission

Redefining the Role of the Teacher: It’s a Multifaceted Profession

A closer look at what being an educator really means.

Imagine a school where teaching is considered to be a profession rather than a trade. The role of teachers in a child's education -- and in American culture -- has fundamentally changed. Teaching differs from the old "show-and-tell" practices as much as modern medical techniques differ from practices such as applying leeches and bloodletting.

Instruction doesn't consist primarily of lecturing to students who sit in rows at desks, dutifully listening and recording what they hear, but, rather, offers every child a rich, rewarding, and unique learning experience. The educational environment isn't confined to the classroom but, instead, extends into the home and the community and around the world. Information isn't bound primarily in books; it's available everywhere in bits and bytes.

Students aren't consumers of facts. They are active creators of knowledge. Schools aren't just brick-and-mortar structures -- they're centers of lifelong learning. And, most important, teaching is recognized as one of the most challenging and respected career choices, absolutely vital to the social, cultural, and economic health of our nation.

Today, the seeds of such a dramatic transformation in education are being planted. Prompted by massive revolutions in knowledge, information technology, and public demand for better learning, schools nationwide are slowly but surely restructuring themselves.

Leading the way are thousands of teachers who are rethinking every part of their jobs -- their relationship with students, colleagues, and the community; the tools and techniques they employ; their rights and responsibilities; the form and content of curriculum; what standards to set and how to assess whether they are being met; their preparation as teachers and their ongoing professional development; and the very structure of the schools in which they work. In short, teachers are reinventing themselves and their occupation to better serve schools and students.

New Relationships and Practices

Traditionally, teaching was a combination of information-dispensing, custodial child care and sorting out academically inclined students from others. The underlying model for schools was an education factory in which adults, paid hourly or daily wages, kept like-aged youngsters sitting still for standardized lessons and tests.

Teachers were told what, when, and how to teach. They were required to educate every student in exactly the same way and were not held responsible when many failed to learn. They were expected to teach using the same methods as past generations, and any deviation from traditional practices was discouraged by supervisors or prohibited by myriad education laws and regulations. Thus, many teachers simply stood in front of the class and delivered the same lessons year after year, growing gray and weary of not being allowed to change what they were doing.

Many teachers today, however, are encouraged to adapt and adopt new practices that acknowledge both the art and science of learning. They understand that the essence of education is a close relationship between a knowledgeable, caring adult and a secure, motivated child. They grasp that their most important role is to get to know each student as an individual in order to comprehend his or her unique needs, learning style, social and cultural background, interests, and abilities.

This attention to personal qualities is all the more important as America continues to become the most pluralistic nation on Earth. Teachers have to be committed to relating to youngsters of many cultures, including those young people who, with traditional teaching, might have dropped out -- or have been forced out -- of the education system.

Their job is to counsel students as they grow and mature -- helping them integrate their social, emotional, and intellectual growth -- so the union of these sometimes separate dimensions yields the abilities to seek, understand, and use knowledge; to make better decisions in their personal lives; and to value contributing to society.

They must be prepared and permitted to intervene at any time and in any way to make sure learning occurs. Rather than see themselves solely as masters of subject matter such as history, math, or science, teachers increasingly understand that they must also inspire a love of learning.

In practice, this new relationship between teachers and students takes the form of a different concept of instruction. Tuning in to how students really learn prompts many teachers to reject teaching that is primarily lecture based in favor of instruction that challenges students to take an active role in learning.

They no longer see their primary role as being the king or queen of the classroom, a benevolent dictator deciding what's best for the powerless underlings in their care. They've found they accomplish more if they adopt the role of educational guides, facilitators, and co-learners.

The most respected teachers have discovered how to make students passionate participants in the instructional process by providing project-based, participatory, educational adventures. They know that in order to get students to truly take responsibility for their own education, the curriculum must relate to their lives, learning activities must engage their natural curiosity, and assessments must measure real accomplishments and be an integral part of learning.

Students work harder when teachers give them a role in determining the form and content of their schooling -- helping them create their own learning plans and deciding the ways in which they will demonstrate that they have, in fact, learned what they agreed to learn.

The day-to-day job of a teacher, rather than broadcasting content, is becoming one of designing and guiding students through engaging learning opportunities. An educator's most important responsibility is to search out and construct meaningful educational experiences that allow students to solve real-world problems and show they have learned the big ideas, powerful skills, and habits of mind and heart that meet agreed-on educational standards. The result is that the abstract, inert knowledge that students used to memorize from dusty textbooks comes alive as they participate in the creation and extension of new knowledge.

New Tools and Environments

One of the most powerful forces changing teachers' and students' roles in education is new technology. The old model of instruction was predicated on information scarcity. Teachers and their books were information oracles, spreading knowledge to a population with few other ways to get it.

But today's world is awash in information from a multitude of print and electronic sources. The fundamental job of teaching is no longer to distribute facts but to help children learn how to use them by developing their abilities to think critically, solve problems, make informed judgments, and create knowledge that benefits both the students and society. Freed from the responsibility of being primary information providers, teachers have more time to spend working one-on-one or with small groups of students.

Recasting the relationship between students and teachers demands that the structure of school changes as well. Though it is still the norm in many places to isolate teachers in cinderblock rooms with age-graded pupils who rotate through classes every hour throughout a semester -- or every year, in the case of elementary school -- this paradigm is being abandoned in more and more schools that want to give teachers the time, space, and support to do their jobs.

