What are important characteristics of being a teacher? What are the two most important qualities or characteristics that contribute to being an...

I believe the 2
most important qualities a teacher can have are empathy and the ability to adapt to
change.

Empathy is a necessity in the education world.  If we cannot make the
effort to understand where our students are coming from and why they are thinking/acting the way
they are, we cannot hope to successfully educate them or make a difference to them.  It is our
ability to emphathize and show them that we understand it is difficult to be a kid that allows
us to connect and forge an educational bond with students.  Think about it: it is probably the
students that you can least empathize with - for whatever reason (lack of experience, student
won't give any clues to self, etc) - that you have the hardest time connecting with and tapping
into.

The importance of the ability to adapt to change should be obvious to
those of us in the education world.  If a teacher cannot adapt on-the-spot, her day-to-day
lessons are less successful than they should be.  If she cannot adapt to change within the
educational research world - change in best practice theory - she will be unsuccessful.  We must
be able to change and adapt to new best practice in order to best educate ou
students.