Can Dispositions Be Taught?

...What a loaded question.

Here's the conclusion I've come to:  You can be a talented person and a good teacher without being an effective teacher.  If you know your stuff, you can get your point across, but you have to develop dispositions to get your students to care about what you're saying.  If you aren't kind or passionate, you lose a lot of credibility.

I'm one of the few crazy people left who think that people are inherently good.  I believe that everyone has the capacity to be compassionate and reflective and is born with the ability to compromise with others.  Because of this, I don't think taught is the right word here.  I think dispositions need to be brought out of people.  I think that it takes a really good mentor to model good dispositional habits for future teachers to aspire to.  By simply demonstrating the importance of a specific way of interacting with students, I think that a person should just get it.

The person who is most helping me get it right now is Sandra Peter, my choir director.  She represents, to me, the perfect choir director.  She is, first and foremost, always positive.  Kids don't want to be around crabby people, so positivity is key.  Secondly, she is organized.  She always knows what's coming next, and pacing is SO important to keeping students' attention.  Third, she cares about each individual student.  When we walked into our first choir rehearsal at Luther freshman year, she knew the names of all 100 women in her freshman choir.  If you're late for rehearsal, she asks why rather than yelling at you for it.

So, to answer your question, dispositions can be brought out in people who have good role models.