Teaching

A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.

Informally the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. when showing a colleague how to perform a specific task). In some countries, teaching young people of school age may be carried out in an informal setting, such as within the family (homeschooling), rather than in a formal setting such as a school or college. Some other professions may involve a significant amount of teaching (e.g. youth worker, pastor).

In most countries, formal teaching of students is usually carried out by paid professional teachers. This article focuses on those who are employed, as their main role, to teach others in a formal education context, such as at a school or other place of initial formal education or training.

Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology (also known as technical colleges or polytechnics). In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation or profession, training may continue beyond initial competence to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life. People within some professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development. Training also refers to the development of physical fitness related to a specific competence, such as sport, martial arts, military applications and some other occupations. Training methods of all types can be improved by setting specific, time-based, and difficult goals. This allows for the progressive mastery of a topic with a measured outcome.

Teaching has been considered uniquely human because of mentalistic definitions. Indeed, in psychology, teaching is defined by the intention of the teacher to transmit information, behavior, and/or skill.This implies the need for the teacher to assess the knowledge state of the potential learner, thus to demonstrate theory of mind abilities. As theory of mind and intentions are difficult (if not impossible) to assess in non-humans, teaching was considered uniquely human. However, if teaching is defined by its function, it is then possible to assess its presence among non-human species. Caro and Hauser suggested a functionalist definition. For a behavior to be labeled as teaching, three criteria must be met :

• The behavior of the "teacher" must be observed only in the presence of a naive individual
• The behavior represents a cost to the teacher, or at least no direct benefit
• The possible consequence of the behavior is a learning gain for the learner