The Best Teachers are Obsessive

Think about the best teacher you've ever seen, maybe when you were at school or someone you've had the privilege to work with. Make a quick list of the skills and qualities they have?

I would take an educated guess that you listed some pretty amazing qualities such as passionate, caring, determined (or similar) and not hard skills such as organised, good time management, great subject knowledge etc.

When hiring new teachers what do you look for; subject knowledge, experience, track record of delivering results, interview performance, affordability? All of these would be valid reasons for recruiting a specific individual (in an idealistic world maybe not affordable but with recent pressures on budget this is now a reality).

I would argue that all of these are the wrong reasons to hire someone.

The people we want teaching the students in our school are the teachers similar to the one you identified at the start of this blog.

Subject knowledge can be learnt, experience can be gained, record of results can be skewed depending on the school and environment they teach in, some people talk a good game in interview and some people are willing to make themselves affordable for the right job. None of these guarantee the end result of hiring an amazing practitioner. 

Here's the problem: we like to quantify what we see in order to assess it. It's what we do on a day to day basis as a teacher and it's what senior leaders try and do to the workforce through lesson observations, learning walks, book scrutinise, etc. The thinking goes: if we can measure it, we can improve it. 

As Damian Hughes states in his investigation into workplace culture "we're all bad at judging talent because we instinctively tend to overrate the visible stuff (performance), and underrate the invisible stuff we call 'character'- namely work habits, competitiveness, ambition and grit - which turn out to be far more important in the long run".

If we want the best teachers in the classrooms of our schools we must seek out and hire the most obsessive teachers. The teachers who have all, of the work habits listed below (in no particular order):

Grit

Ambition

Determination

Passion

Empathy

Humility

Coachability

Competitiveness

High emotional intelligence

These teachers are the ones who will demonstrate the obsessive nature that is required to create dynamic and engaging lessons that stretch and challenge all students that they teach. 

As this stage I will add one caveat- they need to know how to switch off outside of work and this should actively be encouraged by schools. The ability to leave your work at the door is an important one and will avoid inevitable burnout in these sort of teachers. The teachers I am referring to are ones who are obsessive about their work whilst they are there, not when they are at home. Top level athletes are obsessive about improving performance, but understand the importance of rest on the mental component of their performance.

Teachers who demonstrate the abilities mentioned above fit into the 'obsessive' mould that I am referring to. They will stop at nothing to support their students. They will engage in further school life (extra curricular, etc), they will help develop colleagues, they will have an ongoing focus on self development and they will be humble enough to accept responsibility for mistakes and plot a path to correct these.

Here's the problem- it's really difficult to judge these characteristics in interview. However, if school leaders are passionate about making your school a truly outstanding one then they must figure out a way of doing so, as the advantages of hiring obsessive teachers far out way the effort of modifying interview processes.

I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic. Please comment below and share you opinions on what qualities make the best teachers.