Are teachers born to be teachers?

A group of education leaders successfully argued that teachers are not born but made at the Teacher Education Forum of Aoetearoa New Zealand this week.

How good teachers came to be was the topic for yesterday’s debate at the conference, held at Massey’s Manawatū campus.

The affirmative team, which argued that teachers are born, was made up of Brent Costley from Palmerston North Boys’ High School, Shona Oliver from Central Normal School and Massey politics lecturer Professor Richard Shaw.

On the negative team, which argued that teachers are made, was Massey’s Bevan Erueti, Ross Kennedy from College Street Normal School and Diane Leggett from Massey’s Centre for Educational Development.

The heated debate was full of personal anecdotes, though-provoking quotes and a few jokes. Mr Costley roused the audience with his idea that “what the teacher is, is more important than what the teacher teaches.

“They are born with qualities, things which make good teachers, great,” he says. “Teachers are people who develop the skills within them to share with others.”

Also on the affirmative, Mrs Oliver’s argued, “great teachers are born and good teachers are trained”.

For the negative team, Mr Erueti – a physical education lecturer at Massey – said he would not be who he was today without the support of his sixth form physical education teacher, who encouraged him to consider a teaching career.

“He gave me the belief that I could do something other than being in Taranaki doing more than maybe what some of my relatives were doing. He provided the make part of me becoming a teacher. I couldn’t be, what I hoped to be, on my own.”

Mr Kennedy says becoming a teacher, like sportspeople and chief executives, is all about hard work and steadily honing and improving their own skills over years – something a teacher cannot be born with.

Up to 130 leading education researchers, policy makers and professional representatives attended the three-day conference, which focused on current challenges and the future of teacher education.

Alan Scott from Canterbury University and Diane Meyer from Melbourne’s Victoria University gave keynote addresses on reclaiming and reframing teacher education, and in a speech to delegates Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples renewed his call for New Zealand history to be taught in all schools saying a knowledge of history is essential to effective and inclusive education. He suggested Maori children were not achieving well in education because teachers, along with other New Zealanders, were not familiar with history and traditions that make Maori pupils who they are today.

Today is the last day of the conference.