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TEACHER OR LECTURER?
A Reflection on What It Really Means to Teach
“Teaching starts with a relationship. Until then, you are just a dancing monkey standing
in front of your students performing tricks.”
~ Andrew Johnson~
I. The Question Worth Asking
Not everyone who stands in front of a classroom truly teaches.
Some deliver content. Others shape minds. The titles may be identical — Teacher, Instructor, Professor — but the intentions, mindsets, and commitments behind them often are not. And this gap, quiet as it sometimes is, makes all the difference in the world to the students sitting in those chairs.
This raises an uncomfortable yet necessary question — not to accuse, but to reflect:
Are you a teacher? Or are you merely a lecturer?
These are not the same thing. A lecturer delivers content; a teacher transforms it into learning. A lecturer measures success by how much material was covered; a teacher measures it by how much understanding was actually built. Lecturers speak to students; teachers listen to them. A lecturer is satisfied when the lesson ends on time; a teacher is troubled by what remains unclear after the bell rings.
All teachers lecture at times — that is unavoidable. But not all who lecture truly teach. The distinction lies not in the method but in the mindset: Does this person see their role as the transmission of information, or as the cultivation of human potential?
II. How Teachers Differ From One Another
Even among those who genuinely intend to teach, no two practitioners approach the profession in exactly the same way.
Like fingerprints, their mindsets, tendencies, and personal philosophies are unlikely to be identical. Given the same course syllabus, we cannot expect any two teachers to design the same lesson plans or implement the same strategies. Some approach each class with meticulous preparation; others improvise; and some — regrettably — do not plan at all.
Work attitudes vary just as widely. There are teachers acutely conscious of the hours stipulated in their contracts, unwilling to extend themselves beyond what is formally required. There are others who go far beyond — who assist students outside teaching hours, volunteer for tasks no one asked them to do, and give freely of their time and energy without expectation of compensation.
And then there are those who arrive late, leave early, and submit required paperwork only when pressed — or not at all. If you are a teacher reading this, the question is not which group others belong to, but which group you honestly belong to yourself.
No one can force a teacher into the second group. But every teacher owes it to their students — and to themselves — to stay as far as possible from the third.
There are also teachers who are perpetual fault-finders — those who can always identify what is wrong with a policy, a colleague, or an administrator, but rarely what might be improved. When they find fault, they whine about it or gossip about it, or both. This habit does not make them critical thinkers. It makes them corrosive presences in a community that depends on trust and collaboration.
III. How Teachers Treat Their Students
Perhaps no difference among teachers is more consequential than the way they treat the people in their care.
Some set standards so exacting that only the strongest students can meet them, leaving the rest behind without apology. Others calibrate their expectations thoughtfully — maintaining rigor while ensuring that even the slowest learner has a genuine pathway to success. Some believe in a one-size-fits-all approach, as though all students arrive at learning in the same way, at the same pace, with the same needs. Others recognize that students differ profoundly in learning styles, abilities, languages, and personal histories — and they differentiate their methods accordingly.
Numerous studies confirm what students have always known intuitively: among the most valued qualities in an effective teacher are the ability to build genuine relationships, and a patient, caring, and kind personality. These are not soft virtues. They are the foundation on which all learning is built.
What causes some teachers to treat students with indifference or harshness? Sometimes the answer lies in upbringing or in the treatment they themselves received as students — a sad inheritance, passed unconsciously from one generation to the next. Sometimes it is simply burnout. Exhaustion does not excuse poor teaching, but it does help explain why some teachers gradually lose the fire they once had. Compassion, it turns out, is not inexhaustible. It must be renewed.
IV. The Heart of the Matter: Passion and Compassion
At its deepest level, the difference among teachers may be reduced to two qualities — and what each teacher does or does not possess of them.
There are teachers who possess both passion and compassion.
There are teachers who have only one of the two.
There are teachers who have neither.
Passion is what drives a teacher to prepare thoroughly, to stay current in their field, to search for better methods even when existing ones are adequate. It is the restlessness of someone who genuinely believes that this lesson, this class, this student deserves their best effort.
Compassion is what keeps that passion human. It is what reminds a teacher that behind every exam score is a person — with pressures, fears, histories, and hopes that the classroom did not create and cannot simply ignore.
Without passion, teaching becomes mechanical. Without compassion, it becomes cold. Without both, it becomes something that should not be called teaching at all.
If you are a teacher reading this — and if, in honest reflection, you find yourself in the third category — it may be time to ask whether you are in the right profession. That is not an accusation. It is an invitation to reconsider, before another generation of students pays the price for a choice that was never truly theirs to make.
