bad teacher essay

Traits of a Bad Teacher

What qualities can deem a teacher ineffective or bad?

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One would hope that all teachers would strive to be excellent, effective educators . However, education is just like any other profession. There are those who work extremely hard at their craft getting better on a daily basis and there are those that are just simply there never striving to improve. Even though this type of teacher is in the minority, just a handful of truly bad teachers can hurt the profession. 

What qualities can deem a teacher ineffective or bad? There are many different factors that can derail a teacher’s career. Here we discuss some of the most prevalent qualities of poor teachers. 

Lack of Classroom Management

A lack of classroom management is probably the single biggest downfall of a bad teacher. This issue can be the demise of any teacher no matter their intentions. If a teacher cannot control their students, they will not be able to teach them effectively. Being a good classroom manager starts on day one by incorporating simple procedures and expectations and then following through on predetermined consequences when those procedures and expectations are compromised. 

Lack of Content Knowledge

Most states require teachers to pass a comprehensive series of assessments to obtain certification within a specific subject area. With this requirement, you would think that all teachers would be proficient enough to teach the subject area(s) they were hired to teach. Unfortunately, there are some teachers who do not know the content well enough to teach it. This is an area that could be overcome through preparation. All teachers should thoroughly prepare for any lesson before they teach it to make sure they understand what they are going to be teaching. Teachers will lose credibility with their students quickly if they do not know what they are teaching, thus making them ineffective.

Lack of Organizational Skills

Effective teachers must be organized. Teachers who lack organizational skills will be overwhelmed and, as a result, ineffective. Teachers who recognize a weakness in organization should seek help in improving in that area. Organizational skills can be improved with some good direction and advice.

Lack of Professionalism

Professionalism encompasses many different areas of teaching. A lack of professionalism can quickly result in a teacher’s dismissal. Ineffective teachers are often tardy or absent. They may fail to follow a district's dress code or use inappropriate language in their classroom. 

Poor Judgment

Too many good teachers have lost their careers due to a moment of poor judgment. Common sense goes a long way in protecting yourself from these sorts of scenarios. A good teacher will think before acting, even in moments where emotions or stressors are running high. 

Poor People Skills

Good communication  is essential in the teaching profession. An ineffective teacher communicates poorly, or not at all, with students, parents, other teachers, staff members, and administrators. They leave parents out of the loop about what is happening in the classroom. 

Lack of Commitment 

There are some teachers who simply lack motivation. They spend the minimum amount of time necessary to do their job never arriving early or staying late. They do not challenge their students, ​are often behind on grading, show videos often, and give “free” days on a regular basis. There is no creativity in their teaching, and they typically make no connections with other faculty or staff members.

There is no such thing as a perfect teacher. It is in the nature of the profession to continuously improve in all areas, including classroom management, teaching style, communication, and subject area knowledge. What matters most is a commitment to improvement. If a teacher lacks this commitment, they may not be suited for the profession. 

• How to Be a Successful Substitute Teacher
• Strategies for Teachers to Maximize Student Learning Time
• What Teachers Should Never Say or Do
• Examining the Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing
• Problems for Teachers That Limit Their Overall Effectiveness
• How to Know If Teaching Is the Right Profession for You
• Why Respecting Students Is Essential for Teacher Effectiveness
• What You Will Find in the Ideal Classroom
• What Is Cooperative Learning?
• The Importance of Effective Communication Between Teachers
• Asking Questions Can Improve a Teacher Evaluation
• Addressing Public Display of Affection at School
• An Overview of the American Federation of Teachers
• Pros and Cons of Teacher Tenure
• 25 Things Every Teacher Wants From Their Stakeholders
• Performance Based Pay for Teachers

Essay on Teacher for Students and Children

500+ words essay on teacher.

Teachers are a special blessing from God to us. They are the ones who build a good nation and make the world a better place. A teacher teaches us the importance of a pen over that of a sword. They are much esteemed in society as they elevate the living standards of people. They are like the building blocks of society who educate people and make them better human beings .

Moreover, teachers have a great impact on society and their student’s life. They also great importance in a parent’s life as parents expect a lot from teachers for their kids. However, like in every profession, there are both good and bad teachers. While there aren’t that many bad teachers, still the number is significant. A good teacher possesses qualities which a bad teacher does not. After identifying the qualities of a good teacher we can work to improve the teaching scenario.

