The most essential qualities an outstanding teacher must possess are wisdom and passion. Wisdom is composed of compassion and intelligence, while passion means vision and diligence.
Compassion is first and foremost because it is the bond between teachers and students. Compassion means understanding a student's identity and wanting the best for them. One of the best gifts to impart to students is to teach them to treasure their education-- in modern parlance, to move from external to internal motivation. To accomplish this feat, teachers should cultivate real relationships with students. Students learn more readily from teachers whom they know are genuinely interested in their success. Compassionate teachers learn their students’ aspirations, fears, affinities, personal histories, and so on, and incorporate that knowledge into their lessons. The understanding that a lesson has been made for them specifically is very compelling evidence that the teacher cares about them personally. As an addendum, compassion does not mean constant leniency. Sometimes, compassion means stern correction. A wise teacher must strike a balance between the two.
The second most important quality is intelligence, including content knowledge and how to apply it. Since students must perceive some value in the content they are presented with, outstanding teachers must seek a middle ground between that which appeals to their students’ interests and that which will profit them as members of society. For example, in a social studies class, there may well be students who are naturally interested in sports, military, visual arts, fashion, and culinary arts. It is very possible to teach lessons which incorporate all these interests. The challenge is to also incorporate the skills social studies teaches which will benefit them in the long run, e.g. the concepts of citizenship, cause-and-effect, logic, rhetoric, and others. In order to do this, teachers must present these concepts as the common threads which run through all social activities. In the end, the students should grasp that social studies, or any other discipline, offers a set of skills which they can actively use in their day to day lives to deal with the situations and problems that matter to them.
The third most important quality is vision. A visionary teacher believes in the value of their class. Most outstanding teachers decided to teach because an excellent teacher had a very positive influence on their own lives by bolstering their competence and confidence. A visionary teacher knows if they do their job well, they can actually improve people’s lives far beyond adding a little history, mathematics, or artistic knowledge to memory. Visionary teachers know they can set lives on new, better tracks, creating a better future for society as a whole.
As a consequence of being visionary, an outstanding teacher will be extremely diligent. They set the standard in terms of putting in the hours, meeting deadlines, thoroughness, and ensuring the tone of the classroom is positive and industrious. By participating in the school community beyond their own class, they demonstrate that school is an opportunity to practice being an excellent member of society. This instills a respect for academia as a place where students can develop the wide set of human abilities to their maximum potential.
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