V. The Question of Training — and Its Limits
One of the gravest mistakes an institution can make is hiring someone with no pedagogical training to teach.
Knowledge of a subject is not the same as the ability to teach it. Being a mathematics wizard does not automatically make one a mathematics teacher. Having perfect pronunciation and impeccable grammar does not make one an English teacher. Teaching requires something beyond subject mastery — it requires the ability to make that mastery accessible, to motivate learners who do not yet share it, to design assessments that genuinely measure growth, and to adjust strategies when understanding has not yet arrived.
To be fair, there are rare individuals who compensate for the absence of formal training through humility, mentorship, and a genuine hunger to learn the craft. But these are exceptions, not the rule. And relying on exceptions as a hiring strategy is a gamble made at students’ expense.
Yet perhaps the more troubling question is not about the untrained. It is this:
Why are there teachers who were trained to teach, yet behave as though they were not?
Teachers’ conduct is shaped by the educational philosophy they develop through their training — an evolving framework built from theory, practice, experience, and the personal belief systems they carry into the classroom. That philosophy, whether articulated or not, is visible in every decision a teacher makes: how they speak to students, how they respond to failure, how they handle disagreement, how they use — or misuse — the authority their position grants them.
When teachers act or speak in ways that diminish students, ignore professional codes, or prioritize personal comfort over student welfare, they are not simply having a bad day. They are revealing what they truly believe about teaching — and about the people they were hired to serve.
Common sense, even in the absence of formal training, should be enough to remind any adult in a position of influence: words carry weight. Actions leave marks. Students remember — sometimes for a lifetime — how their teachers made them feel.
VI. A Calling, Not a Paycheck
Teaching is not a neutral act.
Every teacher who enters a classroom makes a choice — consciously or not — about what kind of presence they will be. They can be a source of clarity or confusion, of encouragement or discouragement, of possibility or limitation. They can be the reason a student discovers a love of learning, or the reason that love dies quietly before it ever had a chance to grow.
The difference between a teacher and a lecturer is not merely technical. It is ethical. It is a question of whether one has accepted not just the job title, but the responsibility that comes with it — the responsibility to know your students, to adjust your methods, to take ownership of whether learning is actually happening, and to care about the answer.
A lecturer fills the time. A teacher uses it. A lecturer covers the syllabus. A teacher uncovers the student.
Not every teacher will be extraordinary. Not every lesson will ignite a passion. But every teacher can choose, on any given day, to be present — truly present — for the people who have been entrusted to their care.
That choice is available every single morning. It costs nothing except the willingness to make it.
That is — if they care.
If teaching is still a calling, and not merely a paycheck.
★ ★ ★
— M.A.D. Ligaya, PhD
A Note From My Students
Today, it’s Teachers’ Day here in South Korea. What could be more exhilarating than at the beginning of the class, students would hand you an expression of their appreciation for the things that you do as a teacher. I knew that at that moment, I must stop teaching and read the note. I was teary but bowed my head low so my students wouldn’t notice it. I don’t know if I succeeded in hiding from them that their gesture moved me. Those were not just tears of joy but triumph. I feel triumphant, for I could see from what they have written how my goals of establishing a good rapport with my students and making learning fun have panned out.
They call me 할아버지 [ha-ra-beo-ji], grandpa in English, because during the first day of class, when they saw the PhD at the end of my name, one of them asked how they should address me – Doctor Tony, professor Tony, or what. I told them I don’t like to be addressed as a doctor or professor, and Tony Harabeoji is better. They laughed that time, but I told them I was serious. They can call me either Tony or Tony harabeoji. When I said the same thing, one of my students in another class said, “What about oppa Tony?”. I said, “No.. I prefer Tony harabeoji.”
After the class, I reread the note. I reflected on what my students said. I have been an EFL/ESL teacher long enough to understand that there are realities in language learning that are inevitable. It is impractical to set very high expectations when your students in a class belong to different language proficiency levels and come from diverse language learning backgrounds. As a teacher, I always do my best to help students learn in a way that will not make them averse to learning. But in the end, if students are having a bad day and no matter what I do, I wouldn’t be able to make them understand a language lesson, then at least they have fun while attending my class. Making them smile despite their frustration of not being able to grasp the lessons I am teaching and convincing them to try harder next time is a victory. After all, staying motivated to learn despite failure indicates that they learned something more important than language lessons.
How Teachers’ Commitment and Leadership Behavior Influence Students’ Academic Performance
The intersection where teachers’ commitment, school administrators’ leadership behavior, and student academic performance converge is frequently explored and investigated in academic studies. Doing so is necessary in order to improve the quality of education. We must find ways to make teaching and learning more effective and efficient.