A Good Teacher

A good teacher is not that hard to find, but you must know where to look. The good teachers are well-prepared in advance for their education goals. They prepare their plan of action every day to ensure maximum productivity. Teachers have a lot of knowledge about everything, specifically in the subject they specialize in. A good teacher expands their knowledge continues to provide good answers to their students.

Similarly, a good teacher is like a friend that helps us in all our troubles. A good teacher creates their individual learning process which is unique and not mainstream. This makes the students learn the subject in a better manner. In other words, a good teacher ensures their students are learning efficiently and scoring good marks.

Most importantly, a good teacher is one who does not merely focus on our academic performance but our overall development. Only then can a student truly grow. Thus, good teachers will understand their student’s problems and try to deal with them correctly. They make the student feel like they always have someone to talk to if they can’t do it at home or with their friends.

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Impact of Teachers on a Student’s Life

Growing up, our parents and teachers are the first ones to impact our lives significantly. In fact, in the younger years, students have complete faith in their teachers and they listen to their teachers more than their parents. This shows the significance and impact of a teacher .

When we become older and enter college, teachers become our friends. Some even become our role models. They inspire us to do great things in life. We learn how to be selfless by teachers. Teachers unknowingly also teach very important lessons to a student.

For instance, when a student gets hurt in school, the teacher rushes them to the infirmary for first aid. This makes a student feel secure and that they know a teacher plays the role of a parent in school.

In other words, a teacher does not merely stick to the role of a teacher. They adapt into various roles as and when the need arises. They become our friends when we are sad, they care for us like our parents when we are hurt. Thus, we see how great a teacher impacts a student’s life and shapes it.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Teacher — The Impact of Teachers on Students: The Good and the Bad

The Impact of Teachers on Students: The Good and The Bad

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Published: Jul 17, 2018

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Does Your Child Have a Bad Teacher?

If your child complains about a "bad"teacher, seek to understand the problem first. Then, work together to fix it.

• Types of "Bad" Teachers

How To Find out if Your Child Has a Bad Teacher

How to respond to bad teachers.

Truly bad teachers are unusual, but they do exist. Today, most states require a college degree and a mentored student-teaching internship before someone can teach in the classroom. Occasionally, however, someone who might not be fit to be a teacher becomes one—or stays in the position long after their enthusiasm for the job is gone.

When your child complains about a bad teacher, it's natural to worry about how they are doing in school. You may wonder what they are learning, if they are anxious or sad, and if they will be ready to move on to the next grade level.

While these concerns are valid, there are ways to cope with this situation and help your child feel good about their teacher and school day.

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Types of "Bad" Teachers

What is a "bad" teacher, really? Some teachers are victims of the rumor mill and develop an unfounded reputation as mean or ineffective, while others are just that.

The following are some of the most common types of teachers that get a reputation as being "bad" among kids:

• The boring teacher : Boring teachers alternate between lecturing the class and handing out worksheets. While more engaging teachers give lectures and worksheets occasionally, they also incorporate hands-on assignments, projects, and group discussions to inspire their students.
• The no-control teacher : This teacher's classroom feels more like a party than an organized learning environment. Students chatter during lessons, talk back to the teacher, and may even throw things during class. Some students may like this teacher, but can't tell you what they are supposed to be learning in school. Other students may complain the classroom is noisy, chaotic, stressful, or overwhelming.
• The simple teacher : This teacher doesn't teach the material in-depth and sticks to a one level for all approach. Your child may complain of being bored or say school is too easy. You may notice that your child's schoolwork is much easier than it has been before and requires little effort to complete. Your child's teacher should work at your child's general level.
• The mean teacher : A mean teacher is unwilling to make exceptions for students who are truly struggling. They may yell at kids, roll their eyes when asked questions, and make fun of students. They seem to dislike children.

Every teacher has bad days—but one bad day does not make a terrible teacher. The truly awful teacher falls into one or more of these categories regularly. Before you act, you need to find out more about the situation.

Gather information 

Usually, parents who worry their child is dealing with a bad teacher are concerned for one of two reasons: Either the child has come home from school telling them terrible stories about their day or the parent has heard awful stories from other parents.

