Excellence in teaching requires dedication, and lots of it. Excellent teachers reach out to students, and they must hold fast to the belief that eventually, the students will reach back. However, excellent teachers don't shove themselves on students. An excellent teacher is like a man feeding hungry birds. Instead, he sprinkles a little trail of birdseed up to his hand and patiently waits until the bird trusts him enough to come and eat.
Excellent teachers exercise great patience with their students.
They never give up on the idea that certain students will come around. They gain the trust of their students, and at the same time, they have high expectations of their students. This patience could be classified as the most important of the tools needed for excellent teaching. It also happens to be the tool that is the most difficult to obtain. I honestly feel that I have a lot of learning to do in this department.