Extended instructional periods and school days, as well as reorganized yearly schedules, are all being tried as ways to avoid chopping learning into often arbitrary chunks based on limited time. Also, rather than inflexibly group students in grades by age, many schools feature mixed-aged classes in which students spend two or more years with the same teachers.

In addition, ability groups, from which those judged less talented can rarely break free, are being challenged by a recognition that current standardized tests do not measure many abilities or take into account the different ways people learn best.

One of the most important innovations in instructional organization is team teaching, in which two or more educators share responsibility for a group of students. This means that an individual teacher no longer has to be all things to all students. This approach allows teachers to apply their strengths, interests, skills, and abilities to the greatest effect, knowing that children won't suffer from their weaknesses, because there's someone with a different set of abilities to back them up.

To truly professionalize teaching, in fact, we need to further differentiate the roles a teacher might fill. Just as a good law firm has a mix of associates, junior partners, and senior partners, schools should have a greater mix of teachers who have appropriate levels of responsibility based on their abilities and experience levels. Also, just as much of a lawyer's work occurs outside the courtroom, so, too, should we recognize that much of a teacher's work is done outside the classroom.

New Professional Responsibilities

Aside from rethinking their primary responsibility as directors of student learning, teachers are also taking on other roles in schools and in their profession. They are working with colleagues, family members, politicians, academics, community members, employers, and others to set clear and obtainable standards for the knowledge, skills, and values we should expect America's children to acquire. They are participating in day-to-day decision making in schools, working side-by-side to set priorities, and dealing with organizational problems that affect their students' learning.

Many teachers also spend time researching various questions of educational effectiveness that expand the understanding of the dynamics of learning. And more teachers are spending time mentoring new members of their profession, making sure that education school graduates are truly ready for the complex challenges of today's classrooms.

Reinventing the role of teachers inside and outside the classroom can result in significantly better schools and better-educated students. But though the roots of such improvement are taking hold in today's schools, they need continued nurturing to grow and truly transform America's learning landscape. The rest of us -- politicians and parents, superintendents and school board members, employers and education school faculty -- must also be willing to rethink our roles in education to give teachers the support, freedom, and trust they need to do the essential job of educating our children.

Judith Taack Lanier is a distinguished professor of education at Michigan State University.

Help & FAQ

The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the specialist knowledge, skills and abilities that underpin expertise in teaching and to do so through their practice with their students of teaching. In schools, teachers do not commonly experience a workplace culture whereby the explicit discussion and critique of pedagogical purpose and reasoning occurs. Therefore, it is all the more important that teacher educators bring such thinking to the surface in their teaching about teaching. Teaching is not just about the “doing” of teaching, it is also about the “why”–which leads to the development of informed and meaningful practice to enhance student learning. This paper considers some of the principles that underpin thinking about teaching as more than transmission and therefore shapes what teacher educators need to know and are able to do.

pedagogy of teacher education
scholarship in teacher education
Teacher educator

Access to Document

10.1080/1359866X.2019.1575946

Being a Teacher

Categories: Teaching

About this sample

Words: 449 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 449 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Heisenberg

Verified writer

Expert in: Education

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1783 words

1 pages / 428 words

3 pages / 1449 words

1 pages / 525 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Teaching

The importance of flexible learning has become increasingly evident in the rapidly evolving landscape of education. In an era marked by technological advancements, diverse learning styles, and changing work environments, the [...]

Teachers should be paid more. This statement reflects a sentiment shared by many who recognize the vital role that educators play in shaping the future of individuals and societies. In a world where education forms the [...]

Flexible learning environment is a concept that has gained prominence in modern education as a means to accommodate diverse learning styles, enhance engagement, and promote effective learning outcomes. The traditional [...]

Should teachers be paid more? This question is at the forefront of discussions surrounding education reform and the value we place on the educators who shape the future of our society. Adequate compensation for teachers is not [...]

Learning is a complex process that requires a lot of effort, so sometimes it can be difficult to prove to students that studying is fun, and you have to find smarter ways to prove it. Is an undeniable fact that cannot be [...]

The purpose of this essay is to critically reflect on providing supervision and mentoring support to others within the work place through teaching, learning and assessment. Evidence will be drawn from knowledge and understanding [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

19 Top Ideas for a “Why I want to be a Teacher” Essay

Here are the 19 best reasons you would want to be a teacher that you can include in your essay:

To help children learn more effectively.
To ensure children have positive mentors.
To improve children’s lives.
To help future generations solve the problems of today.
To help the future generations become good citizens.
To inspire future generations to create a more equal world.
To give back to the community I grew up in.
To be a part of helping my community thrive.
To be a part of my community’s decision-making processes.
Because you have the patience for working with children.
Because you have compassion for children.
Because you want to learn from children.
Because you’re enthusiastic about learning.
Because you are a generous person.
Because you’re interested in learning how to teach difficult students.
Because you’re interested in learning how to work with difficult parents.
Because you’re interested in learning diverse strategies for teaching,
Because you’re interested in learning to master classroom management.
Because you’re interested in learning what works and what doesn’t in teaching.

The ‘Why I want to be a teacher’ essay is all about showing you have thought in-depth about what a teacher does and what their role is in society. It’s also about showing you think you’d be a good person to conduct that role.

The 9 Tips are split into five categories. You can scan this whole post or browse through the categories here:

This essay is hard to get right.