In my paper published recently, I revisited that intersection. I examined the relationships between the said variables. In the said study, I hypothesized that a correlation exists between teachers’ commitment and leadership behavior, teachers’ commitment and academic performance of students, and leadership behavior and academic performance of students.
Studies conducted on students’ performance in the classroom examined or evaluated how certain factors or variables related to school, teachers, school administrators, or students and their environment affect academic achievement. Some studies focus only on one variable, and some combine two or more. While numerous variables could potentially affect students’ academic performance as presented in various studies, mine focused only on constructs that are perceived to affect students’ academic performance directly, namely, teachers’ commitment (to their work and organization) and the leadership behavior of school administrators.
In the investigation I conducted, the aforementioned constructs were defined or referred to as follows: academic performance as the results of standardized tests students took in the following subject areas: math, science, and English; teachers’ commitment as their dedication and attachment to their profession and their loyalty to their school as an organization; leadership as a process in which an individual influences a group to achieve and commit to a common goal. Teachers’ commitment is categorized into commitment to job and commitment to organization and leadership behavior into consideration (people-oriented) and initiating structure (task-oriented).
We say that teachers play the most crucial role in student achievement, and it is unfortunate that teachers usually take the blame when students fail to meet academic expectations. It is almost impossible for teachers to escape from the notion that “when students did not learn, the teacher did not teach.” But if teachers are held responsible when students are not performing well, should somebody take responsibility when teachers are not teaching the way they should, thus resulting in poor academic performance on the part of the students? This is where leadership behavior comes into focus. School leaders’ primary duty is to inspire and motivate teachers to work towards improving students’ academic performance.
Academic performance is the result of learning produced by the student and prompted by the activities of teachers. How well the students perform academically depends on how committed the teachers are to their chosen profession. On the other hand, whatever activities teachers do in a school are supposedly imposed and overseen by the school administrator. Thus, the level of commitment to job and organization the teachers manifest hinges on their supervisors’ leadership behavior. Student learning is affected by teaching and teaching by management and supervision performed by school leaders.
My study yielded some surprising results.
The overall computed mean for teachers’ commitment indicates that the teachers who participated in my study are committed to both their jobs and organization, although their commitment to their jobs is higher than their commitment to their organizations. As regards leadership behavior, most of the school administrators, as perceived by the teacher-respondents, exhibit behaviors attributed to structured leadership. This implies that the leaders supervising them are high in initiating structure but low in consideration. The results divulge that the correlation between both aspects of teachers’ commitment and the initiating structure dimension of leadership behavior is positive. With the consideration dimension, the correlation is negative. This inverse relationship implies that the less committed teachers to their job and organization become when the heads of their schools manifest a more people-oriented behavior than task-oriented.
We expect that teachers will be more committed to their job and organization if they are supervised by people-oriented leaders and less inspired when they are led by task-oriented school administrators. One probable reason for teachers becoming more committed to their job and organization when the school leader is task-oriented is clarity. Leaders who are strong in initiating structure are arguably more precise and specific with their expectations and goals than their people-oriented counterparts. In this study, the teacher-respondents may happen to prefer leaders who are task-oriented more than those who are people-oriented. The teachers respond more positively to a structured style of leadership.
However, as previously articulated, being task-oriented does not necessarily mean that the leaders are not concerned about the well-being of those they lead. As the findings of this study have shown, the teachers perceive the school managers as “dynamic,” which means that they scored above average in both dimensions of leadership behavior only that they manifest more strongly in the leadership behavior initiating structure. Scoring above average in both dimensions indicates flexibility for the school leaders. They were able to adapt their strategies and approaches based on the needs and circumstances, which is crucial in helping maintain or enhance teacher commitment. Thus, in this study, teachers were found to be committed to both their job and organization.
The correlation analysis for the students’ academic performance was also unexpected. It is only with the student’s performance in math, not in science and in English, that teachers’ commitment is correlated. And the correlation is negative. Most similar studies’ findings show a positive correlation between students’ academic performance and teachers’ commitment. Rarely was in studies that a negative correlation between teachers’ commitment and student performance was shown. That negative relationship was established in this study. However, the size of the (negative) correlation coefficient between the abovementioned variables is considered negligible.
Despite the rarity of seeing a negative correlation between teacher commitment and students’ academic performance, its occurrence is still disconcerting. It is counterintuitive to find that when teachers show commitment to their job, students’ academic performance suffers. What could be the reason?
