What's more important for a teacher -- mastery of his or her subject area, or expertise in dealing with students?

Well you asked us to choose one, so I would have to say mastery of the subject matter. Many schools have discipline policies and help in the person of a vice principal or a guidance counselor and they also have a written discipline policy that is rather easy to administer (my daughter is a substitute teacher in four or five different districts, and the discipline policies are faitly standard and simplistic). On the other hand, if you are teaching algebra, for example, but have no grasp of the principles, the school is not equipped to assist you as a teacher in learning the subject matter.

They assume you know your subject. Teacher training is better suited for teaching subject matter, testing, and teaching techniques. There is usually one semester (although some schools are going to two semsesters) of student-teaching, where a teacher-in-training often receives their first real test of teacher-student relationships.

You need to come into the position with a certain level of competency in your subject matter. On the other hand expertise in dealing with students is something that you learn as the years go on, it's something that all new teachers must learn on the job, to a great extent. Can you imagine a teacher trying to lead an orchestra who can't read music?

If you don't know the subject matter, you will never get a chance to improve your less than stellar student-teacher relationships. If you know your subject matter, you can learn how to deal with students (and parents, and administrators, and community activists, and school board members, it never ends).

Your question couldn't have happened at a more opportune time, for me personally, because right at this very moment in time, our family is dealing with the fallout from a teacher whose abusive conflicts with all of her students is affecting our teenage son. She always seems to know how to keep herself just out of reach of getting herself into serious trouble, and comes across to her peers as being 100% great, because she has mastery of her subject area. Previously to this conflict I would have agreed with the other people who have answered, and said "mastery of her subject matter".

Now, however, I would have to say that teachers need expertise in dealing with students. This is because, I have seen a boy who is brilliant, go from making A's to making D's in this woman's class. He tests well, but refuses to do any of her subject homework because of the stress she makes him feel.

His anger towards her is palpable. We are working with him, but she always knows when to call us, when things are getting just out of hand with her behavior. I am trying to keep a log of the things my son tells me, but not really sure what to do with this log.

I think the problem would be worse if I call her out on it all. She comes across brusque, and if school work or labs are not done her way, she deliberately foils a child's work and makes them start all over, by trashing their work (seriously she threw away my son's 1/2 completed lab right in front of the other students, because he did things differently than she would have, but she never explained that it HAD to be done A-Z order or ELSE! ).

She has huge communication difficulties and absolutely zero expertise in dealing with students, and this is why they all hate her. Yes, other students feel the same way, I have over heard them talking outside the school about her. Anyway, I too, have seen the effects when I was a child of a teacher who could not communicate effectively turning a child away from learning.

This result is not the desired affect a teacher should have on her students, ergo, I say be adequate in your subject field, and a master at dealing with people!

Both! A well-rounded teacher should possess a mastery of his/her chosen field of specialization. In order for him/her to deliver and give the students the knowledge they need, s/he should know all about his/her subject so that when her/his student raises a question, s/he can answer it confidently and expertly.

Personally, I don't like bookish teachers. It is a must for the teacher to really possess the expertise in dealing his/her students esp. In primary and secondary schools because they're so young yet and they need the teacher's guidance and proper motivation in order for them to really learn.

In some universities, this isn't much needed as it's the student who needs to adjust to his/her teacher's style in teaching. Like the university where I attended before, the teacher will just deliver her/his lessons and will just tell you to study more on this or that and then a quiz or exam schedule would follow. I remember one professor of mine once told us that our university was not a charity.

If you don't pass then you couldn't beg for your grades. So you really need to study in order to pass and it's without your teacher's care.

I think both are equally important. A teacher should have the mastery of the subject she's teaching as well as be able to manage the students well. This will ensure that she will be an effective teacher.

Without one or the other she will be less effective for it is hard to deliver your subject when you don't have the student's attention. The same thing with having the student's attention but the content that your teaching is lacking. It would be a waste of time to have attentive students but don't have the mastery of the subject so it will also reflect on the students making them lose interest.

So if you are a teacher it would help to have a self-check or self evaluation on what is your weakness and work on it so that you will be able to balance everything and be a good and effective teacher who knows how to deliver her subject well and can deal with students properly.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.