Most students write the exact same thing as one another with the same old cliché statements like “because I love kids” (ugh, wrong answer!). If you do this, your teacher will just give you an average grade (or worse).

You need your essay on “why you want to be a teacher” to be different – indeed excellent – so it stands out for your teacher.

I’ll show you how.

Why should you listen to me? Well, I’ve been teaching university students in education departments for 8 years. In that time I’ve marked several thousand essays by people aiming to become teachers. I know what essays get top marks and which ones are average. I also know exactly what mistakes students make that make their essays seem … dull.

So, let me get you started out by introducing 19 points that you should make in your essay on why you want to be a teacher. I’ll break these 19 points down into 5 separate categories. Check them out below.

Read Also: Is Being a Teacher Worth It? (Why I Quit a Good Job)

1. Definitely do not say “because kids are fun”. Do this instead.

The word ‘fun’ is a big red flag for markers. Too many people want to become teachers because they think it would be a fun profession. Or, they might think that they want to help children have fun . No, no, no.

This is an incorrect answer in your essay about why you want to become a teacher.

Yes, teaching is fun a lot of the time. And it is really nice to see students having fun based on activities you’ve set for them.

But society isn’t paying you to have fun, or even to make children have fun. You’re not going to be a child minder, aunt, uncle or clown. You’re going to be a professional who has a bigger social purpose than having fun.

Now, a lot of students say to me “But, students learn more when they’re having fun.” Sure, that might be true – but it’s not a central reason for teaching.

If making learning more fun is genuinely a reason why you decided to become a teacher, then you need to frame it in a way that shows the importance of teaching for the good of students. Here’s three better ways to say ‘because kids are fun’; for each on, we can start with “I want to become a teacher because…”:

I want to help children learn more effectively. You could say something like: …When I was in school, learning was hard and I therefore hated teaching. There were a lot of teachers who seemed uninspired and uninterested in whether their children are learning. I was inspired to become a teacher so I could help children like myself to learn in ways that are engaging, motivating and inspiring.
I want to ensure children have positive mentors. You could say something like: …Many children in the world don’t have positive mentors at home. A teacher is often the one person in a child’s life who is a stable mentor that the child can lean upon. I chose to become a teacher because I believe all children need a positive mentor that instils in them an interest in the world and a belief that they can make something of themselves.
I want to improve children’s lives. You could say something like: …Being a teacher will give me the power to make children’s lives better. Learning opens doors to new opportunities, ways of thinking and paths in life that children wouldn’t have had before me. I am inspired by the idea of helping a child who is sad, uncertain and lacks confidence to see their own potential for creating a fulfilling life for themselves.

All three of those ideas still skirt around the idea that helping children have fun is something you want to see happen, but they also point out that there’s something deeper here than the idea that children should have fun: they should have fun for a reason. That reason could be so they learn more, develop an interest in the world, or see that their lives are full of potential.

Note that in my three examples above, I never used the word ‘fun’: it’s too much of a red flag for your markers.

2. Explain how teaching helps the world! Here’s how.

Have you ever heard someone say that ‘Teaching is a noble profession’? Well, it is. And this is something you really should be talking about in your essay on why you want to become a teacher.

Your teacher will be impressed by your understanding that teaching is a profession that keeps the world turning. Without teachers, where would we be? Probably back in the dark ages where people couldn’t read or write, technology wasn’t advancing very quickly at all, and people mostly lived in ignorance of their world.

So, being a teacher is has a bigger social purpose. As a teacher, you’ll be an important piece of society. You’ll be one of the army of tens – no, hundreds – of thousands of people helping future generations to propel our world towards better days. Below are some ways teaching helps the world. You can start these off with “I want to become a teacher because…”

I want to help future generations solve the problems of today. Being a teacher gives you the opportunity to propel students to greater heights. The children in your classrooms will be the people who solve climate change (oh, goodness, I hope so!), create the technologies to make our lives more comfortable, and get us out of the ecological, economic and political messes we seem to have gotten ourselves into!
I want to help the future generations become good citizens. There’s a concept called the ‘ hidden curriculum ’. This concept points to the fact that children learn more at school than what’s in the tests. They also learn how to get along, manners, democratic values and the importance of sharing. These soft skills are more than just a by-product of education. They’re incredibly important for showing our students how to get along in our society.
I want to inspire future generations to create a more equal world. A lot of what we talk about at school are moral issues: what’s the right and wrong thing to do? How do our actions ensure or hinder equality of races, genders and social classes? As a teacher, you will be instilling in children the idea that the decisions they make will lead to a more or less equal world. And of course, we all want a more equal world for our children.

These points are some higher-order points that will help you teacher see that you’re becoming a teacher for more than ‘fun’. You’re becoming a teacher because you see the noble purpose in teaching. If you do this right, you’ll surely impress your teacher.

3. Discuss your commitment to community. Here’s how.

Teachers are at the center of communities. Parents take their children to school, drop them off, then go to work. They busily get on with their jobs: architect, shop assistant, nurse, builder, and so on… Then, they all come back at the end of the day to collect their children from school.

School is one of the few things that brings all of these different members of a community together. Parents gather around the pick up location to gather their kids, and there they stand around and chat about sports and politics and community issues.

School is at the heart of community.

And you, as a teacher, will be one of the respected members of that community: there to serve all the members of the community by helping to raise their children with the values of the community in which you live.