Certain circumstances or strategies committed teachers apply could negatively impact students’ academic performance. Teachers could overly commit to academic undertakings and high standards that inadvertently create excessive pressure and stress for students, possibly leading to burnout and anxiety. Such could result in reduced performance on the part of the students. Additionally, when teachers become overly committed, they may fail to strike a balance between work and life. Such may lead to them experiencing burnout, consequently diminishing their ability to deliver quality instruction and engage students more productively.
The next set of findings may also be considered surprising.
Students’ performance in all subject areas is negatively correlated with leadership behavior-initiating structure and has no significant relationship with leadership behavior consideration. A negative correlation exists between students’ academic performance in math, science, and English and school administrators’ initiating structure leadership behavior. Although the size of the (negative) correlation coefficient is considered negligible also, it is interesting to note that while the initiating structure dimension of leadership behavior is positively correlated to teacher commitment, it is the other way around with the academic performance of students and not only in one subject area but all. One possible reason for such an inverse relationship is that the task-oriented approach of school leaders can indirectly put too much burden on students, thus negatively impacting their performance. They can overly emphasize strict academic goals that could create high-stress environments in the schools they supervise. It may have positively impacted teacher commitment but negatively affected the students’ performance. The academic pressure created when students are forced to adhere to the strict standards that task-oriented heads of schools set could negatively impact their well-being. They may experience burnout, which could affect their academic performance.
Additionally, when school heads are task-oriented, they tend to focus more on curricular activities and less on non-academic ones. Extracurricular activities are known to benefit students. They can positively impact the students’ academic performance, mental health, and well-being. The “all work and no (or less) play” that task-oriented heads of schools tend to implement may not be helping students perform better academically.
Can Anyone Teach? (The Extra Mile Teachers Walk)
Search any site on the internet for the highest-paid professions in the world and you will not find “teachers” in the top 30. Expand your search and look for the list of professions in different countries where the practitioners receive the best compensation packages and you will find out that teaching is not among them. You will not find a country where teachers are ranked among the highest money earners.
Teaching not classified among the highest paying jobs, of course, is not surprising. That has been the case since time immemorial and it is most likely not to change anytime soon. One possible reason teaching as a profession is not getting the recognition it should get is because of the pervading notion that “anyone can teach.” You cannot say the same for law and medicine… not just anyone can practice those professions. But how true is it that just anyone can be a teacher?
But even if teachers do not get the recognition and sufficient remuneration they deserve, they wholeheartedly perform the role they have embraced. Indifference and poor salary are included among the thorny steps in the extra mile that teachers need to walk when they have accepted that teaching is not merely a profession but a vocation. It is not merely a job to perform but an obligation to carry out.
Acknowledging that teaching is not merely a job but a duty to fulfill is what makes teachers go the extra mile, to do what is more than required in the performance of their tasks, including sacrificing personal resources and sometimes even happiness. Teachers understand and fully grasp the nature of the responsibility that they agreed to fulfill when they signed up for the job. They know it’s not easy. How in the world would one consider it easy to be responsible for the education of other people, especially the young ones? When did it become easy to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and values and the development of skills of your fellow human beings?
Teachers would be one of the highest-paid professionals if only pay would be commensurate to how significant is one’s job in the enlightenment of the soul, the preservation and enhancement of the fabric of society, and the socio-economic development of a nation. Teaching would certainly be at top of the list of the highest-paid professions in the world.
But it is what it is. Teaching is not a profitable profession. If it is material wealth one would like to accumulate, teaching is not the profession to have. The realities confronting the teachers in the academe could really make them say a lot of things in the “present unreal conditional” form. There are times that they couldn’t also help but make a “wish statement” like “I wish that I were a health care professional.”
And why?
Healthcare professionals like physicians, surgeons, and dentists, consistently round out the top 10 in the lists of highest-paid professionals.
What they (the medical practitioners and their fellow health workers) do, maintenance and restoration of good health are very important. For that, they deserve the pay they get, most especially during the time that the coronavirus pandemic was raging. But nurturing the human spirit…helping a person achieve holistic development is as equally important, if not more important. What professional endeavor could be more meaningful than helping your fellow men achieve their full potential for them to become responsible human beings and productive members of society?
And not only are the teachers not getting the pay commensurate to the importance of the work they do and the effort they need to exert when doing their job, but they also don’t get the recognition they deserve.
A study concluded that American society does not generally view teachers in the same way, as they view other professionals; the belief that “anyone can teach” is not found in other professions. For example, not just anyone can play professional baseball, be an accountant or engineer, or practice law or medicine.
Such is the indifference teachers, as professionals are getting.
But how true is the contention that “anyone can teach?” Those who know what it takes to become a teacher would say that it is a fallacy. That “anyone can teach” is an erroneous assumption.
