A look back: Who should teach? Kappan authors weigh in

What qualities do teachers need?

An article in the October 1932 issue (“Candidates for teacher training: An evaluation of the Morris Trait Index L”) noted that “in the past the most intelligent individuals generally were supposed to be the best teachers” (p. 84) but that studies actually showed no correlation between intelligence and teaching success. On the contrary, the article explained, “Such factors as leadership, social attitudes, social feelings, judgment, assurance, emotional intensity and breadth contribute more to good teaching than does superior intelligence” (p. 84). The trouble, however, is that the importance of each specific trait is hard to measure.

Across the decades, other Kappan authors have presented their own lists of essential characteristics of prospective teachers. For example, in March 1956, Roy Cochrane (“Pretesting teacher potential”) considered the role of intelligence in teaching success:

Who should become teachers? Well, the best students, of course. The very best. Those who are at the top of the class and whose behavior is impeccable; we don’t want dumbheads and we don’t want screwballs. We just want the best.

This naive answer would be the same if we asked any other occupational group to select new members. It just happens to be untrue. The few who are estimated so glibly to be the best by some superficial standard may not correspond to the group who should and will become successful teachers. (p. 242)

He then went on to present his list of more important qualities:

First, a high moral sense. Second, compulsive orderliness. Third, a feeling of mission. Besides these qualities are many lesser characteristics that distinguish the man. A favorable IQ, a voice that can be understood, tolerable posture, gentle forcefulness, deep understanding of human nature — all these we find, nor does this exhaust the list. (p. 243)

Other authors have addressed personality traits, basic academic skills, attitudes toward children, and levels of preparation that are important for teachers to possess. Although certain traits (such as knowledge of subject matter) show up again and again, articles about the essential qualities of prospective teachers have tended to reflect the particular concerns of the era or the individual authors. In June 1954, for example, William Yeager (“We are getting better ones to teach”) claimed that it was important to recruit teachers from “high” cultural backgrounds so they could transmit those values to their students.

In February 1969, Don Hamachek (“Characteristics of good teachers and implications for teacher education”) expressed consternation that the field still hadn’t reached a clear consensus about how to distinguish good teachers from bad, but he also noted that a single definition may not be feasible:

Even though there is no single best or worst kind of teacher, there are clearly distinguishable characteristics associated with “good” and “bad” teachers. There is no one best kind of teaching because there is no one kind of student. Nonetheless, there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that whether the criteria for good teaching is on the basis of student and/or peer evaluations or in terms of student achievement gains, there are characteristics between both which consistently overlap. That is, the good teacher is able to influence both student feeling and achievement in positive ways. (p. 344)

How important is training?

Some authors have focused less on the qualities of prospective teachers than on the quality of their preparation. After all, as Jerome Leavitt noted in his April 1954 article (“Predicting teaching success”), “many high school students have not matured to a point where their potential can be forecast” (p. 281); therefore, trying to determine which students have the qualities inherent in good teachers and encouraging them to enroll in a teacher-preparation program cannot be a perfect science.

Yet, many stakeholders have questioned the value of teacher education in bringing the best teachers into the profession. As Robert Roth explained in December 1989 (“The teacher education program: An endangered species?”), “teacher education has never had a good image, either with the public or with those in higher education” (p. 319). This disrespect for teacher-preparation programs was evident in a report from the nation’s governors that cited the formal requirements with teacher preparation programs as an “obstacle” that kept well-qualified prospective teachers out of the profession. This belief was leading policy makers to reduce the amount of required coursework within teacher education programs and encourage the adoption of alternative certifications. This willingness to limit the importance of teacher education arose, Roth argued, out of a misunderstanding of the field:

Assumptions about the lack of substance of teacher preparation programs are also used to justify limiting such programs or dispensing with them. Simply stated, the argument runs as follows: there is no knowledge base in teaching and teacher education, and teacher education itself is of little value. (p. 321)

This perception that formal teacher education programs are unnecessary was not new. Concerns about the low value decision makers placed on expertise in education date at least as far back as the 1930s. In October 1935, Dennis Cooke (“A proposal for the selection of trained teachers”) observed that “literally scores of instances could be cited wherein untrained and poorly qualified teachers have been given preference, in appointments to teaching positions, over well-trained and otherwise qualified teachers” (p 46). Too often, he explained, teachers were selected on the basis of their personal relationships to school board members, rather than their degrees or professional certifications. He suggested that actual education administrators, rather than political laypeople, be the ones to make hiring decisions:

The sooner that public education is put in the hands of the educators (those who know something of how an educational system should be operated) the quicker will trained teachers be selected to teach our children. The most successful businessmen and private corporations do not select untrained laymen to dictate the policies to be followed in their business. (p. 48)

During World War II, to keep schools open, some states granted emergency teaching licenses, but Osman Hull (“Recruit young people for teaching!” May 1946) worried that these licenses, while valuable for keeping schools open, might set a dangerous precedent: “We are inviting disaster if we allow high school graduates who have had little or no teacher education to direct the education of the young people of our country” (p. 8).

By the late 20th century, alternate licensing programs, while not the typical route to teacher preparation, had become common. Like Osman Hull 40 years earlier, Martin Haberman in June 1986 (“Licensing teachers: Lessons from other professions”) looked to professions outside teaching to make his argument against circumventing traditional training and certification requirements:

The lessons from other professions are clear: stop recruiting untrained people and calling them teachers; stop citing a lack of coursework in education as an indicator of excellence; stop all forms of licensure that recognize as a professional any individual who has completed less than a program of preservice preparation and three years of successful practice; stop the rampant practice of misassigning teachers to teach out of their fields; give those teachers who are temporary or less than fully prepared different licenses, salaries, functions, and status than are accorded fully prepared and experienced teachers. I am confident that bright liberal arts graduates could be found who would practice more effectively than many lawyers, accountants, pharmacists, architects, nurses, university presidents, executives of research organizations, or admirals. But only in teaching are untrained individuals actively recruited, given workloads and salaries equal to those of fully prepared/teachers, and cited by many as superior to fully prepared teachers because they have no professional preparation. (p. 720)

Haberman suggested that licensure requirements become more rigorous, to include certification tests involving complex educational theories and jargon, instead of general “liberal arts skills,” such as oral communication, listening, writing, and conflict resolution. Although this would be counterintuitive in a time of teacher shortages, it would, he suggested, raise the status of the profession. Instead of lowering standards, he suggested, leaders should look to proposals such as increasing the number of assistants to alleviate shortages without bringing unqualified teachers into the classroom.

Despite arguments made in these pages in support of traditional teacher-preparation programs, the desire among some leaders and policy makers to offer other options has not gone away. In “What does it take to make a teacher?” (October 2010), Deborah Loewenberg Ball and Francesca Forzani noted that “the gateway to teaching has been widening” and suggested that it is a cause for concern:

That it is so easy to enter teaching should give pause. The stakes — the education of young people — are high, and teachers’ work is far from simple. Consider teaching a child to read, making algebra sensible to a group of uninterested adolescents, leading a productive discussion of a short story, or communicating effectively with parents. Add to that assessing students’ learning and interpreting and using data to improve the effectiveness of instruction. These are not tasks that come naturally. Yet we lack a reliable system for preparing those who want to teach. The sheer need for teachers — the nation’s largest workforce — has always overshadowed the need to refine their training. (p. 10)

But some authors have questioned how much training can do. In June 1995, Martin Haberman (“Selecting ‘star’ teachers for children and youth in urban poverty”) argued that, particularly when it comes to teaching children in poverty, “selection is more important than training. My calculated hunch is that selection is 80% of the matter” (p. 777). Being able to write a paper on Piaget or explain why a student won’t stay in their seat won’t mean much if a teacher lacks the disposition that will enable them to be humane and caring: “My point here is that teachers’ behaviors and the ideology that undergirds their behaviors cannot be unwrapped. They are of a piece. Nor can this ideology be readily or easily taught in traditional programs of teacher preparation” (p. 777). Such programs can, he explained, teach those who have the appropriate underlying attitudes a set of behaviors that build on those beliefs. But, even then, teaching the behaviors is not enough. Too often, he said, these programs only give aspiring teachers opportunities to practice these behaviors in optimal conditions, when they need to be able to practice what they’re learning in similar conditions to what they might encounter in urban schools. If teacher education programs could identify candidates with the right mindset, teach them behaviors build on that mindset, and give them opportunities to practice in challenging real-world conditions, they will be better able to equip potential stars for success in any classroom.