The Concept of the Primary School Teaching

Who is a teacher?

The word “Learner” stands for on e who imparts knowledge especially one whose professional occupation is teaching. He is a person who has completed a professional curriculum in a teacher education institution and whose training has officially been recognized by the award of an appropriate teaching certificate. To Good (1945) in Emenogu et al (1992:86). “A rich experience or education or both in giving field is able to contribute to the growth and development of other persons who come in tact with him. The combination of children’s education and teacher forms a strong link between children and education (Ajayi Dopemu 1994).

The teacher has many roles to play in the upbringing of the child. As a resource person, his main functions are to guide learning. He is to provide enriched educational environment and expose the child to a variety of learning experiences in order to help them unfold the hidden talents in them. Teaching is more than exposing the learner to the acquisition of skills. In addition, it involves a systematic method of exposing the learner to a suitable environment to enable him develop his cognitive and affective potential using worthwhile materials. The teacher is professionally prepared for his task through exposure to appropriate courses taught in a school of education. The teacher should therefore be honest, trustworthy, tolerant, broadminded, sympathetic, kind, faithful, disciplined; he should be able give unconditional positive regards and care to the needs and attention to the children. He is the coordinating agent who ought to ensure the smooth running  and development of teaching and learning. These must be are well organized and supervised. In other words, the teacher is seen in the backg7round of learning activities as a guide encouraging and facilitating the protection of child in to prominence.

Qualities of Primary School Teacher

The teacher of great personality has some distinct qualities, which make him unique among other professionals. Among other things, he knows his responsibility, enjoys his autonomy, and demonstrates humility in practice. The teacher knows his responsibility because he plans his teaching diligently often far ahead of the day of delivery. This enables him to reflect on the lesson and add the final touches before the day of presentation. In planning any lesson, he thinks about the pupil his age and his environment. He thinks about the content he wants to teach. He searches for reference materials to guide his selection of the content. As he reads the reference materials and gathers the content of the lesson, he critically reflects on them, and ensures that they are within the intellectual level of the pupil. On the basis of his experience he adds some ideals on his own which are not in the references materials. He organizes them in sequence from what the pupil already know to what they do not know. Then he looks for the appropriate teaching materials to illustrate the lesson. He tries to dramatize the lesson to himself think about its effect then make final retouching here and there before he approves the lesson tentatively.

He is punctual to school, well dressed, neat and tidy. At school he does what b he is suppose to do without bring ordered or driving about to do so. He follows the time table and teaches his lesson diligently and consistently, with every commitment and enthusiasm. He keeps his records up to date and marks his assignments promptly to enable the pupil know his errors and be prepared to correct them. The teachers enjoys his autonomy the freedom and initiative to carry out his teaching activity using whatever worthwhile method he deems reasonable and most rewarding. He does not tolerate being excessively supervised. He is conscious of the disastrous effect of the excessive supervision of the Jesuits. They were so excessively supervised that Quick and Kinlocke suggested that the amount of supervision was akin to spying and for it aimed to gain complete control over a human being, so that he becomes a mere instrument in the hands of his supervisor.

That the teacher abhors being excessively supervised does not mean that he thinks himself all knowing, efficient and perfect. He acknowledges that he still has room for improvement; he has humility to admit that the theories and principles of teaching acquired in teacher education institution are not enough to prepare him fully for his teacher activities. He therefore, believers that the better part, of teaching is acquired in the field by practice and learning. He acknowledge with all sincerity, that one does not to know everything and that improvement in life –undertakings demands consultation with those who are more experienced in particular fields of endeavor. The desire to do better as teacher and achieve higher result motivates him to motivate him to watch the performance of others acclaimed to be very good at teaching. He invites an experienced teacher to watch occasionally and criticizes his teaching. Thereafter, he endeavors to correct his shortcomings. He has learned his humility from Comenius (john Amos Komensky) a prominent Moravian teacher and later a superintendent of schools. In his book Didactical magna, Comenius considered himself ‘’His humility made him proclaim that ‘’ it matters not to me whether I teach or be taught.’’ But the teacher maintains within himself that he is not a case advocating for over- humility which may result in the loss of identity and personality. He maintains initiative and autonomy, because he is desirous of improving himself. He only co-opts the teaching methods of the other teachers into his own to yield, for him, a dialectical result, which is synthetically higher than what he knew before and what his experienced colleagues demonstrated.

Besides that, he does everything meaningful to improve on his teaching. He even considers his voice a strategic natural appliance that can add some aesthetics to his teaching. He recognizes that the voice of the teacher has some influence on how effectively the pupil learns or fails to learn. He is aware that a coarse voice is repulsive to the pupil and a gentle voice is more appealing and inviting. But of importance is that he articulates his speech so that he is he is distinctly and clearly hard by the pupil to enhance his understanding. He adequately his voice effect and notice that this practice is very motivating to the pupil. The teacher is conscious of when to introduce variation in the tone if his voice, when stress his voice when to be loud and when to apply the voice emphasis. It was observed by Pestalozzi that t5he voice and attitude of the teacher affect the response of pupil. In addition, it is the view of Chukwu that “sounds that come out of the teacher have to be clear and should be carefully and consciously considered in the creation of meaningful sensation for effective teaching”.

Teacher Having Interest in Children

Personality traits of the teacher condition modulate and promote certain responses from pupils. The motivate, direct, formulate pupils reactions in the classroom-learning situation. Teacher’s primary schools are faced with many challenges. The personality development of pupils at this stage is still immature. This level of education needs warmth and friendliness on the part of a teacher. As these have great effect on children’s learning.

The teacher should create an enabling environment where by he can communicate with the children effectively and friendly i.e. passing the messages across to the pupil in a cordially way. He has spend time a good deal explaining thing, talking to then be a good listener and ensuring that the pupil’s understand what he is saying and doing.
To surmount or cope with the mounting problems associated with children of primary school, the teacher should be energetic and physically fit patient, kind caring, loving, but firm. He should be able to understand the teacher should i.e. has good knowledge of the child’s mind and how it works. The teacher should create a happy atmosphere them in class discussions, taking imagination, engaging them in drama and quiz.

He must be patient with them when and guide their activities and behavior. It is generally contended that when the teacher appears as the friend of the child, not as his enemy the child learns faster because he is co-operating. He learns with lass fatigue, because there is not that constant strain of bringing back a reluctant and bored attention. His sense of personal inactivated instead of bring diminished.