9.3 Teacher's Merits

The following are the merits or characteristics of good teachers:

1. Teacher's Knowledge

Teachers who know more may make clearer presentations and recognize student difficulties more readily. They are ready for any student questions and do not have to be evasive or vague in their answers. The quality of teachers as measured by whether the teachers were fully certified and had a major in their teaching field is related to student performance. Thus, knowledge is necessary but not sufficient for effective teaching because being more knowledge-able helps teachers be clearer and more organized.

2. Clarity and Organization

Clarity is the most promising teacher behavior for future research on effective teaching. Teachers who provide clear presentations and explanations tend to have students who learn more and who rate their teachers more positively. Teachers with more knowledge of the subject tend to be less vague in their explanations to the class. The less vague the teacher, the more the students learn.

3. Warmth and Enthusiasm

Some teachers are much more enthusiastic than others. Some studies have found that ratings of teachers' and enthusiasm for their subject are correlated with student achievement gains. Warmth, friendliness, understanding seem to be the teacher traits most strongly related to student attitudes. In other words, teachers who are warm and friendly tend to have students who like them and the class in general. But notice, these are co- relational studies. The results do not tell us that teacher enthusiasm causes student learning or that warmth causes positive attitudes, only that the two variables tend to occur together. Teachers trained to demonstrate their enthusiasm have students who are more attentive and involved, but not necessarily more successful on tests of content include some ideas for communicating warmth and enthusiasm.

4. Ideal Character

A good teacher should be a model in character. His attitude should be praiseworthy. He should have good habits. He should be true Muslim. He must be the follower of Islamic Values like brotherhood, truth, equality and justice. It proves often through observations that most of the students idealise their teacher. Therefore, a teacher should not be the victim of smoking, bad company and wandering etc.

5. Balanced Personality

An ideal teacher have always a balanced personality. He always keeps his emotions in control. He established the atmosphere of cooperation instead of quarrelling with others. He chooses moderation instead of terrorism.

6. Literary Interest

Literary interest in one of the characteristics of an ideal teacher. A good teacher is always the fond of literature. He has interest in studies. He harmonizes his knowledge with age demands with the help of now best magazines, newspapers, radio and T.V. Due to he extensive studies: can easily answer of students questions out of syllabus also.

7. Love with Teaching

An ideal teacher always loves his profession. He performs his teaching duties understanding it worship. He knows that his profession is likely to act upon on Sunnah. He feels pleasure in transferring his knowledge to the students.

8. Professional Skills

An ideal teacher is a man who possesses the professional skills. He has professional education and knows the latest teaching and knows the latest teaching methods. A good teacher always knows the teaching skill.

9. Awareness to Children Psychology

A good teacher should be aware the psychology of the children and different stages of the growth of the children. He must be aware of the physical, emotional, mental and social problems of the children. In this way, he can teach the students effectively.

10. Teaching Methods

The latest research has introduced new ways of teaching in educational field. In old educational system, the teacher was the centre of education but now a days, the educational activities revolves around the personality of the children. In view of children different activity based methods of teaching have been introduced as activity based method. Montessori method Dalton Plan and project method. An ideal teacher uses the teaching method according to the ability of the children.

11. Polite Attitude

Politeness is another characteristic of a good teacher. He conquers the heart of other s through his good behaviour and politeness. His students and colleagues like him due to his politeness. Because of it, the school atmosphere becomes pleasant.

12. Love for the Profession

The teacher should feel the importance of his profession. He must give his exclusive attention to the  growth and development of the personalities of the children under his charge. He would be showing a dishonesty of purpose if once having entered it, he is engaged in other pursuits. Without and exclusive attention to his job he would fail in bringing forth a fine harvest of young men and women who are able to contribute their best for the welfare of mankind. If a teacher takes to his work just to make his living because nothing else is available, he will lack the essential zeal required by the teaching profession. He must be a teacher first and the teacher last. A person who wants to join this profession must feel the call for it. "If a teacher has not an ideal aim, he had better to take to shop keeping at once, he will there doubtless find an ideal within his capacity".

