Questions to Ask Your Teacher to Get to Know Them
Twenty questions for getting to know a teacher as a person rather than quizzing them about pedagogy: why they chose the subject, what they were like as a student, the hardest part of the job, and what they notice about a class. With notes on when to ask and where the line sits.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How long have you been teaching, and have you always taught this subject?
Why ask it
An easy opener that also tells you something useful, since a teacher in their first year and one in their twentieth run a room differently. Career changers usually have the better stories.
What did you want to be before you became a teacher?
Why ask it
Most teachers had another plan, and this is where the biology degree or the years in an office turn up. It also reframes the subject as something adults use rather than something invented for school.
What were you like as a student?
Why ask it
Teachers who found school easy and teachers who struggled explain things differently. Someone who found this subject hard often has the clearer explanation, because they had to build one from scratch.
What was your favorite subject at school, and were you any good at it?
Why ask it
Lighter than asking about their teaching philosophy, and the answer is often not the subject they now teach. You learn what they actually enjoy rather than what they were hired for.
Who was your best teacher, and what did they do?
Why ask it
Almost every teacher can name one, and the answer usually describes what they are trying to do in their own room. Notice whether they mention kindness or standards, because that is what they will look for in you.
What made you pick this subject?
Why ask it
Ask this instead of asking about their philosophy. You get the specific book, experiment, trip or teacher that pulled them in, which is both more useful and easier to remember.
What's your favorite thing to teach, and what do you dread?
Why ask it
The second half is what makes this worth asking. Knowing which unit they dread tells you where the class will have to work hardest, and being asked at all is disarming.
What's the best question a student has ever asked you?
Why ask it
Flattering without being obvious, and it tells you what kind of question they value. It also quietly raises the standard of your own questions for the rest of the year.
What do students get wrong about you?
Why ask it
Teachers know they are misread, usually as stricter or less interested than they are. The answer often explains a rule you had assumed was arbitrary.
What do you do when you're not at school?
Why ask it
Ask once, keep it general, and accept a short answer. Teachers have a professional line to hold, and pressing for detail about their private life is where this stops being welcome.
Have you lived anywhere else?
Why ask it
Safe ground with real content, and often the best story of the conversation. Teachers who have taught abroad or worked in another field usually have plenty to say and are rarely asked.
What are you reading or watching at the moment?
Why ask it
Current rather than biographical, which makes it easy to answer and easy to pick up again next week. It also gets you a recommendation you can actually use.
What's the hardest part of your job?
Why ask it
Most teachers will answer honestly if you sound like you want to know: marking, meetings, class sizes, or watching a student they cannot reach. Do not follow it with a complaint of your own.
How much work goes on outside class that we don't see?
Why ask it
Planning, marking and reporting are invisible from a desk, and asking about them is unusual enough to change how a teacher sees you. Expect an answer measured in evenings and weekends.
What's changed most about teaching since you started?
Why ask it
Anyone with a few years behind them has watched phones, exams and rules change. This tends to get the most unrehearsed answer an experienced teacher gives.
What do you notice about students that we don't realize you notice?
Why ask it
Turns the attention around and usually produces something surprising: who is quietly struggling, who actually does the group project, who has stopped eating lunch. It also shows how closely they watch.
If you could get us all to do one thing differently, what would it be?
Why ask it
Better than asking how to succeed in their class, because it invites the thing they have wanted to say all term. The answer is usually about asking for help earlier than students do.
Do you use this subject outside of class?
Why ask it
Finds out whether the subject exists beyond the syllabus. A teacher who uses it in ordinary life will happily talk for ten minutes, and that is where the interesting material is.
If someone wanted to keep going with this subject after school, what should they do?
Why ask it
A practical question worth more than a careers leaflet. Teachers keep track of former students and know which courses and routes actually worked out.
Is there anything you wish students would ask you and never do?
Why ask it
Ends by handing the conversation over. Whatever they name is what they have been waiting to be asked, and it usually starts the best part of the exchange.
Asking without making it awkward
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
When and how to ask
- After class or in office hours, not mid-lesson while thirty people wait.
- One or two questions at a time. The free minutes between classes are counted.
- If you want a longer conversation, ask for it in advance. Teachers say yes far more often than students expect.
- Email works for anything needing a considered answer, and suits a teacher who is reserved in person.
Where the line is
- Nothing about pay, age, weight, religion, or whether they have a partner.
- Nothing about what they think of another teacher, or about another student's grades. Both put them in an impossible position.
- Do not press when an answer is short. A brief reply to a personal question is a boundary rather than shyness.
- Leave their social media alone. Looking up a teacher's private accounts is the quickest way to make a good relationship uncomfortable.
If you need something from them
- Ask early and directly. A teacher can do a great deal about a problem raised two weeks before a deadline and almost nothing the night before.
- Bring the specific thing you do not understand rather than saying you are lost. That is the difference between a five-minute answer and a shrug.
- For a reference or recommendation, ask in person, give them a month, and say what it is for.
- Say thank you afterwards, in writing if it took real effort. Teachers hear it rarely enough that it gets remembered for years.
If a teacher doesn't engage
- Some keep every conversation on the subject matter. That is a professional choice, not a verdict on you.
- Try a question about the material instead. Genuine interest in the subject is the one thing that reliably opens a door.
- A short answer during a hard week is not rejection. Ask again in a fortnight.
- If a conversation makes you uncomfortable rather than simply rebuffed, tell an adult you trust. Anything a teacher says to you should be something you would be content for a parent to read.