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Short Essay On Teacher: Importance Of Teacher Essay
Teachers are found in all walks of life. The more common idea of a teacher is someone standing in front of a classroom filled with students paying attention to the black or white board while he/she explain the subject at hand. The lesser-known teachers are the mentors young people encounter during their journey that help them grow. From everyone’s personal experience we can conclude that humans grow through emulating others, whether we’re kids playing house, playing the role of the father and the mother, or we’re young adults that admire a certain person. Having a role model in one’s life is very important; it’s how individuals learn to sculpt themselves, having role models in children’s lives besides their parents is essential, and since children spend most of their time at school, it is only reasonable that the position of role model should fall on the teacher.
When children attend kindergarten, the goal is not merely to learn the very basics of language, the goal is to help the child adapt and live in a place without his/her parents, in other words to start figuring out who they are outside their parents. There is a famous passage in the Old Testament in genesis at the beginning of Abraham’s story, where God addresses Abraham telling him to "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house unto a land that I would show thee†(The Holy Bible). This simple call to Abraham as explained by Jordan B. Peterson in his YouTube videos on the psychological significance of the biblical stories, explains this as a call to adventure, going out into the unknown; into new unexplored territory so one can challenge themselves into becoming more, and independent from their parents (Jordan B. Peterson).
When a child goes to a kindergarten they meet other children, which brings them out of their house’s ambience, which presents itself as a challenge to the child, a challenge to socialize and assert their self in the group. With that being said, a teacher plays a very important role other than merely teaching them songs and the English alphabet, the teacher plays the role of the guide, teaching the students the appropriate social skills, in which they will use in the future. Students at higher levels that have already been taught the proper social skills and have already grown through the first stages of school, learn certain admirable characteristics from their teachers, ones they admire, so they can utilize it in future years of college. Piaget believed that infants create a concept of the world around them, encounter inconsistencies between what they already know and what they learn in their environment, and then alter their views as a result of their experiences ("Piaget’S Theory Of Cognitive Development | Education, Society, & The K-12 Learner"). This theory with all its limitations does show that humans adjust to their environments by comprehending anomalies and adjusting their view to encompass what is unknown. From a subjective point of view, a person is both shaped by their environment and is shaping their environment, this means that not only people react to the anomaly and adjust their view to it, but they also interact with it, changing the anomaly itself (if it’s possible) to fit their view.
All of this shows how crucial the role of the teacher is in helping his/her students develop into strong and competent human beings. Whenever a teacher is considered a role model, it means (although not quite obvious) that the students have seen something anomalous about this human, and this anomaly has gripped their interest/ attention in such a way that the students desire to incorporate it into their view of themselves. That being said, it is not clear as to why a small proportion of students consider their teachers to be role models, a study conducted by Toth Albert concluded that 98% of students do not see their teachers as role models (Szűcs Ida 141-147). Which brings the question, what are the attributes that a teacher must develop so that he/she could become role models in the "eyes†of their students? Some traits and attributes are: physical appearance, competent and knowledgeable in various subjects, assertive and compassionate, objective and fair (Szűcs Ida 141-147). With that being said, it is difficult to layout a universal guideline for teachers to follow since the cultural differences play a major role in the development of both the student and teacher. For example, in Germany:
"Optimism, objectivity, patience, confidence, elegant and sportish appearance were considered to be the most important traits†(Szűcs Ida 141-147).
While in Poland:
"The professional knowledge, high level of ethics, honesty, confidence, consistency, fairness, self-command and optimism made the good teacher†(Szűcs Ida 141-147).
Although similarities do exist on a collective scale cross culturally, it is too early to draw a conclusion that based upon the collective opinion, since day to day detailed interactions that are experienced subjectively by both the students and the teachers govern the whole interaction. Therefore, every teacher has a duty to themselves and to their students to put in the effort into developing themselves the way they see fit so that they can inspire students to develop themselves into more competent, strong and confident people.
Works Cited
Szűcs Ida, Zagyváné. "What Makes a Good Teacher?†Universal Journal of Educational Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 2017, pp. 141–147., doi:10.13189/ujer.2017.050118. (Szűcs Ida 141-147)
Jordan B. Peterson. Biblical Series IX: The Call To Abraham. 2017, Jordan B. Peterson | YoutuBe Channel. (2017). Biblical Series IX: The Call to Abraham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmuzUZTJ0GA&t=1941s. Accessed 14 June 2021.
The Holy Bible. American Bible Society, 1986.
"Piaget’S Theory Of Cognitive Development | Education, Society, & The K-12 Learner". Courses.Lumenlearning.Com, 2021.
