Reflection_on_Roles_and_Responsibilities_of_a_Teacher

Reflection on the Roles and Responsibilities of a Teacher by G.K.Phillips A teacher has many roles and many responsibilities towards their students, their colleagues and their employing institution. The role of a teacher is to teach the student by the most effective methods possible, usually using finite resources and in a limited period of time. Most individuals have limited opportunities to learn in life and if one of those is wasted, it is gone forever. Each lesson must be well planned and the teacher needs to be well organised, so that none of this precious time is needlessly expended. It follows that being someone’s teacher is a huge responsibility in its own right. The teacher must engage the student in the subject and give them the motivation to learn. A two way understanding needs to be established as quickly as possible. This can only be achieved if the teacher is approachable and is a good communicator. The teacher needs to be able to give the information to the student and find out if the student has understood this information. The teacher needs to quickly identify what the optimum learning style is of the student. The teacher will not be able to impart this information properly if they themselves do not have a deep knowledge of the subject being taught. A teacher also has the responsibility to the student, the whole class and their colleagues, to identify and act on effectively and appropriately, any issues that a learner may have. These could be barriers to their learning, but it also could be behaviours that disrupts the rest of the class and becomes a barrier to their learning as well. This must be done in a non-judgemental way. The way a teacher approaches a student needs to be based on empirical evidence and not on any pre-conceived ideas that may have been formed. Educating a student is seldom the job of one person and where there are multiple teachers, they need to work as a team, sharing information and supporting each other. As a student progresses, what they have achieved or what problems they may have must be recorded, mainly for assessment purposes. This helps in the recording of results but it also helps in the sharing of information about the student. So one of the roles and responsibilities of a teacher to their student, their colleagues and their institution is administration. As well as being a good teacher, they need to be an efficient and effective administrator. Rightly or wrongly, the quality of teaching is judged on results these days and the success of an institution is viewed on a collation of a series of these results. The amount of money an institution gets is largely directly proportional to the number of students that it has on its role. Students generally have a choice of which institution they attend and one of the main factors that students base their choice on is recent results achieved by that institution. Good teaching is essential. Consequently a lower achieving institution gets less funding, which ultimately makes it harder to achieve the good results necessary to attract more students and get more funding. This is a downward cycle which will only lead to the failure of the institution, unless there is external intervention. The failure of an institution brings about job losses for staff, so it could be said that teachers have a collective responsibility to their colleagues to provide good teaching to ensure they remain in their jobs. In summary, the roles and responsibilities of a teacher are to be a competent professional, who understands the teaching process so that learning takes place. If this happens then good results should follow and attract necessary funding. Good pastoral care and efficient administration is important as well.