Teaching students with behavioral problems is the major obstacle for teachers who apply for inclusive education (Cole, 1998; Meijer, 2003). Teachers of students with this type of special educational needs are at particular risk for experiencing stress in the classroom (Nelson, Maculan, Roberts and Ohlund, 2001; Adera and Bullock, 2010). When a teacher is lacking pedagogic and/or didactic ‘tools’ to act professionally in difficult classroom situations in such a way that diagnosed problems of students can be decreased or solved, feelings of professional inadequacy are said to occur (Edelenbos and Meijer, 2002). In order to design education for every child in its uniqueness, this accretion can be considered as a problem of society that needs to be tackled.

It is intriguing that there are teachers who seemingly effortlessly are able to ‘read and write’ with students with a variety of behavioral problems, and that most people promptly agree on whether a teacher has ‘it’ or does not have ‘it’. Through dynamic, reciprocal transactional interactions (Prins, 2003; Sameroff, 2000), those teachers see, affect and inspire their students, increasing the extent to which their genetic possibilities are developed. By preventing behavioral problems from excessing, those teachers do not struggle with the unachievable task of implementing more and more individualized education plans in daily education. Teaching with both their head and heart, those teachers are equipped with the X-factor in teaching students with behavioral problems!

A considerable amount of literature has been published on general aspects of teacher quality, for example by Hattie (2003) and Grieve (2010). Recent studies, among which is a European-wide study by Timmering, Snoek and Dietze (2009), point into the direction of personality characteristics as being the major source of variance in teacher quality. Combining the heightened need for research on teacher personality with the fact that teaching students with behavioral problems in particular is the biggest stumbling block for teachers on the way to inclusive education, the main question addressed in this review study of literature is what the personalities of excellent teachers of students with such special educational needs in particular have in common? This purpose is in line with the goals of positive psychology, which are: examine people’s core-qualities; build on the best things in life; make normal life more valuable, and develop talents (Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi, 2000).

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