You can talk about this as a central reason why you want to be a teacher. How about you start off with: “I want to become a teacher because…”

I want to give back to the community I grew up in. You could say …I grew up in a close-knit community where we all looked out for one another. Being a teacher will give me the opportunity to give back to my friends and mentors in the town who need someone to raise their children who they trust will do a great job.
I want to be a part of helping my community thrive. You could talk about how you are from a growing community that needs good quality, respectable people who will educate future members of your community. As a teacher, you will be at the heart of ensuring your local town remains a great place to live.
I want to be a part of my community’s decision-making processes. Teachers hold a certain authority: they know how students learn, and they usually have a very deep understanding of what is best for children in order to ensure they thrive. You can talk about how you want to become a person with deep knowledge about the children in your community so you can help guide you community’s decisions around how to raise their young people.

Note that in this group of ideas, ‘community’ represents the close-knit town in which you live, whereas in point 2, I talked about ‘society’, which was the bigger picture of the future of our nation or world rather than just your town.

4. Discuss the personality traits you think you can bring to the role. Here’s how.

You should show how you have reflected on the requirements of the role of teaching and thought about whether you have the personality traits that are required.

Why? Well, you need to be able to show that you know what being a teacher is all about… and that you think you’d be good at it.

So, let’s dive in to 5 personality traits that teachers have, and how you can show you have those traits:

Patience. Patience is an enormously popular skill for teachers to have. You’ll have kids who just don’t understand concepts one iota, and you’ve got to sit there and work with them until they get it. It’s tedious, let me tell you!
Compassion. Patience and compassion go hand-in-hand. If you don’t feel empathy for the kid who’s struggling super hard at learning, you’ll get pretty mad and just give up. You might also say some mean things to the kid! So, compassion is really necessary if you want to become a good teacher.
Open minded. Teachers always need to be learning new things. We often talk about the importance of learning with students more than directly teaching If you set a student a task, you’ll be sending them out to gather as much information on the topic as possible. They’ll often come back with new knowledge and you will want to praise them for teaching you something new.
Enthusiasm. Let me tell you, when it’s Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a hot school week and everyone’s depressed and flat there’s one person to rally the troops: you! Teachers need to wake up every morning, put their happy face on, and march into the classroom with boundless enthusiasm. It’ll motivate your students and make them feel welcome in the learning environment.
Generosity. You need to be generous with your time and praise. You need to be constantly thinking about the students in your care and doing anything you can to help them learn, instil in them a love of learning, and give them the confidence to try anything. Teachers need to be very generous people.

There’s a ton more traits that make a good teacher that you can talk about. These are just a few. Go forth and learn more, and add them to your essay!

5. Conclude with the things you still need to learn. Here’s how.

One more thing: good teachers are constantly learning. As someone studying to be a teacher, you need to remember that there’s a long way to go before you have all the answers. Heck, I’ve been a teacher for nearly a decade and I’m not even half way towards knowing everything about being a good teacher.

So, conclude your essay by highlighting that you understand what the role of a teacher is in society and the key competencies required of a teacher; but then go further and mention your enthusiasm to learn more about the profession over the coming years.

Here’s 5 things you can mention that you still need to learn:

How to teach difficult students. Some students hate school – mostly because of their terrible experiences in the past. You need to learn to get through to difficult students, and this takes time and patience to learn the art of inspiring the uninspired.
How to work with difficult parents. Oh boy, you’ll have a lot of these. You can highlight this as one of the key things you want to work on in the coming years: again, you’ll need to draw on that skill of patience (as well as the skill of diplomacy ) when it comes time to deal with an angry parent.
Diverse strategies for teaching. There are a lot of different ways to go about teaching. Over the years you’ll pick up on the various strategies and tricks different teachers have to help children learn.
Classroom management. This is one of the hardest things young teachers need to learn. And really, it just takes time. Discuss how this is something you want to focus on, and how you’ll use mentors to really work on this skill.
What works and what doesn’t. Great teachers have this intuitive knowledge about what works and what doesn’t, all based upon their deep experience and trial-and-error. The only way to learn to teach is to do it. Over the coming years, you’ll be learning about this. A lot.

You’ll only need one or two paragraphs on this final point, but it’s a great way to end your essay on why you want to become a teacher. It’ll show your humility and eagerness to take on one of the noblest professions in the world.

If you want to learn to write a top notch conclusion, you might also like my post on the 5 C’s Conclusion method .

Before you finish up your essay, you might want to check out my awesome posts on how to improve your essays, like these ones:

How to write a killer Introduction
My perfect paragraph formula , and
How to edit your essay like a pro .

I promised 19 thoughtful points to make in your essay about why you want to be a teacher. Here they are, all summed up in one final list:

Say you want to help children learn more effectively.
Say you want to ensure children have positive mentors.
Say you want to improve children’s lives.
Say you want to help future generations solve the problems of today.
Say you want to help the future generations become good citizens.
Say you want to inspire future generations to create a more equal world.
Say you want to give back to the community you grew up in.
Say you want to be a part of helping your community thrive.
Say you want to be a part of your community’s decision-making processes.
Say you want to share your patience with your students.
Say you want to share your compassion with your students.
Say you want to learn from your students (be ‘open minded’)
Say you want to share your enthusiasm for learning with your students.
Say you want to share your generosity with your students.
Say you’re interested in learning how to teach difficult students.
Say you’re interested in learning how to work with difficult parents.
Say you’re interested in learning diverse strategies for teaching,
Say you’re interested in learning to master classroom management.
Say you’re interested in learning what works and what doesn’t in teaching.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

