Integrity

Integrity is incredibly important as a teacher and a professional, without integrity you will not stick to your morals and will therefore not be a good role model for the pupils you are educating. The definition of integrity is ‘The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles’ these are important qualities to have as they are viewed as signs of being a ‘good person’ and this is something we, as teachers, are trying to educate our pupils to be. This is especially highlighted in Curriculum for Excellence and its capacity for creating responsible citizens. A teacher with integrity will be fair with their pupils and provide the best teaching service as possible.

Patience

Patience is always needed as a teacher, you have to be able to remain calm at all times even when under large amounts of stress or having a difficult day. Teachers have to provide a role model for how to deal with tricky situations in a calm and sensible way helping the pupils to find ways to deal with day to day life in a reasonable and adult manner allowing them to function fully in later life. Patience is also useful as there will often be occasions when you have a pupil who struggles with a piece of work and you have to find a new way to explain it to them until they understand, this can often take a long time and be frustrating but a good professional teacher has to be able to remain patient throughout the process.

Empathy

Empathy, like patience, is useful in the classroom and helps to teach the children to be responsible citizens. As a teacher you have to be able to understand what your pupils are feeling and why they are struggling with their work, if you cannot understand what is wrong you will not be able to fix it and allow them to move on with their education. Furthermore having empathy with the class allows often makes you more approachable and pupil usually find that a teacher they can trust and like is far better, both in terms of their academic achievement and enjoyment, than one they do not get on with.

Kindness

Being kind is always important, and a kind teacher is especially important. A kind teacher will make a calm, comforting and enjoyable learning environment in which pupils will enjoy learning and feel safe when they come to school. This will boost their academic achievement as they will want to spend time learning and the social aspect of the classroom will be better as having a kind role model will encourage the pupils to be kind to one and other.

Justice

Being just is a very professional trait. You should never treat one pupil differently than another, either favouring or bullying. A teacher who picks on certain pupils will create a negative learning environment and that pupil will not wish to attend school or be able to work to their highest standard. Also as a teacher you are providing a service as you are helping to shape the future generations and through being a  moral citizen you promote fairness and this will encourage a generation of just, law abiding citizens, again helping to promote the capacity of responsible citizens.