What makes one teacher great and another merely good? What is the difference between a great teacher who gets the most out of every student and the good one who manages to do an acceptable job?The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is financing a two-year study of six school districts in order to discover what makes a great teacher. The project will cost $45 million dollars.
One retired teacher believes he can save everyone the time and effort (and money) of undertaking the study. He knows what makes a great teacher.
In Education Week's Attention, Gates: Here's What Makes a Great Teacher, James D. Starkey offers his perspective on the study:
When the Gates Foundation finally crunches all the numbers from its two-year research project, that is what it will discover. Great teaching is not quantifiable. As dorky as this sounds, great teaching happens by magic. It isn’t something that can be taught. I’m not even sure that good teaching can be taught. The only thing that I know can be taught is average teaching, and almost anybody who has paid attention through all those interminable hours in school classrooms and is willing to work hard can pull that off.
So, Bill and Melinda, listen up. Here are 10 qualities of a great teacher: (1) has a sense of humor; (2) is intuitive; (3) knows the subject matter; (4) listens well; (5) is articulate; (6) has an obsessive/compulsive side; (7) can be subversive; (8) is arrogant enough to be fearless; (9) has a performer’s instincts; (10) is a real taskmaster.
So what are the qualities of a great teacher? Can any teacher learn to be a great teacher? Or are great teachers simply that way because of who they are?
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