Using your reflections about teaching to be a better teacher

Posted By: John D. Rich Jr., PhD October 23, 2017

One of the things I love about psychology is that it encourages people to be courageous about looking inward and evaluating themselves honestly. This kind of thinking, in my opinion, should extend to your teaching practice. If you think honestly about “how things are going,” in the classroom or in the home, or inside your own motivations (i.e. are you bored with your teaching?), it provides you with an opportunity to think about what you can do differently to produce a different outcome. Be brutally honest about where the gaps are between what you want from your students, and what you are getting, and then, use those reflections about teaching to craft new approaches. When working with (or parenting) children, it is important to remember that you are in control . While there are certainly a lot of other influences on children’s behavior, while a child is in your care, you have the authority to dictate the climate and the rules in that situation.

What goes in, must come out

In short, teaching is most usefully thought of as a connection between inputs and outputs. The inputs are your behaviors and decisions, and the outputs are the responses of the children. For me, the essence of being a good teacher is a matter of intentionality. Think about what you intend to teach, what lesson you intend to communicate, and what type of learning you intend to inspire, and then intentionally craft lessons and practices that are most likely to produce those intended results. I wish to provide you with a quick overview of how I used this focus on my reflections about teaching and intentionality in my own teaching practice.

Intentional assessments

I began my academic career as a researcher. When I accepted my current job as a professor, I used the typical combination of papers and exams to assess students’ comprehension of the material. In my experimental psychology course, the textbook that had been adopted before I arrived seemed perfectly fine. It introduced key strategies for experimental design, and gave examples from recent research. I would lecture on a chapter, give an exam, and then move on to the next chapter. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As my third year of teaching approached, my own research on something called learner-centered assessment had convinced me that in-class exam scores had all sorts of interpretive problems. My students, who were primarily African-American, had high levels of test anxiety that compromised their performance on exams. I had encountered many examples of students who participated in class and seemed to understand the material, only to then perform poorly on the exam. Curious, I would bring them into my office and ask them questions about the material directly.

When they could demonstrate a mastery of the concepts, I would ask them, “You sound like you know the material. Why do you think you got such a low grade?”

“I just don’t do well on tests,” some would say. My research alarm bells began to ring. The data were telling me that in-class exams did not always have the characteristics that I wanted in a good assessment – namely, reliability and validity.

Later, in an experimental study that I carried out with my classes, I discovered that when my students were allowed to take assessments home and work on them, their longer-term retention of the material was significantly greater than when they studied for and took an in-class exam. Same exam, different results.

I asked the students in my class, “Why do you think you remembered more of the material when I let you take the test home?”

“Well,” one of my students said. “If you do poorly on an in-class exam, you can make all sorts of excuses. But if you get a bad grade on a take-home test, you’re just a chump.”

The spring semester of my third year was the last semester that I used any in-class exams, favoring papers, projects and presentations instead.

Aligning your goals to your behavior

By the end of my fourth year, I was feeling bored with the textbook I had been using, so I ordered examination copies of other research texts from different publishers. None of them excited me. I asked myself, “What is it that I want from a textbook?”

First, I was interested in engaging students in the reading and evaluation of actual research. If I wasn’t going to give exams, I wanted to give students some high-quality assessments that would require them to wrestle with the vocabulary and decision-making that published articles could provide.

Second, I wanted the articles that the students would have to master to be about interesting topics that were relevant to my students’ lives. We were all tired of reading about salivating dogs and hungry rats. When I came to the section about Pavlov, I used examples about salivating men and women on the dating scene or engaged the students in conversations about the rewards and punishments their own parents used when they were children.

My own research on a popular deductive reasoning task had taught me that couching cognitive material in relevant, familiar scenarios facilitated the demonstration of competence. My teaching practice demonstrated this concept in real time. Why shouldn’t my book include articles that were about topics that 20 year olds would care about? Academia seems to be one of very few areas where the interests of the customer (in this case, the students) are irrelevant.

Finally, I wanted the flexibility to craft my lectures and creatively construct assessments that were fluidly informed by the feedback I was receiving as the course unfolded. This would make me a better teacher, because I was paying attention to what my students needed me to help them learn, and because I could change what I was doing each semester to keep myself interested. I enjoy the adventure of tackling new material and figuring out new ways to tackle materials I’ve already used. I would use overt responding methods – like www.polleverywhere.com – to let students anonymously text the degree to which they understood a concept or strategy that I had just taught, and then responded to that feedback by going back over anything that my students weren’t understanding.

It was for these reasons that I challenged myself to teach from a reader that I had a publisher construct for me. For a while, every two years, I selected 10 new experimental articles that included a variety of designs, instrumentation, levels of writing, and strategies. I chose 5 each semester, and engaged students in activities like summarizing, collecting data on campus using the measures that accompanied the article, statistically analyzed those data, and used the discussion section of each article to recommend future experimental studies that could take their findings to the next level.

I found that my students appreciated the hands-on focus, the opportunity to engage in conversation about topics they cared about, and the challenge involved in doing graduate-level work. Of course, I have to do a lot of hand holding along the way, but I feel a sense of accomplishment in having transformed a lecture-and-exam style course into a dynamic experience that is teaching not just facts, but also skills.

