The difference between a great teacher and a good teacher...

Great teachers have the amazing ability to engage every individual in the class and get them onto a journey of discovery.  They understand where each student is coming from and connect with them individually.  Great teaching is extremely skilled and very exciting for an observer to witness.

We should do more to celebrate great teaching.  Schools should try to ensure they develop a good proportion of their staff into great teachers.  The art and science of great teaching should be analysed, discussed, lauded on a regular basis.

I take it for granted that great teachers can do all the things that good teachers do: they love their subject; they are well prepared; they keep up the pace of the lesson; they give constant feed back to their students; they take in information as to what is happening in terms of learning - and respond accordingly and appropriately.

But great teachers are exceptional motivators.  That doesn't mean that they are great performers (though some are) or that they have amazing charisma (although some do).  But they have a finely honed skill of being able to draw in each student and get them onto their own learning journey.  The teacher played by Jack Black in School of Rock is exceptional.  My only problem with the presentation of his character is that it suggests that great teachers just are great teachers - they don't develop, and I actually don't think that's the case, at least not often the case. 

And the great teacher motivates their students so well that the student to a large extent becomes their own teacher.  If their motivation to learn is so powerful, they will learn.  Professor Sugata Mitra from Newcastle University has demonstrated this with his research in India, where he installed internet-ready computers in the centre of villages and watched children explore, learn how to switch it on, how to use the software, teach others, explore together.

I really hope that as a profession we become better and better at obsessing about great teaching.