Efficacy

I believe that self-awareness, confidence, persistence, work ethic and belief in one's ability are all essential qualities in becoming and effective teacher. To be effective, a teacher must be self-aware in that they must understand their strengths and weaknesses. There is no way a teacher can improve on their teaching skills, unless they know what they do well and what they need improving on. I believe confidence and persistence go hand in hand when it comes to efficacy. Teachers will undoubtedly face many challenges in the classroom, and these challenges will only be overcome if the teacher is confident and persistent. If its a case of classroom management, and the students are misbehaving, they are more likely to stop their bad behavior if the teacher seems confident. If the teacher is unsure of what they are telling the children, and the are not confident in their opinions, the children will not develop respect for the teacher and they may remain unruly throughout the rest of the year. Teachers must also be persistent, in that they should never give up. If a teacher gives up, that sends the students the message that they too, should give up. Teachers need to be good role models in persistence. If a teacher is persistent in their teaching, students will in turn be persistent when it comes to difficulties in learning. Work ethic and belief in one's ability are very similar to persistence and confidence. Teachers have to face obstacles with the belief that they can be overcome, and then they have to work hard until the obstacles are overcome. I feel like these attributes are developed as a teacher gets more experience and begins to understand themself as a teacher. For new teachers, and students learning to become teachers, acquiring these attributes is more difficult. But I believe that by working together with other people, and especially by solving problems in groups, future teachers can develop self-awareness, confidence, persistence, work ethic and belief in one's ability.