Teacher Tales

After a long career as an educator, I am today able to say that most of the sorrows and woes that often befall a teacher does not come from the students but from the school’s organizational culture and from the administration. If it were otherwise no teacher would have had the motivation to continue.

It is a well known fact that teaching, with perhaps a few exceptions is not attended with pecuniary benefits. The reason why people are attracted to this job is because of idealism. Before they actually know what they are getting into. In view of the paradigm shift in what a teacher’s job entails. my generation did not gain from the example of the previous generation. When my father was about to start his career, teachers were unquestionably venerated and looked upto in society. Even though in the bottom of the hierarchy in terms of the money earned, a teacher was placed on a pedestal by society and given a lot of respect as someone possessing knowledge, wisdom and integrity of character. He was a living embodimet of the principle of simple living and high thinking.’

Today the corporate culture has crept into the field of education too. A battery of teachers who have spent years in the same organisation gathering moss comprise what is known as the Senior Leadership Team( SLT), who are freed of the task of actual teaching, as a consequence of which work has to be continuously invented for them. Despite their endless meetings, in the majority of schools, organisational culture rarely improves. In its place, favouritism, politics and sowing divisiveness among teachers occupies most of their thoughts. Ontological issues are never solved, infratstructual changes are shoved under the carpet and many things are done in an unrealistic manner to meet the demands of the inspector.

The potential of talented staff is not tapped due to a number of factors.

In this scenario, the joy of teaching often comes from the students as it should be even though you have to tread softly in this area too as many ideas of teachers are rarely implemented. This of course varies from school to school.

My personal experiences mostly concern students like many of us who cannot stay away from teaching for long.

The consultants and experts who are in the lucrative business of conducting endless CPDs might enrich us with many helpful strategies and the school might inundate us with data, but only a teacher can feel the pulse of the class and motivate the students and this is best done when no one is around. This is not to diminish or minimize the importance and role of data in lesson planning, but to assert that no amount of data or strategies can help an educator to succeed unless he or she can hit it off with a student early one.

A teacher immediately knows if students regard them, like them and getting smiles and compliments from students show that they have understood that their teacher also respects them.

Educators today must acknowledge that their students know a lot more than they knew when they were students. They might be shy to express and teachers must empower and elicit the response from them. A teacher who does that is instantly loved and respected by their students.

Every class has one or two elements who are considered troublesome by their teachers. But even the troublesome ones need to be respected and understood. I must have done something to create that respect in my so called troublesome student, whom I taught last year, but no longer teach now.

Every time he sees me , he never fails to wish me and many a time he has said that he missed my classes. This gave me enough validation and was enough to keep my spirits up for the rest of the day.

In conclusion I am of the opinion that all data and strategies must take a backseat to teaching from the heart and with the heart directing the eyes and ears. If you cannot strike a rapport with the class, no amount of data driven teaching or being smart with strategies is going to serve. I once again reiterate that this is not to undermine the importance of data or strategies in planning lessons, but only to show that they are subservient to one’s knowledge about one’s students and the ability to inspire them.