What's a good Teacher?

"Ate, can you show me how to solve this math problem?" I heard my youngest sister asked our other sibling. She just asked our sister to be her teacher.

No matter what our circumstance is, all of us, at some point of our lives became a teacher. I am not pertaining to being a professional teacher, but our circumstances might have required us to be a teacher.

Showing a child how to make his own milk, giving road directions to a stranger, helping your younger sibling to cook his or her first dish, showing your newbie colleague how a printer works, teaching a baby to say his or her name, or simply guiding your parent how an IOS or android phone works - if you were ever in this situation before, then you were in a situation where you are a teacher.

As a matter of fact, all of us is a teacher. We all have the ability to teach, however not all of us is interested in our teaching abilities. There are those who enjoys explaining things to others and feels satisfied whenever they are able to teach someone a new thing or idea.

What makes a good teacher then?

When asked about this question as a child, I would usually answer that a good teacher is someone who is nice, someone who can explain things clearly and someone who understands her students.

When asked about the same question, others will probably say that a good teacher is someone who is skilled and knows his or her subject well. Someone who can help others understand the concept and apply the information in their lives.

To be a good teacher, you need to have and show genuine personal interest in your student, because once they feel that someone is interested in them, students are more likely to respond. Teaching starts with our attitude towards the students. If we truly care for them, it will be the motivating factor to be patient with them, patient enough to explain no matter how hard it is to do so, no matter how long it takes for them to understand. We should let them feel that we understand them and that we are open to hear them out, their comments, reactions and inquiry.

Every time I have a new workplace, I usually have a lot of questions and inquiries and I won't stop asking until I learn how to do things on my own. I really appreciate it when a colleague goes an extra mile just to teach me to become a more efficient worker. But when someone makes me feel like I'm a burden to them for asking a lot of things, and they manifest an unwillingness to teach attitude, that is frustrating.

So as a teacher, I learned that there should not be any room to make the student feel like they are stupid or slow, most specially the children. At a young age, children would naturally want to feel appreciated. Just because they can't understand the concept.

There are people who are not technically a teacher, they don't have much technical skills to teach but still, they became very good teachers, because they show genuine interest, not just towards the learner, but on the subject as well.

I've been tutoring kids for quite some time now, and I must say that it is actually a challenge to get them engage in the lesson. If the subject is not entertaining to them, they seldom responds and shows a dispirited, bored expression. So I have to really show them that I am interested in their welfare and that I am willing to change my approach just to get them engaged in the lesson. I have to be very patient too.

Few things to make teaching successful.

• Being lively helps. When teaching kids, it is important to be lively so that the excitement of the kids will be triggered, and they get really excited about learning. Personally, since I am teaching kids 5 to 6 years old, I usually incorporate plays and before preparing for the next lesson, I ask them what their likes are and what do they enjoy the most. Once you get their interest, they will be very excited about learning Teachers themselves should manifest enthusiasm to help the learner.M

• Make it simple!

This is what an experienced teacher once said:

“The teacher must not only know the material he wants to teach, but also know it in its most simple and yet accurate form. If it is complicated to the teacher, he cannot teach.”

What is needed is simplicity.

There are times that a teacher knows the subject too well and just says whatever he/she can to impart the idea to the learner, forgetting that it may be a concept to the learner and that it may seem very complicated to them.

So aside from being knowledgeable about the subject, the teacher should also know how to make it simple - explain the ideas in a simple yet clear manner. If possible, use the learner's first language to explain things for better understanding

Simplifying the explanation will make it easier to understand. Avoiding the use of jargon is a must. For example, when I was explaining to m mother what bitcoin cash is, I didn't use the complicated terms that I learned on the internet, instead I simply told her that it's a digital money, she's not that techy, but she understood the concept.

Now suppose that you are teaching your kid how to bake, you have to watch out your vocabulary, using technical terms will be very complicated and will only confuse your child.

• Don't talk too much!

As a learner myself, I don't learn a lot when the teacher is saying a lot of things, I prefer to learn by doing. I prefer for the teacher to show me how to do things instead of telling me concepts. When I studied about setting up computer networks, I didn't understand a thing during the lesson, I was just yawning all the time and I thought that I'll just drop the subject because it was too complicated, but when the instructor showed us how it's done, and he gave us time to practice, that's when I learned that it's actually not that complicated at all.

• Repeat!

Repetition always works perfectly! This is what I usually do during my lessons as well and the result is heartwarming. Though there's a kid who doesn't like repeating things, she asked me: "Teacher, why do you always want me to repeat and repeat and repeat? I know that already." I simply tell her that it will help her not to forget.

But repeating the same phrase over and over gain may be boring, so it is also important to paraphrase and repeat. This will help the learner to learn the concept and not just memorize.

These are just few suggestions to be effective in teaching. But the question is, should you think about becoming a good teacher or becoming a teacher? The answer is no, like mentioned earlier, all of us is already a teacher. We become a teacher in our everyday life. So the question is: 'are you willing to make an effort to be a good teacher?'