Education is not just a matter of whether you can teach or not but also whether or not you can make the students learn. Even if a person is an expert in a particular field, it is not a guarantee that they can teach what they know. Knowing something is different from knowing how to teach it.
Hiring just anyone to become a teacher is doing a disservice to the teaching profession. Hiring somebody to teach a language just because they could speak that language is a mistake. Not because somebody is good at math that they should be allowed to teach math. It takes a lot to become a teacher. Teachers undergo rigid training for them to hone their pedagogical skills. They read a lot knowing that teaching and learning are both grounded in Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and other related fields. They understand that they need to be familiar not only with their field of expertise or chosen subject area but with different principles and strategies to effectively deliver learning and teaching. They know that when they are done teaching in the classroom, their work is not done yet. There are other things to be done – checking graded activities and preparing a new lesson plan. The preparation of a lesson plan, in itself, is a tedious process.
The list of the things that teachers need to know and do is long. At the end of that long list are two characteristics that teachers need to develop if they wish to succeed in the profession. Those are PASSION for their work and COMPASSION for their students.
With all the aforementioned, what would anybody assume that just “anyone can teach?”
Be that as it may, teaching will forever be a NOBLE PROFESSION! Nothing can diminish its intrinsic value.
One thing is for sure, all successful professionals in the world – business executives, lawyers, architects, engineers, surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses, brokers, and what-have-you – know that their teachers, who did not mind walking the extra mile contributed a thing or two or more into whatever they have become.
The Extra Mile Teachers Walk
Search any site on the Internet for the highest paid professions in the world and you will not find “teachers” in the top 30. Expand your search and look for the list of professions in different countries where the practitioners receive the best compensation packages and you will find out that teaching is not among them. You will not find a country where teachers are ranked among the highest money-earners.
Teaching not classified among the highest paying jobs, of course, is not surprising. That has been the case since time immemorial and it is not expected to change anytime soon. However, insufficient remuneration does not deter teachers from performing the role they have embraced. Such is only one of the steps in the extra mile that teachers need to walk when they have accepted that teaching is not merely a profession but a vocation. It is not merely a job to perform but an obligation to carry out.
Acknowledging that teaching is not merely a job but an obligation to carry out is what makes teachers go the extra mile, to do what is more than required in the performance of their tasks, including sacrificing personal resources…sometimes happiness. Teachers know the nature of the responsibility that they agreed to fulfill when they signed up for the job. They know it’s not easy. How in the world would one consider being responsible for the education of other people, especially the young ones, easy? When did it become easy to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and values and the development of skills of your fellow human beings?
If only pay would be commensurate to how significant is one’s job in the enlightenment of the soul, the preservation and enhancement of the fabric of society, and the socio-economic development of a nation then teachers would get paid handsomely.
But it is what it is. Teaching is not a profitable profession. Realities teachers confront in the academe could really make them say a lot of things in the “present unreal conditional” form. There are times that they couldn’t also help but make a “wish-statement” like “I wish that I were a health care professional.”
Why?
Health care professionals (physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, etc.) consistently round out the top 10 in the lists of highest-paid professionals.
What they (the medical practitioners and their fellow health workers) do, maintenance and restoration of good health is very important. For that, they deserve the pay they get, most especially during this time that the coronavirus pandemic is still raging. But nurturing the human spirit…helping a person achieve holistic development is as equally important, if not more important. What professional endeavor could be more meaningful than helping your fellow men achieve their full potential for them to become responsible human beings and productive members of society?
And not only are the teachers not getting the pay commensurate to the importance of the work they do and the effort they need to exert when doing their job, but they don’t also get the recognition they deserve.
American society, for example, does not generally view teachers in the same way, as they view other professionals; the belief that “anyone can teach” is not found in other professions (i.e., not just anyone can play professional baseball, or be an accountant or engineer, or practice law or medicine.)1
Such is the indifference teachers, as professionals, are getting.
How true is the contention that “anyone can teach?” Those who know what it takes to become a teacher would say it is a fallacy.
Education is not just a matter of whether you can teach or not but also whether or not you can make the students learn. Even if a person is an expert in a field of learning it is not a guarantee that he can teach what he knows. Knowing something is different from knowing how to teach it.
Hiring just anyone to become a teacher would be a huge mistake. Hiring somebody to teach a language just because he or she could speak that language is a huge mistake. It takes a lot to become a teacher. Teachers undergo rigid training for them to hone their pedagogical skills. They read a lot knowing that teaching and learning are both grounded on Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology and other related fields. They know they need to be familiar not only in their field of expertise but with different principles and strategies to effectively deliver learning and teaching. They know that when they are done teaching they still have to evaluate the learning.