Your takeaway: My message for you is not that you ought to use these same strategies or techniques. Rather, I wish to encourage you to think honestly about what outcomes you hope to produce in your students, and then use those reflections about teaching to move closer to your ideals. There is nothing more enervating for my own work than to decide to try something new, or retry something I’ve tried before with more vigor and some tweaking. And that new enthusiasm of yours, if nothing else, will impact your students in a positive way.

[Post originally published on www.drjohnrich.com ]

About the Author

John D. Rich Jr., PhD

Faculty’s role in preparing undergraduate psychology majors for the world of work

Parents , Pre K - 12 Teachers

10 Ways Schools and Parents Can Help Students with ADHD

Graduate and Postgraduate Students , Undergraduate Teachers

This is Why Social Media is the Secret to Success in Student Engagement

Graduate and Postgraduate Students , Undergraduate Students

An Easy Way to Handle Criticism

Effective Teachers’ Skills and Qualities Essay

The term stakeholder that refers to the educational process means people who provide well-being and success for a school and its students. Teachers, administrators, personnel, parents, and even students are all stakeholders. However, it goes without saying that teachers are the most important part of education.

Firstly, it is important to understand the essence of good teaching. Great teachers have a combination of many qualities. It is believed that such qualities as warmth, planning, and self-discipline determine a good teacher. Although a good teaching demands deep knowledge of subject matter and erudition, these characteristics are not number one. According to Slavin (2006, p. 3), “effective teachers not only know their subjects, but they can also communicate their knowledge to students.” It cannot be denied that it is crucial for teachers to follow instructions and rules. Nevertheless, teaching is a creative profession especially considering that every student has a unique personality, and it is very important to find a special approach to every individual and teach children in accordance with their personal abilities. What is more, one of the most necessary characteristics of great teachers is attentiveness. Due to this, good teachers develop close relationships with their students that, to some extent, help children to succeed not only in school but also in their future lives.

To sum up, some people say that teaching is not a profession, and it is a vocation. They assume that teachers are born that way and have some extra abilities. Although there is a sound idea in this statement, it is essential not to forget that to be a great teacher, a human has to get a degree in education and acquire necessary teaching skills.

Reference List

Slavin, R 2006, Educational psychology: Theory and practice , Allyn and Bacon, Boston.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, January 17). Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-teachers-skills-and-qualities/

"Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities." IvyPanda , 17 Jan. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/effective-teachers-skills-and-qualities/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities'. 17 January.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities." January 17, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-teachers-skills-and-qualities/.

1. IvyPanda . "Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities." January 17, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-teachers-skills-and-qualities/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities." January 17, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-teachers-skills-and-qualities/.

Cognitive Development Theory and Forms of Cognitive Knowledge
Early Childhood Philosophy of Learning
Vocation in Plato's "Apology" and Dostoyevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor"
The Theme of Vocation in “Apology” by Plato
The Effect of Accuracy of Instruction, Teacher Delivery and Student Attentiveness on Musicians’ Evaluation of Teacher Effectiveness
The “Selfish” Nature of Vocation vs. the Community Imperatives
The No Child Left Behind Act Review
Vocation in Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"
The Importance of Teaching Alternative Evolution Theories
The Attitude to Vocation as the Theme of Michael Dorris “The Benchmark”
Self-Management for Enhancing Teaching and Learning
Role, Responsibilities and Boundaries of a Teacher in Terms of Teaching Cycle
Execution of Education in Australian Business School
Team Collaboration Between Teachers in Schools
Why I Enjoyed a Particular Teacher

The Essence of Being a Teacher Educator and Why It Matters.

25 citations

View 1 citation excerpt

Cites background from "The Essence of Being a Teacher Educ..."

... Thus, the sophisticated work that I would suggest is required for the teaching of teaching often tends to be viewed in simplistic terms (Loughran and Menter, 2019). ...

19 citations

15 citations

10 citations

22,082 citations

10,633 citations

View 1 reference excerpt

"The Essence of Being a Teacher Educ..." refers background in this paper

... In these torrid times when the perceived quality of teachers and teaching is increasingly tied to measurement and compliance regimes, it is perhaps not surprising that there has also been a shift toward what Schön (1983, 1987) described as a “technical-rational” approach to teaching. ...

10,073 citations

6,007 citations

... Scholars of teaching and learning about teaching The notion of scholarship was brought into sharp focus by Boyer (1990) when he stated that: . . . teaching both educates and entices . . . ...

3,861 citations

... Borko (2004) was of the view that, “research that explores how teachers learn through participation in professional development communities reveals that records of classroom practice are powerful tools for facilitating teacher change . . . teachers’ own classrooms are powerful contexts for their… ...

WHERE BLACK CULTURE, COMMUNITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS MEET

Sign up for essence newsletters the keep the black women at the forefront of conversation., a detroit teacher is suing after claiming she was wrongfully fired for being a rapper part-time.

A Detroit Teacher Is Suing After Claiming She Was Wrongfully Fired For Being A Rapper Part-Time

A former Detroit teacher is claiming she was fired for taking on a side hustle as a rapper, and she’s ready to sue.

Domonique Brown was hired as a U.S. history teacher at Taylor Preparatory High School, and ultimately garnered so much favor that she was named teacher of the month in December. Just mere months later she claims she was let go from the position following an anonymous complaint from a parent her rap career.

