The Role and Ideal characteristics of Teacher in Nurettin Topçu’s Understanding of Education

Abstract

The aim of this research is to reveal the mission that Nurettin Topçu, who has opinions and suggestions on education and teaching, placed on the teaching profession and the characteristics of the ideal teacher he portrays. The study which was designed as qualitative was carried out through document review and the content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. As documents, the works of Nurettin Topçu named as “Türkiye’nin Maarif Davası” and “Yarınki Türkiye” were based. Topçu says in his works that teachers have a significant role in the development and enlightenment of society. Topçu, who prefers to use the word ‘’muallim’’ for teachers whom he qualifies as the owners of knowledge, places important missions on them and states that teachers who can fulfill this mission must have some ideal characteristics. As he states that teachers will have ideal characteristics when equipped with national and ancient values, he emphasizes that teachers with these ideal characteristics can play a significant role in the progress of their society. According to Topçu, teachers who teaches, educates, guides, has a good style, is an actor of life, an artist of souls, a deliverer of knowledge, the future of the country, the founder of civilization, are the owners of a sacred profession of their own character. With this research, the ideal characteristics, which a teacher needs to have to reflect Nurettin Topçu’s understanding of education on life, were tried to be presented based on his works named as ‘’Türkiye’nin Maarif Davası’’ and ‘’Yarınki Türkiye’’. As a result of the research, it was seen that Nurettin Topçu's understanding of education aims to create an ideal person, and he also places the responsibility for raising this ideal person on teachers with ideal characteristics.