The list of the things that teachers need to know and to do is long. At the end of that long list are two characteristics that teachers need to develop if they wish to succeed in the profession – PASSION for their work and COMPASSION for the students.
How then in the world it becomes possible that just “anyone can teach?”
Be that as it may, teaching will forever be a NOBLE PROFESSION! Nothing can diminish its intrinsic value.
One thing is for sure, all successful professionals in the world – business executives, lawyers, architects, engineers, surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses, brokers, etc. – know that their teachers contributed a thing or two into whatever they have become.
———-
1 Tichenor M.S., Tichenor, J.M. (2005). Understanding teachers’ perspectives on professionalism. ERIC.
What Teachers and Students Expect From One Another
Teachers do talk about their students. They share among themselves their best and worst experiences in the classroom and compare their students’ performance and behavior. This they do either in meetings or just informally during lunch and coffee breaks.
Students do the same – they also talk about their teachers. When they are not within hearing distance of the educators, they discuss about them. Students tell each other (and their parents) how good or bad their teachers are – how much they like or abhor them.
It’s not only the teachers who could express satisfaction over good performance of students or show discontent for the students’ lack of effort in their studies. The students could do the same. They would show approval for the good effort put up by their teachers and convey disdain when they feel they are being shortchanged.
Both teachers and the students expect each other to perform well when they come to class. They both demand excellence. The teachers assume that their students have studied their lessons and have done their assignments. On the other hand, the students believe that the ones leading the learning process, their teachers, are prepared whenever they stand in front of them – that they have a lesson plan and they know how to execute it.
The most foolish assumption that teachers could make is to think that their students wouldn’t notice if they come to class unprepared. Students know if a teacher is not doing his or her job properly. It’s not only the teachers who could distinguish excellence from mediocrity.
Teachers require students to participate in discussions and other class activities. For that, they need to do their part. The teachers should never forget that there is a prerequisite to requiring the students to participate – motivation. Students expect their teachers to make them interested in the subject and to ask questions that make them think. They expect them to explain clearly and give sufficient examples for them to be ready to participate.
Such are among the pedagogical skills that teachers are expected to manifest if they hope to succeed in making students participate actively in their classes.
Students expect their teachers to be competent. The worst mistake educational managers could do is to not strictly screen applicants or blindly disregard hiring procedures and standards for whatever reasons and end up entrusting to somebody mediocre – to somebody not trained to be a teacher – the education of students. Knowledge coupled with the required pedagogical skills are what constitute competence among teachers.
Interestingly, competence and their correlates are not the ones that came out on top of the list of what students perceive as qualities of effective teachers. In studies conducted to determine what students consider as the best characteristics of quality teachers, those that relate to personality, not pedagogical skills, were the ones that consistently top the list.
In one of the said studies, among what emerged as the top five qualities of effective teacher as perceived by students, “the ability to develop relationships with their students” received the highest score.1 Of the four remaining, only “engaging students in learning” (ranked 5th) is related to pedagogy. “The ability to develop relationships with their students,” “patient, caring, and kind personality,” and “knowledge of learners” were ranked, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively.
Students and teachers differ in their perception of the characteristics of effective teachers. In a study that explored student and teacher beliefs on good teaching,2 teachers rated constructs related to their abilities as teacher much higher than those related to their personality. For the students, it’s the opposite. They gave preference to constructs related to the personality of teachers. Students who participated in the study rated “caring,” “content knowledge,” “safe environment,” “dependable,” “prepared” and a “teacher-student relationship” as most important when describing what makes a good teacher.
Again, emerging on top of the list, as viewed on the perspective of students, is a quality related to the personality of the teacher – “caring.” Note that “content knowledge” and “prepared” are related to pedagogy, the rest to the attitude and behavior of the teachers.
A very interesting topic for research is who can best answer the question “What are the qualities of an effective teacher, the students or the teachers?”.
Who is the better judge of what constitutes quality teaching – the students or the teachers themselves?
Teachers also expect respect from the students. That is something not difficult to elicit from young people like the students who are (supposedly) taught by their parents to respect people in authority. But even if parents were remiss of their duties to inculcate among their children that value, the teachers are always in a position to be accorded respect. The teachers, however, have to understand that respect is a two-way street. Students also expect to be respected. Their being the persons in authority don’t give them the right to embarrass the students either directly or indirectly.