13. Love for Children

It has been said that if a teacher does not actually like boys and girls, he should give up teaching. He must enjoy their company groups. A good teacher feels that some in sort of energy is constantly supplied by the young. "Love the child and the child will love you, hate the child and the child will hate you" is a famous maxim. One who does not like children should not stay in teaching

The good teacher in our organized school will endeavour to win the love and confidence of his children and establish his prestige on sincerity, integrity, hard work and a sympathetic handling of their problems".

14. Respect for the Individuality of the Child

A child should not be treated just like a dumb driven cattle. His soul which is pure and very our most delicate care. He has his own individuality. His sense of respect should not be injured. Emerson states, "the secret of education lies in respecting the pupils". A child wants to be heard and his opinion should not be brushed aside merely because he is a child.

15. Knowledge of Psychology

Knowledge of psychology gees a long way in providing that basic orientation towards problems of education and child development without which there would be a considerable waste of time, energy and human resources. With a knowledge of child psychology, a teacher will be in a better position to understand and appreciate the individual differences of children, their nature, temperaments, habits and manners.

16. Intimate Knowledge of the Child

Children are not miniature adults. Their peculiar patterns of thoughts and emotions must be studied. Their names must be learnt and faces recognized. They must not be made to feel that the teacher is indifferent to them. Every source should be tapped to know about them to the fullest possible extent.

17. Full Conscious of the Rights of the Child

A teacher must accept his duty to meet his obligations to the child in the following respects as proclaimed by the International Union of child welfare which is a federation of National and International Organizations to promote the physical, moral and spiritual welfare of the child.

• The child must be protected beyond and above all considerations of race, nationality or creed
• The child must be given the means requisite for itsnormal development, materially, morally andspiritually
• The child that is hungry must be fed; the child that is sick must be nursed; the child that is physically handicapped must be helped; the maladjusted child must be educated; the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored
• The child must enjoy the full benefits provided by social welfare and social security schemes, the child must receive a training which will enable it, at the right time to earn a livelihood and must be protected against every exploitation
• The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of fellowmen۔

18. Emotional Stability of the Teacher

It is said in "The Education and Training of Teacher" published by UNESCO, "various researches show clearly that the emotional stability of teachers affects that of pupils. Unhappy, frustrated dissatisfied teachers help their pupils to become happy, well adjusted young people". The teachers should try to find out their own shortcomings and try to remove them so that the students may be saved from the adverse influence of their unbalanced personality.

"You cannot pour out of a vessel except that you have put into it and, if a teacher is poor and shallow from within, if there is no sparking wire in him, he cannot quicken the mind or humarize the emotions of his children if he is not a lighted candle himself, he will never be able to light up the flame in others".

19. Grasp Over the Method

"Any method good or bad links up the teacher and his pupils into an organic relationship with constant mutual interaction, it reacts not only on the minds of the students but on their entire personality, their standard of work and judgment, their intellectual and emotional equipment, their attitudes and values. Good methods which are psychologically and socially sound may raise the whole quality, bad methods may debase it".

The creative teacher always keeps himself in touch with the latest methods of teaching and uses them in his class. Good methods, which are facilitate learning and inculcate 'love of work. Two psychologically sound, farmers may possess an equal amount of land, an equally great desire for rich harvest but the one who uses the best method of forming will, other things being equal, get better results. Similarly a teacher who adopts proper methods of teaching will show better results and make his teaching more interesting and effective. A teacher should not be wedded to any particular method and must not have a conservative outlook but use every developed and progressive method in his class as required by the intellectual attainment of the particular students in the particular environment. He ought to devote some of his time in exploring new methods which may be of more help to him.