Your first instinct may be to jump right in and make changes—don't. Instead, pause and gather the necessary information to fully understand what is happening before doing anything else. The stories you have heard from your child or friends may not be the entire story.

Your child may have misunderstood what the teacher told them, or they could be repeating a silly rumor going around the school between kids. Your friends who don't like the teacher may not have been willing to consider that their child may have had a hand in causing problems at school.

Talk with your child

Getting your child to think about the material they should be studying in school can pique curiosity and become a learning practice. An ineffective teacher may give out assignments but not ensure the material clicks.

You can help at home by asking questions and encouraging your child to think more deeply about their classwork.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

• Can you teach me what you learned about today?
• Are you wondering anything else about what you learned?
• How do you think you might use that knowledge in the future?

This kind of discussion gets kids thinking more about their studies and gives parents invaluable clues about their teachers and what is happening in the classroom.

Once you have a bit more information, there are several steps you can take. Your child has been assigned to this class for this year. Everyone benefits when parents have a positive relationship with the teacher and the school. Choosing the best strategy to take when handed something that does not meet our expectations can prepare us—and our children—for challenging problems we may encounter in the future.

Support your child

Help your child by first asking them to pinpoint the issue and what they think might improve it. Suggest some coping techniques they can use to deal with the problem in the classroom.

For example, if the teacher doesn't answer questions, can your child find the answer in a book, from their classmates, a website, or their notes? If the classroom is chaotic, can your child move to a quiet spot in the room or the hallway to do their work?

Try a role-playing scenario where your child can practice approaching their teacher about the problem. Or, you can coach them with a few talking points they can use on their own when talking to the teacher.

Above all, supporting your child and assuring them you take their concerns seriously is important. Let them know you understand and will be there to guide them every step of the way.

Talk with the teacher

Schedule a time to talk with the teacher . It is best to do this in person, if possible. Let the teacher calmly know what your child has shared with you, and give the teacher a chance to respond. Be careful to present what your child has said without being accusatory. Always be respectful when talking with the teacher.

The teacher may explain the events differently or be totally unaware of how they are perceived. After hearing how your child feels, they may be moved to reflect upon their behavior and take a fresh approach.

It may not be easy to hear, but you may learn your child is part of the problem. For example, their teacher may be unwilling to assist them because your child refuses to pay attention , participate, follow directions, or take notes in class.

Watching the class in action is often enough to help parents understand all the dynamics at play. Every school has different rules about parent visitors, so check with the office and the teacher before you schedule a day to stop by and observe.

Talk with the principal

Administrators are extremely busy and generally defer to their staff members as professionals to resolve classroom issues. Remember that involving the principal is essentially complaining to the teacher's boss. The teacher may resent you for "tattling" on them, and a petty teacher may hold this against your child. Begin by clearly stating what you see as the problem in one or two sentences. Be prepared to explain how you know what you know. Talk about what happened and how it affected your child.

Don't expect the principal to detail how they plan to handle any issues with the teacher. Any disciplinary action is likely to be handled with discretion.

Ask to change teachers

Switching teachers is a last resort. Changing classrooms means adjusting to new peers, a new routine, and different classroom rules. Some schools may be unable to provide a different teacher due to staffing limits or district policies.

If you can't change teachers or schools, do your best to fill any learning gaps as quickly as possible. Look into tutoring or other options to provide learning outside of school. This way, your child will be up to speed and ready to move on to the next grade the following year.

Teach your child coping and self-regulation skills for navigating the situation so they feel empowered to advocate for themselves. Check in with them often to ensure the situation hasn't become worse and monitor their emotional and mental well-being.

Remember that while an entire school year with an ineffective teacher is far from ideal, it is not the end of your child's education. Other subjects and other school years will bring different teachers into your child's life. View their experience as a lesson in how to handle difficult situations and difficult people—skills that will be very helpful throughout their lives.

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Informing and Advancing Effective Policy

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• More Easily Firing Bad Teachers Helps Everyone

Teacher tenure discussions often suggest that what is in the best interest of teachers is also in the best interest of students. But the groundbreaking decision in the Vergara case makes it clear that early, and effectively irreversible, decisions about teacher tenure have real costs for students and ultimately all of society.

