A PTER 6 Teachers’ Knowledge and Development

When trainee teachers are asked to reflect on the qualities of good teachers they themselves have had experience of, their responses tend to identify qualities in three categories. Firstly, good teachers were those with sound, extensive subject knowledge and high levels of expertise. Secondly, qualities relating to personal attributes, emotions and dispositions are mentioned: teachers were enthusiastic, had good senses of humour, were caring, good listeners, were fair. Thirdly, there are qualities connected with the skills and abilities needed for the teaching task: firm classroom management, good organisational skills, clear explanations. The training and education of teachers has, at different times, put a premium on developing qualities in each of these categories. The development of teaching (in the primary and secondary phases) as a graduate profession is a recognition of the high level of subject knowledge required of teachers. The establishment of employment-based routes into the profession in the 1990s was partly a reaction to the dominance of teacher training by higher education institutions which were seen by some to have over-theoretical and insufficiently practical programmes of training. As we shall see in Chapters 19 and 20, many consider it is the softer people skills associated with high emotional intelligence which the current and future teachers of 14-19-year-olds will need to develop. All trainees agreed, however, that the good teacher has qualities in all three categories.