The Role of Quality Education in Linking the Teacher and the Community

Importance of quality education (essay)

To analyze the link between the teacher and the community, this essay attempts to reveal the importance and role of teachers in the community and what role plays the quality of education on the community development. To start with the importance of teachers and the roles they play in any educational system cannot be over-emphasized. Teachers are usually linked to issues related to teaching-learning goals, learning achievement, organization of programmes, and the performance of the educational system which involves an analysis of the role of teachers their behaviours, performance, remuneration, incentives, skills and how they are used by the system. The National Policy on Education, in recognition of the importance of teacher quality, states, “No education system can rise above the quality of its teacher”. It is a shared view that the quality of any education system depends largely on the competence, commitment and motivation of the teachers.

Teachers with strong intellects, education, and training are effective preschool teachers. Specifically, teachers with at least a bachelor’s degree are correlated with programmes leading to higher quality programmes. The Cost Quality and Child Outcomes study showed a clear impact of the quality of the preschool on children’s performance through second grade. Children attending higher quality preschools had better language, Math and social skills than those attending a lower quality one. Those at risk of school failure benefited the most from attending a higher quality preschool and were most negatively affected by attending a lower quality one. The study also showed the closeness of the relationships between children and preschool teachers to have a significant and lasting impact on academic and social abilities.

There is great emphasis today, in part due to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), on teacher quality in schools. NCLB has given impetus to states to improve teacher quality by requiring schools to have a qualified teacher in every classroom - that should have a positive impact on the community. These requirements are one step in addressing inequities in schools that occur when a high percentage of teachers in a given school are teaching out of their areas of certification.

The requirements of a good ECE teacher are about doing their best to keep on top of the field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and practice. It’s about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field in talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners and liaising with their communities. The requirements of a good ECE teacher is about listening, questioning, being responsive and remembering that each student and class is different. It’s about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication skills of the quiet students. It’s about pushing students to excel and at the same time it’s about being human, respecting others and being professional at all times.

Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible, fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing circumstances. It’s about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and still feeling good. It’s about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a push-over on the other. Good teachers migrate between these poles at all times depending on the circumstances. They know where they need to be and when.

Moreover, effective teaching is not about being locked with both hands glued to a podium or having your eyes fixated on a slide projector while you drone on. Good teachers work the room and every student in it. They realize that they are the conductors and that the class is their orchestra. All students play different instruments and at varying proficiencies A teacher’s job is to develop skills and make these instruments come to life as a coherent whole to make music. Good teaching is about humor. It’s about being self-deprecating and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you, like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.

A Good ECE teacher is caring, nurturing and developing minds and talents. It’s about devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It’s also about the thankless hours of grading, designing or redesigning courses and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction. The requirements of a good ECE teacher are that he/she is supposed to be supported by strong and visionary leadership, and very tangible institutional support resources, personnel, and funds. Good teaching is continually reinforced by an overarching vision that transcends the entire school from full educators to administrators and is reflected in what is said, but more importantly by what is done. The requirements of a good ECE teacher are about mentoring between senior and junior faculty, teamwork, and being recognized and promoted by one’s peers. Effective teaching should also be rewarded and poor teaching needs to be remedied through training and development programs.

At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. It’s about the former student who says your course changed her life. It’s about another telling you that your course was the best one he’s ever taken. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Early child education teachers need to have learned effective skills for working with young children and for communicating with them at their level. Then teachers need to be able to communicate with the child's parents about his needs, skills, problems and achievements, so both parties can help the child without undue emotion. On a daily basis, the teacher must communicate with other teachers who may teach her class, as well as the school principal and other administrators. The more effectively the teacher can communicate to all involved both orally and in writing the more rewarding and positive her job will be.

Every child comes to school with a unique personality and learning style. To reach each child and teach each child effectively, teachers must respect these differences and work with each child's style, rather than try to force the child to adapt to another style. In our global society, teachers must also be prepared for multicultural classrooms with many ethnicities, cultures and traditions represented. A classroom where these differences are not merely tolerated but are welcomed and embraced creates an open and exciting learning atmosphere.

Planning lessons that will engage young children and educate them at the same time takes creativity. Adapting lessons to individual learning styles requires flexibility. Regardless of how organized a teacher is, and how well she has planned the day, she needs to remain flexible to handle all the glitches that can throw off the day. She must also be willing to change plans and ideas as needed. A successful early childhood development teacher will use creativity and flexibility to make every day a positive one for her and for the class.

Finally the best requirement is patience. Working with young children all day takes huge measures of patience. The nature of their age makes young children rambunctious, with short attention spans and little self-control. Every child is different, too, making the job even more challenging. After a long, tiring day full of challenges, teachers of young children must come back and meet the same and new challenges the next day. A patient nature, combined with a sense of humor, helps teachers take the ups and downs of every day in stride, while focusing on the end goals.

In conclusion, poor quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can be detrimental to the development of children from all backgrounds, particularly if they fail to equalise some of the disparities and disadvantages that children face in the early developmental stages of their lives. Disparities, for example, may be present in children’s cognitive, physical, and social-emotional development. Without access to high-quality services (e.g., health care and education) that support the child and his/her family in the early years of life, potential negative pathways may affect the whole community.

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