Signalement af den gode og effektive lærer- eleverne har ordet

The title of this master’s thesis – ”Description of the skilled and efficient educator – the pupils have the floor”, is closely connected to a recently published book by Per Fibæk Laursen called, ”The Authentic Teacher. Become a skilled and efficient educator – if you want to”, a book which has contributed to the present educational debate. The book is based on qualitative interviews with 30 teachers about their jobs and their personal development.
This is no coincidence. The current pedagogical debate does not only focus on professional and practical pedagogical skills. It also focuses on the significance of the educator’s personality. The book implicates the teacher’s personality and personal skills and uses these to explain why teaching sometimes are successful and sometimes not.
Is it possible to expose those shared and fundamental qualities of teaching which result in successful teaching – “the prime examples”? Some reports accentuate the importance of competent leadership while others claim that the teacher should have the responsibility and the credits. Fibæk Laursen terms this phenomenon, the actual core of professional teacher’s competence.
My motivating force in this work has been my interest in continuing where Fibæk Laursen let go:
To ask pupils what they consider a good teacher. What are their experiences about what makes a good teacher? Children are in possession of insight not always available to adults. My aim is to transform this insight by means of qualitative interviews.
My purpose is split into two: One is – from the viewpoint of the researcher - to provide knowledge at a general level about how pupils experience ”the good teacher” and the consequences this may have on development of the teacher’s personality, and – the other is - to carry out an analysis of whether or not this teacher turns out to be authentic according to Fibæk Laursen.
In my research I have found but one review treating interviews of Danish schoolchildren’s view on the teacher. It is dated back to 1974, and I shall use this review together with a study carried out in 2005 with groups of higher secondary school students as the sources.
My conclusion is that the pupils’ descriptions of ”the good teacher” are equivalent to the authentic teacher of Fibæk Laursen. This is based on the 1974 review, the ATV-report and my own studies which jointly ascertain – independent of time and place – that teaching based on personality forms the difference between success and failure, and the pupils’ statements thus prove the validity of my hypothesis.
The teacher’s capability to lead is based on kindness and patience. She must radiate authority without being authoritarian. Pupils accept the asymmetrical teacher-pupil relationship, where they experience consistency which refers to the relationship that exists between her professionalism and her personality – to her personality being in the midst of her professionalism. She will win respect as the incarnation of her own message, and this explains why the pupils make themselves ready for communication - why they choose to join and take part in the co-operation called teaching.
It is not sufficient to want this – she must also be able. Part of the handicraft of teaching is understanding the fact that teaching is communication. Knowledge about and understanding the nature of the selection mechanisms of communication, are fundamental for a successful outcome ofco-operation between teacher and pupil.