Per a report from Black Enterprise , Brown was on the path to a doctorate degree while juggling her teaching duties at the school. Last fall, an anonymous parent brought her rap persona “Drippin Honey,” to the attention of the school’s administrators, which led to five months of meetings with the school in which she had to defend her part-time passion.

“The first meeting was with my dean and my principal and they were just telling me, ‘Hey, a parent said that they’ve seen your social media, and that you’re a bad influence because you’re a rapper,’” Brown said according to the outlet.

Brown said she never received a formal complaint in writing after requesting one.

“I was like hey well can we tell that parent to come in and see professionalism, see me in a classroom, see me after school, see me at all the games, see me dropping kids off everyday, buying food?” Brown said per Black Enterprise. “Can they come see me in my element before they try to say I’m unprofessional in it?”

Since her firing, the school has released a statement, reinforcing their decision to part ways with Brown.

The school released a statement standing by their decision to fire Brown who seemingly went against their “distraction-free” learning environment.

“Student well-being remains at the forefront of everything we do, and we will continue fostering a distraction-free teaching and learning environment focused on student success,” the school said.

Brown isn’t in agreement, and claims she will be working with a lawyer to take legal action.

“My dedication, professionalism, and passion for education have always been unwavering, regardless of any personal pursuits I may have.” She adds, “If I was a horrible teacher, y’all would have dropped me the day it was a problem,” Brown said.

COMPANY INFORMATION Our Company Customer Service Essence Ventures Change Your Address Contact Us Job Opportunities Internships Media Kit SUBSCRIBE Newsletters Give a Gift of ESSENCE Magazine Tablet Edition FOLLOW US MORE ON ESSENCE Home Love Celebrity Beauty Hair Fashion ESSENCE festival ESSENCE.com is part of ESSENCE Communications, Inc.

IMAGES

A Good Teacher Essay
Being a Professional Teacher
I Want To Be A Teacher Essay Example
Being a Teacher Matters.
10 Advantages of Being a Teacher by Amarmirgh Education
Being a teacher requires a challenging role and responsibility.docx

VIDEO

Teacher reading my essay on overpopulation 💀
proud to being teacher
10 Lines On My Favourite Teacher/Essay On My Favourite Teacher In English/My Favourite Teacher Essay
#Being_teacher #funny_video #teachers_can_relate #toallteachers 😁
BEING TEACHER IN TAMIL
pt.2 of being teacher

