"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." Albert Einstein

What makes a good teacher?

The answer to this question is extremely subjective, while most people agree it is a dynamic teacher, who inspires the children, creates a good learning environment and facilitates learning, views on how these things are achieved are extremely subjective.

In my personal opinion, the key element of being a good teacher is not how well you teach, but how well your students learn. It doesn't matter how exciting and dynamic your lessons are, if at the end of the lesson the kids haven't learned something. Particularly if you move on, under the impression that you having taught this subject is enough for them to have understood it.

I have only seen two lessons being taught at my school since arriving in South Africa. On my first day, I saw the final half hour of a Grade 10 Maths lesson. At the time I thought the lesson was well conducted, it showed signs of planning and the material was detailed. It was actually extremely dispiriting on my first day, as it made me feel extremely doubtful about whether I would actually serve a useful purpose working out here. The following day I taught the same class, only to discover that they were lacking most of the basic skills required to understand the material from the previous lesson, let alone the lesson's actual content.

The second lesson was an English lesson which we were very kindly invited to watch by the teacher. While he was obviously enthusiastic about teaching, I had some major objections to the way the lesson was executed. The learners were studying a short story, by which I mean one girl was put in charge of reading aloud, and she spent the entire lesson doing just that. Sir would occasionally interrupt to clarify what certain words or phrases meant, however, what little discussion of the plot that followed contained glaring inaccuracies (the story involved the protagonist raping a young teenage girl, the teacher told the students she was his wife, despite the fact that the protagonist's wife had appeared in the previous scene and was an older woman). Putting one learner in charge of reading for the whole lesson also allowed the others to zone out for the rest of the lesson.

The teacher in question actually obeys the rule about corporeal punishment not being legal. However, the result was a complete lack of classroom control, with the kids literally running around due to boredom. Since the learners in question were one of my Grade 11 classes, I am very much hoping they do not think that they can behave like this in my classroom.

I am quite aware that as a result of having had brilliant teaches at school, I do have extremely high expectations in the classroom. I also don't think for a second that I am a perfect teacher, I am extremely inexperienced and am having to learn by trial and error. However, both the teachers' failure to attempt to push for understanding and insight, as opposed to simply covering the syllabus and moving on, has been quite difficult for me to watch while out here.