By Mickey Dunaway — Reprinted with Permission by Currents Magazine | OCT 2024| Cornelius, NC

As a high school assistant principal and principal of 17 years, I always dreaded when October rolled around. You see, all kids are excited to come back to school and generally behave until October hits them with the realization that the things that got them in trouble last year—like not turning in homework or studying for tests or sassing the teacher—are getting them in trouble again in this new year. This usually happens in October. I know because I have looked at the data over many years, and October is when they decide nothing has really changed, and … they decide that if misbehavior is taken to get noticed, they will misbehave. It is a feature of the human condition—especially in developing years—that not getting noticed is the worst thing a person can endure. So, teenagers especially, will misbehave to get noticed rather than being ignored as a non-person. When I was a middle school assistant principal, I had a seventh grader—we will call him Frankie—who got a paddling almost every week until I figured out that he would trade a sore bottom for fifteen minutes or my time. When I moved to Alexander City, Alabama as principal of Benjamin Russell High School, to the dismay of most of the faculty and many parents, we stopped paddling as a form of discipline. After all, if it did not work, why do it? I concluded that perhaps it benefited the administrators because they could do it more quickly than trying to figure out what made the kid tick and developing a punishment to fit the kid. 

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So, I timed this column specifically for the October issue of Currents Magazine figuring that for schools, parents, and grandparents, things are heating up on buses, in the halls, and in the classrooms rooms. From my experience, much of the onset of October’s issues starts with instruction not tailored to the kid. So, this column is aimed at how to judge if “your school” is giving your student(s) everything they need and deserve to succeed. 

I spent 19 years observing teachers in public schools. I kept a running list of great teachers in my head. The list changed as I observed new teachers but stayed at 10 or 12. And, NO, I will not divulge the list, but I will tell you their secrets!

I believe parents should unequivocally know the traits of great teachers—not just good, typical, ordinary teachers—but great teachers. I will go a step further; every child deserves a great teacher.

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I bet you can remember your great teachers. If he or she is still alive, send them a note. If not, send a prayer of thanks to the Almighty on their behalf. 

Great teachers come in all personalities and different teaching styles. I hired some who were great on their first day out of university. Others I taught and they learned to be great on the job and were great until they retired. They all had that unmeasurable something.  I have observed these traits over the years. They are below.

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All GREAT (not just good) TEACHERS have ALL of the following characteristics:

1. Love all kids. Smart kids. Not so smart kids. College-bound kids. Kids who will get their hands dirty laying bricks. Pretty kids. Ugly kids. Smelly kids. cologne kids. 
2. Can teach all kids. A great teacher is like a great coach (actually, they are the same thing). They get stuff out of kids that the kids had NO IDEA they could do. And, usually, they work the kids’ asses off in the process. 
3. Don’t teach subjects. They teach kids. Big difference. The best math teachers (and several on my list) love kids more than they do math! 
4. Know their subject matter. They learned it at the kitchen table last night if they did not learn what they would teach tomorrow in college. But, when they stand before their kids tomorrow, they are experts.
5. Are tough. Kids like tough. No player has ever returned to a coach once they graduated and said, “Geez Coach, we didn’t practice too hard or win many games, but, man, we had a great time.” HELL NO! They go back to that coach or English teacher who gave them fits, saying, “Ms. S, Coach D, I did not realize back then why you were so hard, but I do now, and I just want to say,” ‘Thank you.’
6. See into the future. Great teachers know what skills kindergarteners will need to succeed in the fourth grade, and they teach to that vision every day. The sixth-grade teacher sees what will be required in the ninth grade, and he prepares his kids accordingly.
7. Trust and talk to their colleagues. Great teachers don’t just hope this year’s kids are prepared; they talk to last year’s teacher and make sure they know precisely what will be required this year. The great ones do it religiously. 
8. Come to class prepared to answer “why.”  They know the how and why of a subject area when they will teach that knowledge. They have a blueprint—literally. Teachers give kids the right tools when they need them to build new learning. 
9. Never give busy work. Great teachers never give them busy work. Never. Too much to do in too little time. Busy work is immoral. And that includes homework for the sake of homework.
10. They always make connections to the real world. Great teachers connect content to the world the students are in or about to enter. When a kid asks, “Why do I have to learn this stuff?” the teacher knows why and answers in real-world terms the kid can understand. 
11. Begin teaching when the bell rings. They rarely have discipline problems because the kids know if it is vital to the teacher, it becomes essential to the kids, too. 
12. Have very few classroom rules. They may not even have them posted. But the kids know them. They have three or four rules covering everything, and because the kids know and understand them, they behave. Not all the time—they are kids, after all! 

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We [schools] can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to know in order to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact we haven’t so far.

― Dr. Ron Edmonds | Professor of Education | Michigan State University