Personality and Personal Growth: Important Traits for a Career in Education

Before you commit to working in education, be honest with yourself about two questions: will the work make you happy, and are you suited to it? A handful of traits tend to separate teachers who last from those who burn out. Looking at these traits gives you a way to check whether teaching fits your personality, and whether the goals you have set for your own growth point in a useful direction.

Humility comes first. The teachers people remember speak plainly and don't parade what they know. Standing in front of a room, they aren't there to look impressive. The satisfaction comes from handing knowledge over to someone else, which is a quieter reward than showing off, and it wears better over a long career.

Patience is non-negotiable. Students arrive with every kind of background and every level of ability, and some of them will not get the material the first time, or the fifth. Staying calm through that is how you give each student what they actually need, and it keeps you from resenting the job.

Respect runs in both directions. Treat every student and every colleague as someone with worth, be kind without being asked, and help the people around you feel sure of what they can do. Respect handled this way tends to come back to you on its own. You never have to demand it.

Enthusiasm is contagious. When you're genuinely interested in a subject, pulling students in gets much easier, and even a dry topic can become something worth paying attention to. That matters in every subject, because in any room there will be students who, for whatever reason, don't care for what you're teaching. Make the learning enjoyable and you can reach almost anyone.

Demonstrate, don't just describe. Explaining a concept out loud only goes so far; showing it is what makes it stick. Students learn in different ways, and seeing a thing done alongside hearing it explained helps them figure out how to use it outside the classroom.

A real appetite for learning keeps a teacher current. Most subjects shift over time, so you have to enjoy picking up new things, and you have to accept that your students can teach you too if you stay open to it. The strong teachers admit freely that they don't know everything. A good question or a suggestion for a better method excites them rather than rattling them, and they aren't put off when a student or coworker knows something they don't.

Smiling sounds trivial, but it isn't. Teachers who believe they have something to give understand that a smile encourages people and keeps the mood steady. A positive room is simply a more productive place to learn.

Engagement beats lecturing. You can't just talk at a class and assume learning happens. The job is to involve students, to make the environment one they enjoy being in, and to pull them toward the material rather than pushing it at them.

Set the bar high. Expect your students to do well and then work to make that possible. Behind that expectation is a belief that everyone deserves a strong education. You know what each student can reach, so you push all of them toward it.

Mistakes are part of the deal. Nobody learns anything without getting things wrong, and good teachers never shame anyone for it. They turn an error into a chance to learn, which is what keeps a classroom feeling safe for everyone in it.

With these traits in front of you, you can take an honest read on whether teaching suits who you are, and you can build a personal development plan around them. The further you go, the clearer it becomes which of these matter most for the kind of career you're after.

References: gordon.edu/teachertraits; leadlearner2012.blogspot.com, "26 Traits of Terrific Teachers" (May 2015).