In a study on students’ perceptions of effective teaching in higher education,3 “respectful” and other correlated descriptors were mentioned by students in a number of times significantly more than any of the other characteristics, including “knowledgeable” (which got the second highest mark). Student-respondents said that they appreciate teachers who are compassionate and understanding of the unique and challenging situations that students sometimes experience.
One of the proven ways of ensuring successful learning is for the teacher to ensure that a good rapport between them and their students exist. And the best way to do it is by not only telling the students what they expect from them but by knowing also what the students expect from the teachers.
References:
Stopovers and “Multiple Hats”
(My Journey as a Teacher – 2)
When I thought of a title for the series of essays I intend to write to mark my 30th year in the academe, I initially thought of “My Teaching Career.” But I know there is a title more appropriate for my experience of having taught in 8 different schools. It’s like moving from one place to another until I reach a final destination. So I ended with “My Journey as a Teacher.”
A journey has a final destination and the places where you stayed along the way are the stopovers.
I consider the schools where I worked in the past as the stopovers in my journey as a teacher. Not that my stay in those institutions were brief and meaningless but that I was not meant to stay there longer than I did. I moved out and continued with my career as a teacher. I did not stop teaching after leaving thus I consider them as stopovers.
Nobody knows if where I am teaching now is the final leg of my journey…my final destination. I’d love to if given the chance.
I worked full-time in 6 different schools in the Philippines before a South Korean university hired me as ESL teacher in 2013. I stayed in the said institution for only a year and decided to apply in the university where I am currently teaching both undergraduate and graduate students. I am on my 6th year in South Korea and 30 years in the academe overall.
Where I am teaching now is my 8th school. Some people consider moving from one school to another so frequently as negative. Well, that depends on the reason for leaving.
If a teacher keeps getting fired after spending a year in a school then something is wrong. But if a teacher decides to leave for valid reasons then it should not be taken against him/her.
In the first school where I worked I was a high school teacher. I taught English and Social Studies subjects. Seeing that students in the night session there were not very active in extra-curricular activities, I asked the principal if I could open a theater group for them. I was given the go signal and “Teatrong Pang-gabi” was born. Night students joined. That paved the way for me to become the moderator also of the school’s main theater group – “Teatro Teresiana.”
In 1990, I resigned because I was supposed to work at a supermarket in Oman. I was enticed by the salary offered which was 500% higher than my salary as a teacher then. But chaos descended on the Middle East when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. My mother and many more dissuaded me from leaving. I heeded.
From Batangas, I relocated to Bulacan when I was hired by a technical-vocational school. There I taught English and Social Sciences . I was also the marketing officer and was asked to do some administrative works at the same time. There I stayed for 4 years and had to resign when I focused on my dream to have a school of my own. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince the prospective partners to whom I presented my business proposal to invest.
If only I had rich parents or siblings. Not one of my relatives and friends too had the sufficient funds to finance my project then. If only the encouragement of my loved ones and friends could be converted to cash, I would have had the needed capital.
So, I set aside my dream of running my own school for the meantime and sought teaching positions in schools in Batangas and Bulacan. I got offers from schools in both provinces but I opted to accept the teaching job offered by a technical-vocational school that opened only that year (1994). That makes me one of the pioneers in that institution. I decided to work there for the simple reason that everything about that institution resemble the school that I envisioned and wanted to open in Batangas had I found a capitalist partner.
I was assigned the same subjects I have been teaching in the past years. After six months, the owners of the school realized that they need somebody to run the academic and student affairs office of the school. The President of the institution could no longer attend to those matters. Even if I have yet to finish my Master’s at that time, having learned that I performed some administrative works in my previous school, the President offered me the position.
I did not hesitate to grab the opportunity. As a result, I did not continue with my Master’s in English anymore and instead pursued a Master’s in Educational Management so I would learn more about managing schools.
In addition, I was also the marketing officer until I found (and recommended for hiring) a very capable individual to teach and at the same time take my place as in-charge of promoting the school. Nobody was willing to be the moderator of the school paper so I had to be it also.
Then I learned from a friend that a college run by one of the country’s biggest congregations was looking for somebody qualified to head their Education program. The salary was much higher and it just so happen that the said college was located a few kilometers away from the subdivision where we were planning to have our house constructed.
The most practical thing for me to do then was grab the offer.
So, I left that technical-vocational school after 8 years and accepted the offer of a Catholic institution to spearhead their Education program and help in the promotion of the school. That was year 2002.
While working as chair of the education program, I also taught English, Literature, Social Sciences and Education subjects.
The sister president of that college at that time told me that if I wish to remain as head of the Education program beyond that school year – I need to pass the national licensure examination for teachers (LET). I was surprised for I wasn’t told of that kind of arrangement before. But I just took it as a challenge.