20. Mastery of the Subject Matter

A teacher must be a master of his subject. Any weakness on his part will lower his prestige. In the eyes of his students. Besides, he must love his subject. A teacher who does not love his subject fails to inspire his students and runs the risk of becoming a hypocrite.

"No teacher who is not a matter of the field, who isnot in touch with the latest development in his subject and who does not bring to bear upon his duties a free and untrammeled mind will never succeed in inspiring youth with the love of truth which is the principal object of all higher education.

21. Daily Preparation

Perhaps there is no type of work where the results of poor planning are so devastating as in teaching. Careful and systematic arrangement of the subject matter and the classroom activities is conductive to creative discipline. A well prepared lesson helps to overcome the feeling of nervousness and insecurity especially so common in the first attempt at teaching. Bagley emphasizes the importance of daily preparation in these words, "however able and experienced the teacher, he could do never without his preliminary preparation."

22. Democratic Attitude

A teacher cannot afford to be an autocrat present day education lays much stress on the inculcation of democratic deals in the students. A teacher who is to show the way of democracy to the students must develop in himself a democratic attitude. His role is of a friend, philosopher and guide and not of a policeman.

23. Skill in Questioning

The success of class teacher in the class also depends on the art of questioning. One who questions faultlessly, teaches effectively. With the help of right type of questions a wise teacher can lead the students from dark and unknown regions to known and bright ones.

24. Use of Material Aids

Various teaching aids bring clarity and vividness. It is a great asset to the teacher to narrate stories and anecdotes which appeal to children at different age and attainment levels. Abstract words and phrases can be made clear by illustrations.

25. Good Vitality

"Good vitality is essential to successful teaching, not only in its reflex influence upon the children but also in making possible continuity of work with the fewest possible interruptions from illness because of general fatigue".

26. Good Memory

A teacher with a poor memory is ridiculous. It becomes easier for a teacher having good memory to correlate many things. A good creative memory is one of the qualities that differentiates the good teacher from the mediocre.

27. Good Voice

The voice of a teacher should be clear, moderately pitched and well-modulated. A thin low voice develops dullness and monotony in the class. A very high pitched voice or shill one must be avoided. It distracts the minds of the students and does not appeal to their aesthetic sense. Plenty of variety must be introduced in voice. A teacher must be slow and emphatic when he is making statements he thinks worth copying. No effort should be spared to cultivate a pleasant musical tone. Anything which adds pleasure is an additional attraction for the attention and especially with children.

The best voice for the class-room is one which is clear, pleasantly toned, fairly even in its general pitch and capable of modulation in order to express different shades of meaning and emphases. A monotonous voice tires the pupils very soon and is not impressive.

The intelligent teacher should know the value of pause. He should know when to raise his voice and when to drop it or when to drop it altogether. He should adjust his voice according to the size of the room. Often a good speech fails because it cannot be easily heard especially by those who sit at the back. But it does not mean that a teacher should always be shouting. There are three ways of changing the voice-in pitch, in loudness and in speed.

28۔ Optimistic Outlook:

The teacher who can infuse happiness into the work of his pupils because be himself enjoys his work is sure to be a successful and popular teacher.

"A teacher whose soul is wrinkled and whose heart is atrophied, who is devoid of energy and enthusiasm, capacity and character and who simply marks time, his eyes fixed on the calendar, is a disgrace to the profession and a curse on society". The great teacher lives and breat the spirit of creativity and adventure.

29. Thirst for Knowledge

A teacher must refresh himself by constant readingnot only about his subjects but books which touch life atevery point. It would be very helpful if he would getopportunities of attending educational seminars, refreshercourses and he likes which enable him to get a good gripof his own thoughts and to see his own working relation toothers in the same sphere.

"A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself". A teacher should not feel shy to learn from others. There is no end to knowledge and his attitude should be like that of Newton: "I am only a child, playing in the sand by the sea-shore, picking up a pebble here and there with a vast ocean of truth lying undiscovered before me".