Good day, and welcome once again to our discourse. Today, we'll be looking at what teaching entails, and the contrasts we find among teachers and their various styles.
First off, we should ask ourselves who (or what) a teacher is. A teacher refers to a person who helps others to learn. In this context, it is used to refer to a person who facilitates learning or encourages the learning process. We'll be looking specifically at two sides of a coin, and the apples that fall from its tree. We'll begin with the tin-gods and the progressives.
The Tin-gods
These are authority figures, traditional and sometimes archaic in style. They're strong personalities, highly principled autocrats and disciplinarians who are well influenced by their local culture. They influence their acolytes strongly and learners are subjected to a rigid and rote system of study. They can be inflexible about class attendance.
The Progressives
The progressives are well travelled experts highly influenced by foreign culture. They bring a modern and contemporary approach to education and whatever conditions makes the student learn better; adopt a laissez faire approach to classroom attendance and use state-of- the-art teaching techniques and materials to promote learners' understanding.
But there comes a different breed of teachers who combine the best of both worlds into a dream hybrid of function and practical experience. An offspring of a dizzying marriage of convenience.
The Progressive Tin-gods
These are authority figures who are well read, well travelled and fully grounded in both local and foreign culture and apply the best of both worlds to any given situation. They've actually been able to identify what works the best in an academic situation. They're situational leaders who apply the best teaching techniques at any given time.
They promote an insatiable reading culture, class attendance, an aptitude for critical thinking and problem solving, and keep learners on their toes at every time. This category of teachers inspire, motivate, cajole, challenge, flummox (positively embarrass) learners to be the better and best versions of themselves. They're highly effective teachers, up-to-date, well versed, well experienced and infinitely capable, having no use for old knowledge but new, teaching with verve, guile and unparalleled swagger, using relatable concepts to disperse information.
They actively engage students in the learning process and make them eager for knowledge, (also providing ready access to such knowledge), and help transform mere thought into action for the benefit of the common society. For better or worse, his students are 'people of their own.'
The progressive tin-gods take the best qualities of the first category i.e. discipline and knowledge and compulsory class attendance, and transcend the roles of the progressives. The tin-gods are more concerned with knowledge of the subject matter; the progressives are more concerned with its understanding, but the progressive tin gods are more concerned with producing inspirational (or intellectual) figures like themselves. People who know, understand and contribute. Sharing of their spirit the love of knowledge and the beauty of true scholarticism beyond mere grades.
They light a fire in the hearts of learners. They're time concious to a fault and have distilled the form to fine art. Instigating self-expression, yet a standard decorum at all times. The progressive tin-god is kind and gentle, also strict and autocratic, interactive, approachable and relatable. He is the kind of teacher the whole world needs. He is a faculty in himself, a phenomena worth studying. Students wish they had more time to teach. These teachers may be a little eccentric but they always make the right decisions, neither do they rest on their laurels. Their personality as engaging as the things they teach, they make learning (and knowledge) a most beautiful bride.
Tokede's Hierarchical Model of Teachers
Sub Teachers — Teachers — Progressives — Managers — Leaders
The Leader-Teacher motivates and inspires learners to be better versions of themselves through acquisition and assimilation of valuable knowledge materials.
The Manager-Teacher allocates tasks for students and provides learning direction and guidance.
The Progressive Teacher aims to promote understanding of what is taught in class lectures.
The Teacher-Teacher provides a range of basic information for the learners in class. Classes are characterised by lengthy notes and short explanations. Classes may be boring, but learners will be taught nonetheless.
The Sub-Teachers are yet to define themselves as to what kind of teacher they want to be. Usually, they draw experience from their biggest influences. They could be considered as the base of the model but also outside of it, placed together with the personal and busy teachers outside of the model.
The Personal Teacher is one who draws upon the content of the subject they teach and relate it to the individual life. These teachers exists separate from the model. They show traits of the top-two parts of the model, but are mostly concerned with the quality of an individual life. Highly relatable, the students 'get them' as they too 'get the students' in return. So, whether teaching, explaining, assigning tasks in motivating, lessons are usually geared towards improving the quality of the individual life.
The Busy Teacher is one who may or may not be around to teach his students. They supplements their absence with course material, and makes up for their absence with softer questions sometimes.
The Sub-Teachers, the Personal Teacher and the Busy Teachers usually select the best approach to use from the given model. In a way, they could be said to be leaders depending on which style they adopt. Usually, they don't go above the progressive level and either adopt an autocratic, inclusive or laissez-faire style of leadership. But it must be said, the personal teachers are a special breed, and usually tend towards inclusivity with the right amount of autocratic power.
On the above scale, they all are qualified and technical teachers, but they are separated by how they are perceived by learners, how they make learners feel, and what state they leave the learners in their quest for knowledge.
And it has to be said, some subjects make a terrible teacher, and some fit just like gloves. Perhaps it's left to the teacher to know which one is which, or the the administrators to know which course to allocate to which teacher.
Because although some may look good on paper, the reality is indeed nothing but. Perhaps teachers should know which subjects they're unsuited to, judging by students reactions, and either make adjustments or relinquish the subject or course to one who is more dynamic and more suited to it. No man's ego, pride or position should come between or interfere in the teaching-learning process.
The first thing that makes a great teacher is their humility. The system, also, should supersede whoever and be made open enough for the learners to be able to give adequate and quick feedback into the learning process, else the process of true learning will be greatly impeded.
In conclusion, the models also interact with the teaching approaches. The teacher- teacher could be considered as the tin-god due to their rote-learning tendencies, the progressive could either be a progressive teacher or a manager-teacher, and the progressive tin-god could be a progressing manager or the Leader-Teacher himself.
Also, in this sense, a teacher could be ranked hierarchically as a teacher, yet show progressive, managerial or leadership traits from time to time. This is why it is vitally important to find subjects that suit particular teachers i.e. round pegs for round holes, and square pegs for the same. As the model moves from the ground up, each builds on the existing structure beneath and has the traits of each categories beneath them, but is all crystallized at the top of the model.
Tokede Opeyemi Iyanuoluwa,
Lagos State University.
NB: ¹ Definition of Managers and Leaders as given by Goldblatt, 2008.
² This is a conceptual framework based simply on observed phenomena.
