Future teachers often hear that a teacher's personality is necessary to succeed in the profession.
Content
- 5 main personality factors
- Education and experience
- What makes a good teacher a person?
- Conclusion
In training, you will encounter the personality of the teacher. This term is difficult to understand and confuses many. Also, "personality" sounds like something innate, something that can hardly be changed. A common concern is, "What if I don't have the right personality?"
Unlike the professional or didactic competence of teachers, the personality of a teacher cannot be measured empirically.
What are the top 5 personality factors that describe me as a teacher?
The "Big Five" or "Five Factor Model" comes from psychology in relation to the study of personality.
Extraversion:
The factor describes how outgoing and talkative a person is. Extroverts enjoy social interactions. In contrast, introversion means "turned inward." Introverts recharge their "batteries" in quiet situations. The focus is more on one's inner life.
Compatibility:
This factor refers to the willingness to cooperate and the desire for harmony in social relations. Nice people are often compassionate, forgiving, and considerate.
Conscientiousness:
People with conscientiousness are organized, goal-oriented, disciplined, ready to work and reliable.
Neuroticism:
This factor refers to the degree of emotional stability or instability of a person. Neurotic individuals, as a rule, are anxious, prone to negative emotions.
Openness to experience:
Those with a strong inclination to this factor are open to new ideas, creative, inquisitive and curious.
According to the current state of research, each person has these personality traits in different forms.
This is usually an advantage if you, as a teacher, are more communicative, open, conscientious and mentally stable. But introverts can also be good teachers, for example. It can be more difficult at times, but there are benefits.
But personality traits from psychology are far from all that is included in the concept of "teacher's personality".
Lessons learned and experience - hardly anyone is born with the ideal personality of a teacher
There are bound to be lucky ones who seem to fall into the hands of the ideal personality of a teacher. But this is only a very small group. Everyone else has to work on it, and professional experience also contributes to development. He who is at the beginning cannot yet be perfect.
For the further development of a teacher's own personality, it is useful to think about oneself, to know one's own values, strengths and weaknesses. So are its limits. This makes it easier to understand your own behavior and, if necessary, work on it.
For teacher John Hattie, known for his "visible learning," being a successful teacher is less about personality and more about learnable factors and behavior. Maria Tkachenko from Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian State University summarizes: "There is a formula: everything depends on the teacher. Hattie changes this statement and says, what teachers do matters. And at the same time, he departs from the personality of the teacher and pays attention to the actions of teachers. Of course, there are teachers who are more or less qualified or have better access to students. But always remember that being a good teacher can also be learned. And this is also one of the tasks of the second stage of teacher training."
What makes a good teacher a person?
The criteria for evaluating a teacher's personality are most often:
- body language/appearance
- understanding the role and accepting the role of a teacher
- language/tone of speech
- pedagogical skills
In all areas, it doesn't hurt to be as authentic as possible and not desperately different from who you are.
Clarity, fairness, reliability and consistency, as well as humor, appreciation, tolerance and an integrative style are valued not only by examiners during preparation, but also by students. Thus, the teacher's personality also plays an important role in the teacher-student relationship.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that a stable personality of a teacher consists of his own personal traits, acquired communication skills and experience.
Therefore, there is no single personality of the teacher. Teachers are as individually different in their characters as students. There are, of course, qualities and personality traits that will give you an advantage at work. But not every characteristic is the same for everyone. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. With some basic points in mind, you won't have to worry about the personality of the teacher.