I had no chance to enroll in a review center. My plate was full. I had to work from morning till late afternoon from Monday to Friday and had to pursue my PhD studies on Saturdays. But I was confident I would pass because the subject areas covered in the LET were the subjects I have taught in the past years.
So, in 2003 I took the LET (Major in English) and passed.
My first seven years in that Catholic institution were my best years in the academe. The sister president that time was the one of the best (if not the best) school administrator I have worked with. She influenced me in so many ways and squeezed out the best in me. I learned a lot from her. Well, I could give her name… S. Viri.
It was unfortunate that the congregation would allow a religious to head their school for 3 years then they have to be transferred to another school. There were times that they allowed an extension of 3 more years.
So after 6 years, S. Viri bade us a tearful goodbye.
I had it so great in that institution that I told my wife that I would see there all my hair turn gray and my hairline recede… or so I thought.
The next sister president of the institution made me realize that God had other (and better) plans for me. This I articulated in of the essays in this series. The subtitle is “The Decision.”
It was in that “stopover” where I stayed the longest. I really thought it was the final destination in the journey.
From a string of private institutions, I was given a chance to work in a public school – a city college. I was hired as a College Dean, the highest academic position I had. Educators from private schools were transferring to the public schools because of the salaries and benefits becoming better. I was glad to join the exodus.
But there I spent the worst school year in my career. I had encounters with two people that I never thought I would have in a place where supposedly educated people work.
I was warned by the teachers I was supervising and the non-teaching personnel about those two people. I told them about my experiences in my previous employment and they said greater are the challenges I would be facing.
Having heard that, I became very careful with everything that I do and say. I stayed away from school politics and just focused on my job.
I held two positions in that city college – College Dean and Dean of the Education Department. I gave my all, I always do. I always make sure that I would deserve every cent in my pay. I strictly adhered to the tenets of professionalism.
The first and only time perhaps that I lost my cool was when I asked the College President to allow me and one of “the two” to have a dialogue in front of her. I told him nicely to review his job description and not to intervene in my duties as College Dean.
That proved to be my undoing. I just locked horns with one of the President’s dearest allies. I prepared for a possible consequence.
It came.
At the end of my first year in that city college, after I secured the government permit to offer BSED – Major in Mathematics, I was informed that the following school year I would still be Dean of the Education Department but no longer the College Dean.
They could not provide me with a valid reason for the demotion. They could not present an official document showing the results of an evaluation that would show I fared poorly. I said that had I performed poorly as an administrator why retain me as Dean of the Education Department.
The writing on the walls were very clear. I should not stay in that city college a minute longer. I resigned the following day. I’d rather go unemployed than work with those kind of people.
To my amazement, amusement, and bemusement, I was told later by one of “the two” that the announcement about my demotion was just a test. They were just trying to see how I would react. They wanted to see what stuff I am made of specially that they were about to inform me that my “item” (that would make me a regular public school employee) from the government was already granted.
“What?????”
That was the worst joke I heard.
I wasn’t treated professionally.
(If ever those people would come across this article, they are free to refute what I wrote here. My colleagues and friends in that city college could attest to the lack of professionalism of those people.)
From that city college, I became the principal of a basic education institution ran by Pakistanis who own a network of schools in their country and some parts of Asia. That school gave me the highest salary I had in the Philippines. They were about to send me also to Pakistan at that time for the training of their school heads. It would have been all-expense paid. I declined because we were preparing for the FAPE re-accreditation. I was familiar with the accreditation system for tertiary institutions but I never had an experience doing it for a basic education institution. I figured I could not afford to be out of the country for a month. I needed to spend those times for the paperwork and legwork for the re-accreditation and for studying the accreditation policies of FAPE, DEPED guidelines, and the school system that my Pakistani employers wanted to implement. It was something new for me.
We passed the FAPE re-accreditation.
What my unfortunate experiences in that city college and the amount of work and adjustment I had to do in my new role as principal, particularly at that time that we needed to pass the FAPE re-accreditation, did was make me experience BURNOUT. Those two years were emotionally and physically draining. It did not help that it came at a time that I was also having a serious “personal problem.”
Suddenly, I began to dislike my work as school administrator. I just wanted to teach… to write. I no longer wanted to do any administrative and supervisory works.
I needed a break… a change in environment.
I pursued seriously my application as ESL teacher abroad at the turn of 2013.
My dear God listened to my prayers.
On March 2, 2013, an Asiana Airline plane brought me to South Korea to have the fresh start I badly needed. I had a reboot of my career as a teacher.
M.A.D. LIGAYA
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 