Teacher tenure, and the related onerous and costly requirements for dismissing an ineffective teacher, have evolved into a system that almost completely insulates teachers from review, evaluation, or personnel decisions that would threaten their lifetime employment. Research shows that this results in serious harm both to individual students and to society, because a small number of grossly ineffective teachers are retained in our schools.

The California court, noting that education is a fundamental right of California youth, struck down the law that requires administrators to make essentially lifetime decisions after a teacher has been in the classroom for just 16 months and has yet to complete an induction program. Similarly rejected were statutes that make requirements for removing a tenured teacher so onerous and costly that it is seldom attempted.

Legislatures will likely respond to the court decision by lessening (but not eliminating completely) the burden of dismissing an ineffective teacher. The teachers unions will undoubtedly claim that is an attack on teachers. It is not. It is simply an attempt to restore some balance in the system.

A small percentage of teachers inflicts disproportionate harm on children . Each year a grossly ineffective teacher continues in the classroom reduces the future earnings of the class by thousands of dollars by dramatically lowering the college chances and employment opportunities of students.

There is also a national impact. The future economic well being of the United States is entirely dependent on the skills of our population. Replacing the poorest performing 5 to 8 percent of teachers with an average teacher would, by my calculations , yield improved productivity and growth that amounts to trillions of dollars.

The teachers unions have an opportunity to participate in crafting a more balanced system that promotes world-class schools. By not collaborating, they face the very real possibility that courts and state legislatures will continue to disregard their voices in attempting to improve schooling opportunities. The stakes in getting it right are extraordinarily high.

Eric Hanushek is an economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He is co-author of " Endangering Prosperity : A Global View of the American School." He testified for the plaintiffs in the Vergarra case.

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You are here.

Let’s talk about bad teachers

Tim Daly has done the field a great service with his walk down memory lane about the flawed Obama-era effort to reform teacher evaluations. It’s all the more impressive because Tim himself was a central figure in the movement (along with Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Tom Kane, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others). It’s never easy to acknowledge the failure of something you played a big role in creating. For instance, I still refuse to accept that Common Core was a failure. (Note: It wasn’t .)

As Tim explains, the impulse behind fixing teacher evaluations was a sound one. A key goal was to finally make it feasible to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom. Unfortunately, broken teacher evaluation systems were just one tiny part of the problem rather than the problem itself. The issue of bad teachers is the proverbial Gordian Knot, and pulling on a single thread won’t untie it.

Indeed, if we want to get serious about ridding our schools of bad teachers, we must attack many difficult issues all at once: low teacher pay, which creates the appearance, if not the reality, of teacher shortages; state laws and collective bargaining agreements that mandate extreme due-process rights for tenured teachers; pension systems that raise the stakes dramatically for the removal of teachers near the end of their careers; and yes, the teacher evaluations themselves.

In my view, we should have recognized early-on that reforming all of this was politically impossible, at least via federal policy. ( Washington, D.C. and Dallas came closest—two exceptions out of 14,000 districts that prove the rule.) Therefore we should have focused on the much more achievable aim of improving the feedback teachers receive about their instructional practice, rather than trying to build high-stakes, formal evaluation systems that would inevitably do little good. After all, why would a principal give a negative review to a teacher she knew she was stuck with? It was no surprise, then, when after all the efforts and all the fights, almost every teacher in the country still receives positive evaluations from their principals. Little changed, except that attitudes against testing became even more negative and widespread.

So the bad-teacher problem hasn’t gone away. The question for today is whether that’s fated to be our permanent lot, or whether another run at the issue could be more successful. My view is that the Gordian Knot remains unbreakable, at least for experienced teachers. But I believe we could make significant progress on weeding out bad teachers in their first few years of service, before they get tenure protections or come anywhere close to a pension payout.

Are bad teachers really a problem?

Before proceeding further, it’s worth pausing to ponder whether bad teachers really are a problem. The unions would certainly argue that the vast majority of teachers are committed professionals who chose a public-spirited but poorly-paid career because of their interest in helping kids. I agree entirely! But any field is going to have high performers and low performers, probably in the rough shape of a bell curve. Any decent organization frets about how to move that curve to the right, including by asking the lowest-performers to find another line of work. It’s hardly teacher-bashing to try to do so in K–12 education.

