Are you a GREAT teacher?

Whitaker, Todd. What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most.  Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education.  (2004).

Are you a GREAT teacher?  Whitaker offers a quick review of what great teachers do.  I am back in the classroom after a 4 year hiatus and found this book to be a good pick-me-up and a reaffirmation for why I chose the teaching profession.  Furthermore, it offers common sense guiding principles for all teachers - keep your behaviour and emotions in check and students will respond accordingly.

In these times of deficits, cutbacks and finger pointing it is important to remember to maintain a professional and responsible role in the classroom.  One of the recurring themes is that great teachers are positive.

Teachers are the filters for the day-to-day reality of school.  Whether we are aware of it or not, our behavior sets the tone.  If students overhear us whining or complaining about something, it may be the talk of the school for days even if it was something minor.  By the same token, if we always approach things in a positive manner, then this is what the students reflect.  The most effective educators understand this and choose their filters carefully (55).

The teaching profession asks us to make hundreds of decisions each day.  What is the basis for  your decisions?  How to do you plan and prepare your lessons?  Whitaker suggests that great teachers do three things (89).

We may have been taught to "teach to the middle," where the majority of students cluster.  However, as long as we teach to the middle, that is where the majority of our students will remain.  Great teachers take a different approach.  Great teachers aim high.  Great teachers make decisions following three simple guidelines:

1.  What is the purpose?

2.  Will this actually accomplish the purpose?

3.  What will the best people think?

Schools are competing against each other for students in an effort to increase enrollment and thereby increase funding.  Whitaker reminds us that great teachers know that it is people, not programs, that determine the quality of a school (127).

Come down to your school library to borrow this great book.  You can also find many other teacher resources in our Teacher Professional Library.