W h a t  M a k e s  a  G o o d  T e a c h e r?

From Pages 110 and 111, Life Without Lawyers

“The organizational presumption --- that teacher credentials are an indicator of effectiveness---turns out to be inaccurate. In an evaluation of New York City teachers in 2005, Harvard Professor Thomas Kane found no correlation between certification and a teacher’s effectiveness. Nor did academic pedigree matter; it made no difference whether the teacher was an Ivy League grad or had gone to a community college. Experience mattered, but far less than you might think. But some teachers, the study found, were dramatically more effective than others. A similar study in Los Angeles found that “whether a teacher is certified or not is largely irrelevant to predicting his or her effectiveness.”

What makes a good teacher? Some people just seem to have a knack for it. It’s a matter of personality. Management expert Peter Drucker observed that “in teaching we rely on the naturals, the ones who somehow know how to teach.” “Anyone who has set foot in a classroom as anything other than as a pupil,” an editorial in Teacher Magazine noted, will know that “it is mostly the teacher’s personality that creates and maintains a space in which learning can take place.” Drucker also understood that this knack could not be taught: “Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance.”