Not that it’s easy in any sector. Few managers enjoy firing people, especially people they work alongside and have come to know well. In the for-profit world, there are strong organizational incentives not to let bad performance fester. But even then, managers need structures and nudges to get them to pull the trigger or an economic downturn to force the issue. Firing people is hard.

Yet it’s really important that we do so, especially in schools. Partly that’s because of the evidence demonstrating that our lowest-performing teachers cause significant deterioration for the students unlucky enough to be assigned to them. Especially since such students are more likely to be low-income kids and kids of color, given the inequitable distribution of effective teachers in many of our schools.

It’s also the case that low performers are a huge morale problem for high performers. That’s surely true in any line of work, but especially in schools. If I teach fourth grade, the quality of my school’s third-grade teachers has a direct impact on how well-prepared my students will be, and thus on what I can accomplish with them. So it is from K through 12.

Bad teachers with tenure: We’re pretty much stuck with them

The bad news about bad teachers is that it’s probably politically impossible to remove them from the profession, at least if they already have tenure and many years of experience. Here’s why.

First, it would mean rolling back due-process protections in place in all but a handful of states so that it does not take years and thousands of dollars to remove a teacher from the classroom. Needless to say, the unions are going to fight such changes tooth and nail. But perhaps in red states, and especially red districts within red states, progress on this front is doable.

But next on the list of challenges is the teacher pension system. Almost every teacher in America still participates in an old-fashioned defined benefit plan, meaning that they get a big payoff if they stick it out for twenty-five or thirty years, and almost nothing if they leave before retirement age. That creates a very strong incentive to be a lifer even if you are burned out and miserable. And for principals, that means knowing that, if you fire burned-out and miserable veteran teachers, not only must they find new livelihoods, but they will also lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in pension wealth.

Given that most principals are nice people who don’t like to fire colleagues they’ve worked with for years, you can imagine that this is going to be hard for them to do. You can also understand why the unions will protect these pension policies to the death. Indeed, Michigan was one of the few states that had switched a generation ago to a defined contribution plan, akin to a 401(k), and one of the first things the teachers unions fought for once the Democrats gained trifecta control in the state in 2022 was to go back to a defined benefit plan as the default. (They won that fight just a few months ago.)

Finally, there’s the challenge of teacher shortages or at least the perception thereof. Principals are loath to let go of bad teachers because they aren’t sure they’ll be able to replace them with someone better. A bird in the hand and all that.

Any labor economist will tell you that the best way to address a shortage is to pay people more. And in a sane world, we would indeed have a system where we paid teachers dramatically higher salaries and found the money by dramatically reducing the number of non-instructional staff and administrators in our school systems. But that is another Gordian Knot of its own!

Briefly: One reason we have so many non-teaching adults in our schools is to compensate for the middling quality of our teachers. We have embraced a system whereby we pay teachers relatively low salaries, which attracts mediocre candidates (on average), and then we hire coaches, instructional aides, and myriad other personnel to try to help those mediocre teachers do a better job with their students.

A completely different approach, one that is more common overseas, is to pay teachers well but keep the rest of the staffing system lean and mean. That means larger class sizes, yes, but also fewer non-instructional personnel, fewer administrators, and in general fewer teacher-helpers.

So how do we get from here to there? Honestly, I have no idea.

Bad rookie teachers, on the other hand, are a solvable problem

So if it’s impossible to do much about ineffective teachers with tenure and lots of experience, what about weeding out bad teachers before they get such protections and come anywhere close to a pension payoff? Here is where there is some good news, which is that every school district in America could make good use of its tenure approval process today , and it would face far less opposition from the teachers unions or anyone else. After all, Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein were able to institute the practice of denying tenure to a majority of teachers on their first try , and that was in New York City with the United Federation of Teachers! If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.

I’m not saying it’s easy. Denying someone tenure still needs to be done fairly and objectively. That would be a good place to use the kind of teacher evaluation systems that we see in leading states and cities, such as Tennessee and the District of Columbia—the type that Tim Daly and his compatriots spent so many years building.

And you still must deal with the “nice principal” problem. Perhaps tenure approval should be something managed at the district level, with a committee of sorts, more like how it works in higher education.

