Being gifted is not enough you should love teaching to succeed otherwise you will lose that gift when faced with the first classroom or administrative problem.

Dear Libela

Thanks for the provoking thinking question! Hope at the end we will know your own opinion :).

I really do not know what people think when they say 'to have a gift to teaching' , but I know for sure without love to people and openness to people, their ideas as well as openness to change no one can be a success in teaching.

Teachers are working with human beings, not with machines, so they need care people with love, be sensitive to others and have good personalities.  To develop yourself and others you need to work hard, if we can call this kind of human activity 'work'.  For me it is better to say training and development both pesonal and professional which go hand in hand.  I would like you and all to think of: Can teacher have bad personality?  If yes, what will be the results of their teaching?

Teaching is like arts: some have talent, i.e. are born dancers, singers and artists, but without every day trainings, sometimes exhausting, they won't become outstanding.  The others are not so talented, but constant 'hard working' on their skills have resulted in their success that made them well-known.

To sum up, teachers can be developed by themselves and the others, if they wish to, of course :).

Well - I do agree that perhaps it might be a gift, but it is also something that you really need to put your back into it. I mean like in any other kind of job you've gotta dedicate yourself and do your best to provide excellent classes. To be a good teacher requires creativity and an outgoing personality, these attributes are for sure gifts - but still you are still able to develop them.

Drawing from my experience, I can say without any kind of doubt, that excellent teachers are born, not made. Teaching is just like leadership. You need to have it in you, to become an effective leader. You cannot become one. It is genetic.

A naturally gifted person, is blessed with all prerequisites for being termed as an excellent teacher. I went through some comments, where there was a mention of the teacher being able to identify with the students, developing modules according to the need of the students, knowing how to deliver the module in a class with different levels of students, encouraging, motivating and so on.

When you are gifted, all these qualities come automatically to you. I have seen numerous instances in my corpoarte career and my teaching career, where people working in a profession, in which their parents are working or have worked, doing a fantastic job. These set of people are naturally gifted and they carry an aura of uniqueness around them which makes people respect them. I have also seen their style of working which is totally different for the same task and they go about it with so much of ease and self confidence whereas others go through lot of stress to get the same job done. 

Over the last 8 years, I have experienced the same feeling in the teaching line. I have trained students for so many professional courses, and the common comment which students come up with, is they have never come across a teacher like me.

Please do not misunderstand me and I am not trying to put down anyone or demotivate anyone.

I have seen people enter the teaching line with a high level of intellect and knowledge, but they fail while delivering in the class. Of course students may like them, but when I come into the picture, there is something which makes them look up and admire me.

According to me, such people are charismatic and they are mavericks without exception.

This is a good question! I believe both is essential to be o good teacher. Hard working is something that you need a lot to be a teacher, this show the commitment that teacher must have with their students. But I think that "gift" is so important too in all jobs. You need love a lot what you do, specially when the identity of any person depends on you, like teachers do.