The Magic Behind Every Great Teacher!

Anna-Karin Berg

The magic behind every great teacher has nothing to do with magic.

If we assume that great teachers possess some extraordinary magical ways of teaching, we perhaps would think that not EVERYONE can be a great teacher. Maybe it would mean that there is a magic property reserved for only the few chosen ones and that is something you are gifted with, not a skill or skills that have developed over time.

This couldn’t be further from the truth; being a great teacher doesn’t require magic. However, a great teacher can create magic in the classroom and reaching that optimal learning experience with your students can sure feel magical.

But the magic behind a great teacher does not exist because ANYONE who has chosen this profession has the potential to become successful at teaching.

If we as educators don’t believe that we have the capacity to learn and excel in our profession then how can we project the same onto our students and colleagues? How can we have high expectations of students if we don’t have high expectations of ourselves?

So, the keys to becoming a great teacher and creating that magic with the students must accept the following statements:

Being a great teacher is being a positive leader and a role model.

But to be a positive leader and to encourage constructive behaviour you must know what values you rest your leadership on. Do you value for example empathy, integrity, respect, courage, and authority?

Make a list of values with which you identify the strongest. This is your core and one of the first steps to becoming a great teacher: the capability to self-reflect.

The next step is to analyse how your values portray themselves in your behaviour every day.

Perhaps your behaviour doesn’t reflect what you value and is being perceived negatively or ingenuine?

If you feel it’s important to be courageous perhaps your students don’t share your views. How do you approach that so that they may dare to learn new things, dare to fail before they succeed, dare to show vulnerability and ask for help? Do you do the same?

To be a great teacher therefore means to accept your responsibility as a leader but you must also model the desired values and behaviour for others to find your leadership credible and trustworthy.

Being a great teacher is to be able to establish constructive relationships.

This is a skill and skills, as you know, can be taught. Hence no magic behind it.

Teachers are also human and sometimes we don’t want to create relationships with everyone we meet. To be honest, we don’t have to.

However, we have to identify in our profession what we mean by establishing a constructive, professional relationship with our students and our colleagues. We need to establish boundaries because if we are trying to be or act as someone we are not, we will not be trustworthy as leaders or role models.

Setting boundaries for the constructive relationship between a teacher and a student doesn’t mean that you don’t care about them or their progress, it just means that you can be more consistent when working with students and acknowledging their feelings professionally.

On the contrary, it can be beneficial in modelling for the students how adults construct and maintain healthy relationships based on trust, integrity and respect in the learning environment.

Children and youngsters can always reach academic success without the ability to form positive relationships but it will take a toll on their well-being, and self-esteem and can affect their capacity to reach their potential in life as well as their capacity to contribute to the common good.

If we wish to create the magic classroom as great teachers we must show our students how we can build positive relationships that add to their growth and to the society we live in.

That is the kind of classroom I would like to be in, wouldn’t you too?

So, as this newsletter began, I would like to repeat that there’s no magic behind becoming a great teacher. It’s an active choice you make as a teacher in accepting that you, in your profession:

• Can always improve and grow, just like your students.
• Bring in values that you need to become aware of to understand how these values shape your role as a teacher. Just as your students carry values and these shape their behaviour. Use it as a strength and bridge for creating a positive learning environment.
• Must develop your capacity to build constructive, positive relationships based on integrity and respect both with students and colleagues. And last and the most important key to becoming a great teacher:
• You must accept that you are a leader and have responsibilities towards your students, such as acting as a role model. You have an impact on their lives, more than you may think.

The magic behind every great teacher doesn’t exist but every teacher can become great and create magic.

Anna-Karin Berg