Teaching is not a much sought after career in India. Hence, one of the main challenges is to raise the status of teaching as a career option. Disdain for this profession stems from the general perception people harbour, which is, anyone can become a teacher as it takes minimal skills and is nothing but glorified babysitting. It’s high time teachers started valuing their self-esteem and took control of the situation, rather than contribute to this crude perception.
The education sector is a dynamic industry. A good teacher needs to constantly update himself/herself with the best practices practised across the world. This means re-evaluating and reflecting on one’s pedagogical skills by adopting rigorous study, practice and self-improvement measures. High-performing countries keep professional development and training as the topmost priority. They conduct in-house training every month in addition to regular classroom observations and feedback by peers and line managers. Observation is considered an instrument of developing the skills of teachers and not as a weapon to terminate their services, which, nowadays, schools are adept at.
In general, there is no subject-specific training for multi-grade situations as most training programmes focus on generic skills. Hence, there is a complete mismatch between the problems faced by teachers and the training programmes designed by administrators who have little idea of the challenges of a multi-grade class. Lack of intellectual liberty and academic freedom is what teachers miss in this profession. This failure to implement something new curtails their motivation to learn, innovate and update their skills.
Expectations
A teacher is expected to project a ‘perfect teacher’ image. She is required to epitomise calmness and behave like a conservative moral police. Society puts immense pressure on teachers; as if their every decision, act and word can inspire or devastate students. Think of the curious kids that we teach. If one of them were to write an open petition to the school authorities asking why RTE (Right To Education) has not been implemented as per government norms, it would boomerang on the teacher for not curbing free thinking and inciting students. If a student fails, it is the teacher’s fault. If a student succeeds, then it is the achievement of the student alone. Teachers shoulder all the responsibilities, but get little recognition or appreciation for their students’ achievements.
Most of us enter this profession, bright and starry eyed, brimming with idealism and ready to inspire the leaders of tomorrow. Once we start teaching, the reality hits us and drains our passion of pursuing this noble profession. Even if teachers try to maintain their ground and shield their students from the problems that plague our system, it goes in vain as teachers do not have the power to solve them.
The author is German language teacher, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Hyderabad. rahulkadapalla@gmail.com