COMMENTS

The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters
ABSTRACT. The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the specialist knowledge, skills and abilities that underpin expertise in teaching and to do so through their practice with their students of teaching.
Essay About Being a Teacher: Top 5 Examples and Prompts
Koh wants students to achieve their full potential; teaching to him is engaging, inspirational, and transparent. He wants readers to know that being a teacher is rewarding yet difficult, and is something he holds close to his heart. 2. Teaching in the Pandemic: 'This Is Not Sustainable' by Natasha Singer.
The Heart of Teaching: What It Means to Be a Great Teacher
Being a kind teacher helps students feel welcomed, cared for, and loved. You are compassionate: Teaching is a very humanistic profession, and compassion is the utmost feeling of understanding and showing others you are concerned about them. A compassionate teacher models that characteristic to the students with her or his actions, and as a ...
Essence of a Teachers' Life
Essence of a Teachers' Life. Teaching was not my cup of tea, even though I was born from a family of teachers. I was desperate to see how my parents woke up early in the morning, stayed in school for more than 10 hours, spending restless night computing grades, making lesson plans, and doing endless researches on innovative ways to teach ...
Writing Your Teaching Philosophy
Writing Your Teaching Philosophy. Your teaching philosophy is a self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning. It's a one to two page narrative that conveys your core ideas about being an effective teacher in the context of your discipline. It develops these ideas with specific, concrete examples of what the teacher and ...
The Essence of Being a Teacher Educator and Why It Matters
Therefore, it is all the more important that teacher educators bring such thinking to the surface in their teaching about teaching. Teaching is not just about the "doing" of teaching; it is also about the "why" - which leads to the development of informed and meaningful practice to enhance student learning. This chapter considers some ...
The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters
The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters. J. Loughran, I. Menter. Published in Asia-Pacific Journal of… 13 February 2019. Education. ABSTRACT The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively ...
Becoming a Teacher: What I Learned about Myself During the Pandemic
This case study made me think about myself and who I am becoming as a teacher in a way that was incredibly real and relevant to what teachers were facing. I now found inspiration in the COVID-19 pandemic, as it unlocked elements of myself that I did not know existed. John Dewey (1916) has been attributed to stating, "Education is not ...
Redefining the Role of the Teacher: It's a Multifaceted Profession
This approach allows teachers to apply their strengths, interests, skills, and abilities to the greatest effect, knowing that children won't suffer from their weaknesses, because there's someone with a different set of abilities to back them up. To truly professionalize teaching, in fact, we need to further differentiate the roles a teacher ...
The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters
T1 - The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters. AU - Loughran, John. AU - Menter, Ian. PY - 2019/5/27. Y1 - 2019/5/27. N2 - The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the ...
Being A Teacher: [Essay Example], 449 words GradesFixer
Being a Teacher. Teaching is often considered one of the noblest professions, as it is the foundation on which all other professions are built. As a teacher, one has the power to shape the minds of the future generation and influence the trajectory of their lives. In this essay, I will explore the multifaceted role of a teacher, the challenges ...
19 Top Ideas for a "Why I want to be a Teacher" Essay
Here are the 19 best reasons you would want to be a teacher that you can include in your essay: To help children learn more effectively. To ensure children have positive mentors. To improve children's lives. To help future generations solve the problems of today. To help the future generations become good citizens.
Using your reflections about teaching to be a better teacher
In short, teaching is most usefully thought of as a connection between inputs and outputs. The inputs are your behaviors and decisions, and the outputs are the responses of the children. For me, the essence of being a good teacher is a matter of intentionality. Think about what you intend to teach, what lesson you intend to communicate, and ...
PDF CHAPTER ONE On Being a Teacher
the essence of all great educators and infuse them with power—their distinctly human dimensions, including personality traits, attitudes, and relationship skills. ... On Being a Teacher—— 3 01-Kottler (teacher).qxd 1/10/2005 2:14 PM Page 3. the nervous system, but also how children feel about these subjects, ...
The Essence of a Good Teacher: Free Essay Example, 350 words
A good teacher is not merely an instructor; they are a guide, a mentor, and a source of inspiration. This essay delves into the qualities that define a good teacher, exploring their impact on students' lives, the art of effective communication, the ability to foster a love for learning, and the lasting legacy they leave behind.
Effective Teachers' Skills and Qualities
Great teachers have a combination of many qualities. It is believed that such qualities as warmth, planning, and self-discipline determine a good teacher. Although a good teaching demands deep knowledge of subject matter and erudition, these characteristics are not number one. According to Slavin (2006, p. 3), "effective teachers not only ...
The Essence of Being a Teacher Educator and Why It Matters
The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the...
The Essence of Being a Teacher
A teacher is a facilitator and a mentor as well. Meaningful learning occurs when pupils are given the privilege to express unique imagination, make choices,confront real problems and even find ...
ESSENCE OF BEING A TEACHER ESSAY.docx
View ESSENCE OF BEING A TEACHER ESSAY.docx from HSC 320 at Stratford University. NAME: FRANILLA,RIZAMAE A. COURSE/YEAR: BEED-2 It is impossible to overestimate the importance of a teacher in a ... T he essence of being a Teachers have a vital role in society since they help to shape the leaders of the future. Students learn valuable lessons ...
Essence of being a teacher
The essence of being a teacher is the ability to make a positive i mpact on their students. Good teachers set high expectations and motivate the students to meet those expectations. As students strive for excellence, teachers assist students in meeting their highest potential through daily. n, Teacher III, Tapaz National High School lessons.
Reflective Essay on a Good Teacher...
1889 Words. 8 Pages. Open Document. Reflective Essay: A Good Teacher…. Standard 1: Development, learning, and motivation-. A teacher has his or her own style or way of motivating their students. Motivation plays an important part in a student's success of learning and development. There are times when teachers spend more time with their ...
What Makes a Good Teacher (Free Essay Samples)
They recognize that being one anothers' soundboards helps them serve their learners better, so they make it a point to stay open with one another. Conclusion. All these qualities and more describe the essence of a good teacher. In a nutshell, they are actively involved in their students' lives through their teaching.
A Detroit Teacher Is Suing After Claiming She Was Wrongfully ...
"Student well-being remains at the forefront of everything we do, and we will continue fostering a distraction-free teaching and learning environment focused on student success," the school said.

Essay About Being a Teacher: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

1. Reflections on being a teacher … by Darren Koh

+ Getting Started

Generating ideas

Questions to prompt your thinking

Your concept of teaching

Your goals for students

Your teaching methods

Your interaction with students

Assessing learning

Professional growth

+ Creating a Draft

Using specific examples

+ Assessing Your Draft

+ Rubrics and Samples

To read this content please select one of the options below:

We’re listening — tell us what you think

All feedback is valuable

Join us on our journey

Questions & More Information

Becoming a Teacher: What I Learned about Myself During the Pandemic

You are here

Redefining the Role of the Teacher: It’s a Multifaceted Profession

New Relationships and Practices

New Tools and Environments

New Professional Responsibilities

Judith Taack Lanier is a distinguished professor of education at Michigan State University.

The essence of being a teacher educator and why it matters

Access to Document

Other files and links

Being a Teacher

Cite this Essay

Related Essays

Still can’t find what you need?

Related Essays on Teaching

Related Topics

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

19 Top Ideas for a “Why I want to be a Teacher” Essay

1. Definitely do not say “because kids are fun”. Do this instead.

2. Explain how teaching helps the world! Here’s how.

3. Discuss your commitment to community. Here’s how.

4. Discuss the personality traits you think you can bring to the role. Here’s how.

5. Conclude with the things you still need to learn. Here’s how.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Using your reflections about teaching to be a better teacher

What goes in, must come out

Intentional assessments

Aligning your goals to your behavior

About the Author

John D. Rich Jr., PhD

Faculty’s role in preparing undergraduate psychology majors for the world of work

10 Ways Schools and Parents Can Help Students with ADHD

This is Why Social Media is the Secret to Success in Student Engagement

An Easy Way to Handle Criticism

Effective Teachers’ Skills and Qualities Essay

Reference List

The Essence of Being a Teacher Educator and Why It Matters.

Cites background from "The Essence of Being a Teacher Educ..."

"The Essence of Being a Teacher Educ..." refers background in this paper

Related Papers (5)

WHERE BLACK CULTURE, COMMUNITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS MEET

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS