The Role And Responsibilities Of A Teacher

Introduction

Teaching can be defined as a profession, art, craft and trade as teaching involves many different aspects and roles. This job description includes having a wide range of responsibilities and accountabilities, new teachers tend to bring along their own set of values and belief systems in the classroom. Each teacher has a unique way in which they bring forth knowledge and how they view teaching be it as a profession, art, craft or trade. To make professional judgements, teachers merge this with their personal values. They face many challenges such as dealing with successful or incompetent learners, to promote equality in respect to cultural diversity in a classroom and also to find a means of adjusting and working with other professional

For teaching to be a profession, a code of conduct needs to be implemented as well as work ethic. Teachers are professionals who students look up to or gather inspiration from, professional teachers also need to deal and work with other professional agencies; their fellow colleagues who might also be teachers or schoolmasters. Teachers also need to work with parents or guardians who show concern for their child in a professional manner. “The very nobility of the teacher’s work is evidence in favour of its status as a profession. Society have entrusted teachers with its most important responsibility – the education of the young. Although teachers have never received the respect that is their due, through the course of history great minds have acknowledged their worth. Martin Luther asserted that the teacher’s vocation was second only to that of the ministry. As more and more people recognise how crucial education is to the fulfilment of our personal and national goals, the opportunities and rewards for the teacher will improve…” (Ryan & Cooper, 1980). Like any professional, teachers must take responsibility for their work ethic and must be able to justify the manner in which they deliver their social service. Teachers must also be open to change and be open to criticism about their teaching performance.

Art can be defined in various ways as well as teaching, but teaching as an art involves liberal education and subject to change. “The education of teachers is an education in the liberal arts. When this education is good, and falls on the right ground, it produces persons with usable intellects and imaginations who know both what and why they are teaching. A teacher who can answer neither of those questions is no teacher, for thus he proves himself incapable of the one pleasure reserved for him among the pleasures possible to man: the pleasure of being intelligible. Human communication, so difficult and so rare, is his professed assignment, and at the moment in his students’ lives when such success as is achieved will count forever. It will count in their understanding, and so in their happiness. It will also count, by making them more communicative themselves, in the happiness of mankind.” (Fuess & Basford, 1947) As art is a form of expression, so is teaching but this depends on a teacher’s interpretation of what is being taught. Art can further be defined by how ideas are interpreted by the teacher through imaginary experiences. Thus, art transmits to the learner what the teacher of the work