Presence

Presence is also an important disposition in the classroom. Maintaining control of your classroom has a lot to do with presence. I had one teacher who was very quiet. He was even soft-spoken in the classroom. He was, however, very effective at maintaining control of his classroom and was able to create a positive learning environment. If someone else would not stop talking, he would quietly ask them to stop, but in a way that always was effective at ending their side conversation. I have had much more outgoing teachers who have been extremely uneffective at classroom management. Presence is about creating a positive working environment while keeping students on task. Classroom management plays an important role, but it is also about observing your students and determining what needs to be done to communicate the information to them successfully while maintaining their focus. One's presence directly ties into their success or failure at getting their students to learn the desired information.

Flexibility

Flexibility is a very important disposition to teaching in public schools. Students of this day and age have a shortened attention span, and one never knows what his or her students may do. Disruptions can throw off carefully planned lesson plans, or students may be incredibly focused the next day. There's always the random firedrill. Aside from the random interruptions, a students can ask a question that can stimulate good discussion. It is necessary to allow some of these discussions to change the path of the class while saving some discussions for another time. Overall, it is important to maintain a certain level of flexibility in the classroom.