Question 1

Personal characteristics …….. Use of teaching and learning theory ………… Relationships with students and colleagues………… A critical reflective orientation………

These qualities are all vital, interrelated and constantly redefinable attributes of a teacher.
Personal characteristics are the qualities I would see as the most important starting point to build the picture of qualities I aspire to within a teaching framework.

• Hattie talks about students and teachers accounting for 80% of the variance of achievement in the classroom. What the student brings with them is a given (50%) and it is the teacher (30%) who can provide a solid platform for students to understand and synthesise new information (links/connections) by:

• constant learning and knowing with passion their subject area,
• reflecting on their teaching practices and student responses,
• evaluating the effectiveness of these methods/practices,
• collaborative discussions with colleagues,
• analysing and adaptating of their methods of teaching.

The desire to do this: the love and respect for children; the ability to deliver the information in a way that is stimulating, engaging and encourages deep thinking in the students; the ability to anticipate a situation and improvise and the humility to seek help is part of a persons makeup is what informs and inspires me and therefore I can see no point in being a teacher if I didn’t have or want to work towards those personal qualities that drive me.

• Within personal characteristics lies the orientation either away from or towards critical reflection. Without orientation towards critical reflection an essential aspect of higher order thinking would be lacking. Looking to Blooms Taxonomy, and the higher order aspects of thinking for a teaching programme and lesson plan -ie evaluation (eg. of lesson content and teaching practices); analysis (eg. of the effectiveness of content and practice and where it could be changed and improved on for a multitude of reasons); and synthesis (eg. integration of all aspects of your lesson content, practices, new learning, collegial collaboration etc)...all require the desire for and the implementation critical reflection, objective and subjective.

• Being creative and innovative as a teacher so as to provide a safe stimulating learning environment which is an inclusive, rich and fertile arena for students to learn in, requires critical reflective practices and willingness to learn and change on the part of the teacher. We ask this of our students, and my experience tells me that the teacher not only has to have a sound and thorough knowledge of their subject and its potential to inform other curriculum and life areas, but also be willing and wanting to learn and in doing so, to instil and foster this quality in their students.


Healthy relationships with colleagues are essential to the health of a school and to fostering expert teaching standards. Within a collegial body there exists a vast pool of resources eg:

• the wealth of life experience
• the diversity of perspectives
• the consciousness of common goals and core values
• the subject knowledge and experience within the same faculty or within other curriculum areas
• all providing possibilities for deeper representation of an individual teachers teaching programme and lesson content.
• The recognition and utilisation of each other as a valued resource also promotes inclusiveness and empowerment of the individuals within the collegial body which adds to their sense of value within the school and wider community.

A healthy relationship with the class as an organism and with individual students within that organism is vital.
To take the time and be genuinely interested in each student, to know them by name and have some level of personal representation to them, their family or environment, gives the students a sense of value. This in turn promotes a sense of inclusiveness and safety which is empowering to them, allowing for more risk taking, creativity and transformation within their learning experience
Knowing each students also allows a teacher to individualise learning within the broader context of the lesson by recognising the different learning/ memory representations, (multiple intelligence) that a student accesses to provide themselves with a known context for new information to be added to

The use of teaching and learning theory is also invaluable.
To begin with one must cultivate a deep and broad understanding of a core subject and its corresponding syllabus documentation, and then not just overlay, but constantly weave into it, different perspectives on teaching and learning theory brought forth through many streams of observation, reflection and knowledge including collegial input and student observation; and then deliver this constantly evolving and transforming tapestry with passion, creativity and anticipation of a symbiotic experience. This is what teaching and learning within a healthy, conscious community is all about.

Indicators such as providing feedback to students to monitor their learning; planning the lesson thoroughly to then allow for flexibility, spontaneity, responsiveness; and the adoption of a more problem solving role towards students is- according to Hattie - part of an integrated and working model of the expert teacher.


To be alive is to be learning.


Teaching is the axis from which society rotates on, in ever expanding circles.
If, as teachers, we can offer inclusiveness as the foundation of a learning community we have the potential to raise the consciousness of our society by
promoting entrepreneurial behaviour
empowerment of individuals who are risk takers, reflective in their attitude, who dare to make mistakes.

Informed choice, freedom and responsibility, creativity and transformation become the harbinger of a healthy and vital community and prepare the way for the dissolving of the exclusive, elitist and aggressive dogma driven guise that has provided refuge for fear and isolation, mistrust and dis-ease on the microcosmic and macrocosmic level of mankind, the earth and beyond.

“Humility is admitting that I don’t know the whole story.
Compassion is recognizing
that you don’t know it either.”

Wheatly.