TEACHING is an art as well as a science. Someone can be an born teacher or can acquire teaching skills. It has always been said that a teacher is a friend, a philosopher and a guide. However, people without a philosophical set of mind might disagree. Culturally, teachers are respected around the globe. In the Arab world, teachers are highly esteemed. Therefore, the socio-academic responsibility of teachers is doubled in those communities where teachers are considered noble.
An ideal teacher plays a variety of roles in the educational process, among which are the following:
1. Knowledge provider: Ideal teachers must be experts in their subject or else they cannot impart the required knowledge. They should be aware of the mission, vision and objectives of teaching.
2. User of innovative strategies: An ideal teacher should have access to different innovative methods and strategies of teaching to be effective and efficient in the classroom. These days, technology integration has become an integral part of the teaching-learning process.
3. A motivator: The teaching/learning process cannot be a success unless both teachers and students are internally motivated. As regards external motivation, the teacher can be the prime motivating factor for students, and management can reinforce the teaching staff in order to ensure a better outcome.
4. An assessor: Ideal teachers should be able to diagnose the weaknesses and strengths of students and evaluate their actual achievement. They should also be able to evaluate their own performance.
5. A role model: Ideal teachers should be good role models not only in the classroom while discharging their duties as instructors, but also when fulfilling their role as teachers outside the classroom. Many students try to imitate their teachers, even in terms of their dress style.
6. A facilitator: With the change in society, the teacher’s role has also gone under major changes. Students enjoy more academic freedom. Thus, a teacher has become a facilitator rather than a source of all information.
7. A diamond maker: Generally students when they enter school are unpolished gemstones. The expertise and skill of the teacher polishes that stone and converts it into a precious gem: a diamond. The whole process of teaching and learning resembles the process of making a diamond. If the diamond maker (the teacher) is not an expert, the raw stones (the students) may be broken and eventually drop out or waste their valuable time without learning very much.
8. A gardener: Some educational philosophers think that a teacher is like a gardener who takes care of soft and supple flowers and plants. While serving as a gardener, a teacher prepares a suitable bed for growing and planting, fertilizing, watering and taking overall care. If a plant does not grow well due to the lack of space or the unavailability of required sunshine, the gardener changes its location at a suitable point of time. In one way or the other, the role of a teacher resembles the gardener’s job in a given context.
9. Other roles: A teacher plays different roles in a classroom, and in addition, an ideal teacher plays many social roles in society. A good teacher can be a reformer in society. He can transform an uneducated community into an enlightened one. A teacher can lead a “movement” and can be an influential “instrument” for change.
Teaching is a noble profession. A teacher requires sound knowledge, good training and enough dedication to be effective and efficient. A profession is not just an occupation. Someone should join the teaching profession with the aim of serving society not merely with the aim of serving himself.
— Dr. Intakhab Alam Khan is an Indian educationist, researcher, author and member of the faculty at King Abdulaziz University Community College, Jeddah.
