“He starts telling people that they’re not very clever, and their work isn’t good and all that.”

There are some people who should never be teachers. This has less to do with their personalities than their understanding of the professional role. There are, after all, many different types of people - from the very quiet to the flamboyant - who make excellent teachers. But there are some who always convey a sense of discomfort and insecurity in their relationships, especially with children.

Children have a very clear sense of what makes a good teacher, and from their point of view corroborate the many studies that try to define what is effective. They point out how important it is that the teacher should “explain” - showing an interest in them, and be able to communicate. They also stress how important it is that the teacher should be firm - consistent and fair. The effective teacher balances approachability with respect, friendliness with authority.

Children are also very clear about what makes a bad teacher. Analysing their experience of such a case points up exactly what goes wrong when a teacher cannot work out proper professional relationships, when personal feelings undermine true judgments.

The following comments by children arise from a research study which covered both primary and secondary schools. Children took part in lengthy semi-structured interviews and were encouraged to talk about a wide range of experiences in school, from the academic to the social. In passing, they made comments about their teachers and their teaching styles, good and bad. This case study emerges from the comments of first year pupils in their secondary school.

The first characteristic of a bad teacher is the lack of belief in the children or their work: “It upsets me when he shouts. He shouted at me once and I felt upset. He said my work was rubbish.” (girl) “He said that it really was horrible and she might have to do it again and she burst out crying.” (girl) Most children try desperately hard to please the teacher and dislike having their work demeaned. It is easy to undermine confidence by pouring scorn on what is produced or inventing impossible targets.

Such attacks on children’s work partly arise because the teacher creates conditions in which it is impossible to work. No one can properly concentrate; the fear of not doing well enough undermines standards: “I get kind of very nervous and when he shouts I’m sort of edgy and then I make mistakes .. . he says it’s ‘cos of us he shouts, but I don’t think it is really.” (boy) There is clearly a constant tension in the air which derives from the uncertainty about what the teacher will do next.

This impossible working atmosphere stems from the arbitrary nature of the teachers’ regime. The teacher indulges his changes of mood: “He goes bright red when he tells you off and you try not to laugh, and he goes calm and then he suddenly starts shouting at you. So we don’t talk at all, we just get on with our work, not even looking around.” (girl) The teacher is not consistently firm but arbitrarily angry. He is clearly not in command of his own feelings, which he indulges: “He shouts a bit when he gets angry - he really does shout. Once he got really angry with us - I don’t know why - and he said ‘Whenever your class comes in, it always makes me angry’. We didn’t know why he said that. ” (girl) “He does get angry if we ask after he’s explained something - he’s often in a bad mood.” (boy) Children detect a lack of control over himself. They realise that he is not just being angry as a way of maintaining discipline, let alone raising standards of work. Their terror comes about because his assumptions about their behaviour and their work border on the pathological. He is bad-tempered rather than strict.

One insecurity that children feel in this arbitrary regime is not knowing who will be “picked on” next. The phrase being “picked on” is one that children use when they are victims of a bully. This teacher uses his authority to create tension in making arbitrary judgments: “Anything we do - every peek - he shouts at another person that’s right near you. It can be. . . well, I know I am a bit silly now . . . but a bit scarey. You dunno what he’s going to do, turn. . . I put my head down and prayed.” (boy) “He’s always picking on other children in our class and it’s not fair on them, and you never know who he’s going to pick on next.” (girl) Nothing causes such difficulties for children than this abuse of power. Instead of their belief in “fairness”, they are confronted with a regime that does not make sense. With their own best judgments they cannot really understand why he becomes angry or why he suddenly “picks on” individuals. They don’t know who will be the next victim: “He finds different people. First he picked on D, and then there’s two boys who sit together. He’s always picking on them, and there was one boy called Gary and he made him move and he didn’t even do anything - I don’t know what he did - I think he dropped his pen and went to pick it up. Who’s he going to start on next?” (girl) The result of all this bad temper, self-indulgence and undermining of children’s confidence is not only a lowering of academic standards but a strong sense of contempt for the teacher. The children fear him but do not respect him. There is something essentially ridiculous about a teacher who “goes bright red and shouts at everybody”. This is why, despite themselves and their insecurity, the children have to stop themselves laughing - “you try not to laugh”. At the heart of the brutal lies the ridiculous.

But there is something in the teacher that children despise even more. His singling out of individuals and his attempts to explain himself signal an attempt to strike up some kind of personal relationship, however twisted. At the centre of the lack of control is a strong desire to be understood, even to be liked: “And then in the end he tried to be all nice to her and as if he hadn’t done it.” (girl) “And he started, like, being more friendly, and saying ‘I’m your friend’. I don’t think that’s right - you go crawling back to a child after you’ve started at them, just to become their friends.” (girl) What the children describe might be an extreme case, but it is an extreme that points up the characteristics of an ineffective teacher. The children’s work is put down, and their self confidence undermined.

There are no clear and consistent rules of behaviour being followed. The picking on individuals, the loss of temper, the emotional tension, and the attempts to be liked all point up the teacher who is not playing a proper, impersonal, professional role.

Such a case makes one look with more understanding and more admiration for all those who are effective teachers - firm and consistent, caring for the children more than themselves, having the patience and intelligence to explain complex matters to around 30 individuals all of different abilities, temperament and styles of learning.

There might be a few who should never be teachers, but they show up the virtues of those who are.

Cedric Cullingford is professor of education at the University of Huddersfield and is author of The Inner World of the School, published by Cassell.