Maybe it would also help if the number of tenured positions were limited. You make it so that principals or district administrators have no choice but to deny tenure to the least effective rookie teachers. Make it a forced choice. And perhaps you could then distribute tenured positions equitably to schools throughout a district, with high-poverty schools getting more than low-poverty ones. Make it an equity play, too.

Yes, we will still face the teacher shortage problem, though the end of ESSER funding—which temporarily allowed districts to hire lots more teachers—and the sharp decline in student enrollment in most districts will take care of that, at least in the short term. We won’t need, and won’t have the money for, as many teachers as we have in recent years.

No doubt, some teachers would receive tenure who would later become burned out and be relatively ineffective. But the research evidence indicates that we can usually tell within the first few years if someone is likely to be a strong teacher. We won’t get this perfect every time, but we should have many fewer ineffectual teachers if we take this approach.

So there you have it. Unless you are willing to try unraveling the entire Gordian Knot—and have the political will and political strategy to succeed—forget about bad veteran teachers and focus on weeding out the bad rookie ones before they get too much experience in the classroom. It won’t solve everything, but it will make our schools better. Take the win!

President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Michael J. Petrilli  is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute , research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution , executive editor of Education Next , editor in chief of the…

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Good Lessons From a Bad Teacher

Teacher Sonya Robbins draws inspiration from her teen years, and remembers her worst teacher, so she can be a better one today.

Sonya Robbins has the kind of wincing clarity that comes from two decades worth of perspective. Back in middle school, she was a pill. She terrorized her eighth-grade teacher -- we'll call her Ms. Redding -- and Ms. Redding terrorized her right back. It got so tense that there had to be interventions.

Robbins was the kind of student that she, herself, has to struggle with today.

Now 33, Robbins beat a path from exasperating adolescent to, well, the opposite. She's a teacher, having joined the Brooklyn Charter School in 2002. She's developed a firm but loving rapport with her first graders, and, at some level, this carefully constructed relationship grew out of her own experiences as a student.

Lessons from a Bad Teacher

Sonya Robbins: Now that I've been a teacher, I think about the way I acted in school, and it makes me want to die. I have a lot more empathy for the teachers that I thought were being uptight at the time. I'm thinking about middle school. I was a nightmare. But I also had a nightmare of a teacher, Ms. Redding.

I went to an old-fashioned, all-girls school in San Francisco. For some reason, starting in seventh grade, I became incredibly uncooperative. The following year, I had this really hostile relationship with Ms. Redding. I felt completely persecuted by her. It got so bad, we'd have intervention conferences with my parents and the headmaster. She would come with notes -- typewritten notes -- about what I'd been doing in class.

I was too social. I chatted too much. I didn't focus. She really seemed to hate me. I remember borrowing my dad's Betamax video camera one day and interviewing everyone in my classes and all my teachers. When you get to the part of the tape with Ms. Redding, it's just a shot of her putting her hand up to the lens and saying, "Put that camera down." No sense of humor whatsoever.

It all came to a head one day when we were studying the Northern Lights. I had gone on vacation in Canada and seen them, and for some ridiculous reason, I felt this was really pertinent to share. I raised my hand, but she wouldn't call on me. I kept my hand up for 35 minutes, and she pretended not to see me. Eventually, the other kids started to raise their hands on my behalf. It really freaked me out. After class, I went to the pay phone and called home, crying. That inaugurated yet another of our conferences.

But now I see it from her side. As a teacher, you can get so irritated by your students. I understand what Ms. Redding was going through. I'm not sure I would call on a student like me, either -- someone who just wants the attention of telling the class she'd seen the Northern Lights. On the other hand, there might be a better way to handle it. A showdown with a child doesn't really work.

I think my own history in middle school is one of the reasons I gravitated toward teaching a younger age. The kids are less defiant in first grade -- less like I was!

Borrowing From the Good

There's another teacher from my past -- Mr. Olson, from second grade -- who I also think of these days. He made me feel smart. He'd publicly praise me for being a good speller, for example. I do that a lot as a teacher now. If you have a student that has a bit of talent in something, no matter what it is, find a way to celebrate it.

On that front, there's one exercise I do each year: I think of something positive about every student in my class. It's scary, because inevitably there are one or two kids for whom it's a struggle to find something to praise. But it's a great thing to do, and the little kids love it when you praise them out loud. After a while, you see them start to do it with one another. "You're really good at math," one will say to another. You create a culture of praise.

