Laura Eggertson
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When Sharon Cook analyzes what makes a good teacher, she thinks about one of her mentors – a history teacher at Ottawa’s Colonel By Secondary School, who headed her department when she taught there.
Cook, recipient of the 2007 University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Teaching, was a high school teacher for 16 years before joining the University’s Faculty of Education, where she has taught for the last 20 years.
Along the way, she had several mentors and role models – something she recommends every new professor cultivate. Her department head at Colonel By, stood out because of his love for his subject, his passion for life-long learning and his admiration for his students.
At the end of each year, Cook’s mentor would write “fan letters” to a select few of his students, telling them which of their qualities he admired.
“It had nothing to do with their marks,” Cook remembers. “What he was doing was validating them as people.”
The letters were unique and treasured mementoes, letting the students know that they had attained the same footing as the teacher they admired.
It’s a practice that Cook adopted, and “I’ve done it ever since,” she says.
Like her mentor, Cook, has also continued to enjoy her subject, an attribute she believes characterizes any outstanding teacher.
“There has to be enough that is enticing and ever-new, and exciting about the subject matter itself, to effectively transmit passion about that subject to somebody else,” she says. That’s why she’s convinced she’d never be a good mathematics professor; history has always been her great love.
Outstanding teachers are also prepared to work hard throughout their career, and they enjoy people, working well with them one-on-one and in groups, says Cook, who also won a teaching award in June from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations.
“Where the groups are concerned, professors really need to have a sense of humour about what people do in their classes, what they say, and how they relate to you … and to remember, as difficult as it is, not to take yourself too seriously,” she adds.
Not only will that sense of humour protect a teacher against disappointment when students are critical, it will also ensure an instructor is not “warped” by too much praise, says Cook.
“People are altogether too polite to us and they think that we know more than we do, in many instances,” she says briskly. “We are all just people on this planet doing the best we can, and it’s important to remember that.”
One of the positive changes Cook has observed at the Faculty of Education, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, is the shifting notion of what a teacher should be. Forty years ago, a fine teacher was an authority figure, an expert and a classroom manager who delivered information effectively to students.
Today, says Cook, teachers are encouraged to be facilitators, teaching in a more cooperative environment. They take into account their students’ culture, learning style and interests. “I think that’s a very good thing,” she says.
Members of the University community, including 145 newly hired professors, will soon have the opportunity to witness Cook’s own pedagogical approach. As winner of this year’s Excellence in Teaching Award, she will deliver a public lecture on her own research into the history of women and smoking. Cook will talk about “that particular romance that has existed since the 1920s between young women and smoking.” The lecture will be held in the Alumni Auditorium on November 7, at 7 p.m.
