Teacher As A Practitioner Research Paper

Teacher as a practitioner

The common understanding of being a teacher, is a person who has mastered his skills and is ‘transferring’ his knowledge to students. But there is much more to being a teacher. A teacher is not just a skilled worker. In order to fully grasp on what a teacher is, one must be regarded as being a practitioner. A good teacher is not only a practitioner but also a critically reflective one. ‘Education’ then is the name of a practical activity, like farming or gardening; it is not the name of a theoretical activity like physics or psychology. (Langford 1968) p.8Therefore, in order for a teacher to become a practitioner one needs to: apply the theory into practice, make practical decisions, have values and beliefs, have

But as a practitioner, it is not the only relationship that we need to form. Every teacher should also have a positive relationship with himself, his subject, his colleagues, parents and even society. In order to teach effectively a teacher needs to have good intrapersonal skills. He needs to be aware of ‘self’ and his own identity. He needs to be aware of his own actions and be able to explain and justify them for himself. This awareness of ‘self’ can result in enjoyment from teaching, which can be transferred onto students in a positive way. Because what is better than the teacher who enjoys spending time with students and contemplates their path through learning process. Another relationship that is vital is the one that the teacher has with his own subject or even subjects. For example, imagine a teacher that loves teaching English but History not so much. He creates wonderful lessons for English, uses different methodologies and approaches. But how will his teaching look like in History class? Will he prepare it with the same excitement that he has for English? I remember my Maths teacher saying one day to us before Living Certificate that we will not do Statistics because she doesn’t like them. Instead she spent a long time with us doing Calculus, which we could not fully understand and probably Statistics would have been a better option for us. The first time I saw Statistics was at the University level. Now that I can think back in time, it occurs to me that this teacher did not have a good relationship with his subject. The thinking behind it was just ‘to get it over with’ and if he could just leave it out and not do it at all. But then, how does this benefit the students? It does not. If the teacher does not have a positive attitude towards his subject, he will not teach it effectively and with passion as it is missing. In order to fully serve a purpose of a teacher we must also look at