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Marks Of The Ideal Teacher

Marks Of The Ideal Teacher image
Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
August
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

MARKS OF THE IDEAL TEACHER

They are Described by Miss Emma Taylor

AN INTERESTING ESSAY

Showing Why Some Teachers are Successful and Others are Failures

At the close of the Teachers' Institute meeting at the High school on Wednesday of last week, Miss Emma Taylor, of this city, read a paper on "The Ideal Teacher," which was highly praised by the teachers present. Following is the paper read by Miss Taylor:

"An ideal, as Webster tells us, is a mental conception, regarded as a standard of perfection. It makes no difference what occupation in life one chooses, whether it be that of a farmer, a merchant, a statesman, a teacher or a philosopher, there is always the ideal to he striven for, and attained, or at least approached as nearly as possible.

"It is the goal to be reached by all who have the true spirit of their calllng, and the striving for this ideal is the incentive which brings out all the latent powers of the mind and soul and uplifts them to a higher plane.

"Conceive, if you can, a vocation wherein there is no ideal, and there you will find that the lowest motives, selfishness, greed, jealousy and dishonesty, are dominant.

"We, as teachers, of course, are striving to attain the standard of perfection which we have set up as our ideal. Now what marks and qualifications characterize the ideal teacher?

"She is surely not the teacher who resorts to school teaching as a stepping stone for earning funds to engage in some other field of labor, and whose zeal for her work is shown by rushing through her classes to get away early from this irksome task. It seems strange, but teaching is a profession to which the ignoramus may gain an easy admission. In selecting his occupation, he selects that of school teaching as having less work and devolving less mental power, and so, many a ditchdigger or a kitchen maid is spoiled for further usefulness.

MAKES CONTRACTS.

"In no other calling can this be said to be true. The doctor must devote years to his studies before he is allowed to enter his profession. The lawyer, likewise, must prove that he has prepared himself thoroughly, before he is allowed to explain the laws of the land. But not always is this true of the teaching profession. Oftentimes any one who finds himself unable to succeed in any other line of business thinks he can train the mind of youth.

" ‘Oh! let not then, unskillful hands attempt to play the harp whose living tones are left forever in the strings. Better far that heaven's lightnings blast his very soul and sink it back to chaos' lowest depths. than knowingly, by word or deed, he send a blight upon the trusting mind of youth..' "

"She can not be the teacher who is slovenly in appearance, who never thinks of greeting her pupils on their entrance to the school room in the morning, and who is indifferent to them at other times.

"She can not be the teacher, who in her efforts to secure a position, would underbid a fellow teacher for the same position.

"She is not the teacher who stands before her classes, day in and day out, with less knowledge of the subject matter than the children themselves, and who follows the book so closely that she dare not raise her eyes for fear of losing the place.

"She can not be the teacher who loses patience at trivial things and who is continually faultfinding, nagging and scolding. Calderwood says, 'He that reigns within himself and rules passions, desires and fears, is more than king.'

"But she is the teacher who enters her school room in the morning infused with the true teaching spirit, that of up-lifting the minds of youth. It is this spirit which hides her cares and impatience behind a smiling face, and drives away the clouds of fretfulness from their minds- the spirit that makes it possible for the teacher to be instrumental in bringing out all that is best in the mind of the child.

TEACHER'S CHARACTER.

"She is the teacher who recognizes the fact that she must teach by her personal appearance as well as by her scholarship, and so enters her schoolroom becomingly and attractively dressed. She is not necessarily a handsome person, as we may understand the meaning of the word, but is and must "be a beautiful one, not as to facial attraction, but in her manner and character.

"Froude, the great English historian, says, "In schools and colleges, in fleet and army, discipline means success and anarchy means ruin," so she is the teacher who keeps a well-disciplined school, and who finds the greatest factors in her disciplining to the love and sympathy- love for the children and love for her work, and as love begets love, she finds the child's mind plastic in her hands. It is this sympathy, that draws the children to her and wins their confidences and enables her to get at the best in them.

"She is the teacher who uses this for her motto:

"To thine own self be true, And it shall follow as the night the day, Thou cans’t not then be false to any man,'

and from this use, she is thoroughly honest in every respect- honest in her duty, honest in her dealings and honest to herself. And in being true to herself, she stands before her classes, well prepared and equipped to carry on her day 's work.

“She is the teacher who believes and feels that her work is the noblest one that was ever made, who devotes herself to it, who has a longing to help mankind, and who is not afraid of hard labor.

"To sum up briefly, she is the teacher who is first of all a student, who is patient, thoughtful, considerate, vigilant, neat and orderly, industrious. friendly, frank, enthusiastic, prayerful and who is in character what she wishes her children to be.

"Perhaps you may think that I have been depicting impossibilities, but our ideals may be reached by constant effort and watchfulness on our party. Same one has said, "Eternity alone can display the immeasurably inconceivable usefulness of one devoted teacher,' and with this thought in our minds, we shall be urged to greater efforts, and when our ideal has been reached, then will the school officers think the millennium at hand, and the children believe themselves to be in that Utopia described by Sir Thomas Moore."