The challenge of being a good teacher is being able to balance your status as a clear authority figure with the need to connect with your students and relate to them. You have to remember why a kid might not be focused, why they want to make stupid comments, why they want to socialize. I make a conscious effort to remember that it's normal for kids to do all those things. And I remember that when they do, it's not a failing on my part or theirs.

It can get intense in the classroom, the place where you want students to do the right thing all the time. But I know from my own past that it's not always in the cards.

Chris Colin writes the On the Job column for the San Francisco Chronicle and is the author of What Really Happened to the Class of '93.

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Guest Essay

There’s a Reason There Aren’t Enough Teachers in America. Many Reasons, Actually.

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

Here are just a few of the longstanding problems plaguing American education: a generalized decline in literacy; the faltering international performance of American students; an inability to recruit enough qualified college graduates into the teaching profession; a lack of trained and able substitutes to fill teacher shortages; unequal access to educational resources; inadequate funding for schools; stagnant compensation for teachers; heavier workloads; declining prestige; and deteriorating faculty morale.

Nine-year-old students earlier this year revealed “the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the latest comparison of fourth grade reading ability, the United States ranked below 15 countries, including Russia, Ireland, Poland and Bulgaria.

Doris Santoro , a professor of education at Bowdoin, wrote by email in response to my query regarding the morale of public school teachers:

Teachers are not only burnt out and undercompensated, they are also demoralized. They are being asked to do things in the name of teaching that they believe are mis-educational and harmful to students and the profession. What made this work good for them is no longer accessible. That is why we are hearing so many refrains of “I’m not leaving the profession, my profession left me.”

In an August 2022 paper, “ Is There a National Teacher Shortage ?,” Tuan D. Nguyen and Chanh B. Lam , both of Kansas State University, and Paul Bruno of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign wrote that they

systematically examined news reports, department of education data, and publicly available information on teacher shortages for every state in the U.S. We find there are at least 36,000 vacant positions along with at least 163,000 positions being held by underqualified teachers, both of which are conservative estimates of the extent of teacher shortages nationally.

In an email, Nguyen argued, “The current problem of teacher shortages (I would further break this down into vacancy and under-qualification) is higher than normal.” The data, Nguyen continued, “indicate that shortages are worsening over time, particularly over the last few years. We do see that southern states (e.g., Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida) have very high vacancies and high vacancy rates.”

He pointed out that “the cultural war issues have been prominent in some of these states (e.g., Florida).”

I asked Josh Bleiberg , a professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh, about trends in teacher certification. He emailed back:

The number of qualified teachers is declining for the whole country and the vast majority of states. The number of certified teachers only increased in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Washington. Those increases were relatively small and likely didn’t keep up with enrollment increases.

These declines in the numbers of qualified teachers take place in an environment of stagnant or declining economic incentives, he wrote:

Wages are essentially unchanged from 2000 to 2020 after adjusting for inflation . Teachers have about the same number of students. But, teacher accountability reforms have increased the demands on their positions. The pandemic was very difficult for teachers. Their self-reported level of stress was about as twice as high during the pandemic compared to other working adults. Teachers had to worry both about their personal safety and deal with teaching/caring for students who are grieving lost family members.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics , the number of students graduating from college with bachelor’s degrees in education fell from 176,307 in 1970-71 to 104,008 in 2010-11 to 85,058 in 2019-20.

In a study of teachers’ salaries, Sylvia Allegretto , a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute , found a growing gap between the pay of all college graduates and teacher salaries from 1979 to 2021, with a sharp increase in the differential since 2010. In 1979, the average teacher weekly salary (in 2021 dollars) was $1,052, 22.9 percent less than other college graduates’, at $1,364. By 2010, teachers made $1,352 and other graduates made $1,811. By 2021, teachers made $1,348, 32.9 percent less than what other graduates made, at $2,009.

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Home / Essay Samples / Education / Teacher / What Sets Apart Great Teachers: Essential Qualities

What Sets Apart Great Teachers: Essential Qualities

• Category: Life , Education , Sociology
• Topic: Skills , Teacher , Teacher-Student Relationships

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What is a teacher, what is the purpose of a primary school teacher, what is a good teacher, what are the teacher expectations for their pupils.

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