On Teachers' Day this year, I received an electronic card from an old student who now runs her own school. The message said, "Teacher - being one is the highest privilege, having one is a blessing." I was happy to get this message but also wondered how many teachers of today think that they are "privileged" and how many students think that having a teacher is "a blessing".
Young teachers of today are not aware of a bygone era when the mere act of teaching earned you a place on a pedestal. It was not only students but also their parents who looked up to teachers. The students of that bygone era still remember you on Teachers' Day. These voices from the past give you a touch of nostalgia and you are awash in a thousand memories. Sadly, the other day a relatively senior teacher complained, "Somehow I can't relate to the current social mood. Why are we teachers blamed for everything these days?" On the other hand, many of today's teachers do not take critical comments personally. They respond to queries crisply and professionally, and carry on with their lives. Just as the modern-day corporate person does not join an organization and retire from it with an engraved watch, decades later, the teachers of today do not stay in the same institution all their working lives. Like all other professionals, today's teachers like to keep an eye on their career paths and financial returns.
But there is no vertical progression in a school as there is in the corporate world where there are promotions and exciting designations that signify your importance as well as monetary incentives and rewards. Currently, however, this is changing as schools are increasingly being run like corporate organizations. This is to be expected as schools are managed - and often micromanaged - by business magnates and industrialists. Another change that is increasingly noticeable is the feminization of school teaching, especially at the elementary level. These changes demand another look at the different reasons why people choose or do not choose to be schoolteachers today. The motives determining the choice are individual-specific but studies have established the existence of three kinds of motive: extrinsic, intrinsic and altruistic. The extrinsic motives include job security, a comfortable financial package and vacations. Many earn handsomely on the side - for example, through running boutiques, travel companies and private coaching classes. This is possible because of the convenient timings of most schools. Other teachers find their regular school jobs so demanding that they wonder how, after school hours, and with a family to attend to, any energy remains for other pursuits. As for vacations, they are looked upon as the most attractive of a schoolteacher's "perks". But now in many schools, teachers are expected to report to work for part of the vacation, to attend workshops and to prepare for the next term.
With regard to intrinsic motives or the factor of personal satisfaction, there are many teachers who say that teaching is "in their blood". In fact, some teachers spurn the offer of administrative positions and say that the classroom environment suits them the most. On the other hand, there are those who, having been given a taste of administrative functions, begin to find teaching mundane and routine. The other day, while interviewing an applicant for the position of principal of a relatively new school, I was taken aback when she said that she had applied for an administrative position because she did not want to carry on with the "hackneyed" task of teaching. Yet, some principals tell me that they needed to do some teaching in order to survive.
I am really puzzled about these contrasting perceptions of the nature of a teaching job. Perhaps, those teachers who teach in exactly the same way year after year are the ones who find teaching tedious. But exciting teachers make each lesson different and they know that the different students who learn make the same topic change complexion. Besides, there is much else that happens in class that is far removed from the subject or topic being taught or learned. And these extra lessons of life are remembered by students long after they have forgotten the subject matter of a particular topic.
As far as the altruistic motive is concerned, the word that used to be associated with teaching was "noble", implying that a teacher, almost by definition, had high moral principles and was self-sacrificing. The motive for teaching in this case would be an opportunity to develop every child in the teacher's care. Some claim that all teachers are engaged in the task of nation-building.
The reasons that teachers themselves give for choosing to teach include: to work with the young, the variety offered by the job, their own rich educational experience and the inspiring teachers they had had, love of their subjects and the fun of teaching. Others say that they were teaching by default - there were limited career options for them or for practical reasons; teaching did not involve long and punishing hours, so a work-life balance could be achieved. Outside the profession, it is rudely said, "Those who can't, teach." An interesting take on this is, "Those who can, teach; those who can't, make educational policies."
Statistics indicate that a large percentage of teachers decides to leave the profession within a few years of joining. Burnout does happen; but to understand the root causes of discontent, one needs to be aware of what schoolteachers have to cope with today besides helping students to learn. They have to attend to their students' health and hygiene, diet and nutrition, their personality development, value systems and character traits. Teachers at various levels are expected to be counsellors, nurses, cleaners, designers, craftspeople, coaches and motivators, clerks, record keepers, and tactful report-writers. The last bit needs to be explained to readers who are not familiar with the school environment today. Teachers are not permitted to write that a child "disturbs others" or "takes pleasure in disrupting the class". They are expected to use euphemisms and camouflage the bald truth and would therefore write, "can be counted upon to create a challenging situation in the classroom".
Every teacher is expected to instil discipline in his or her students. Besides, it is impossible for any learning to take place unless teachers are able to control their classes of 40 to 50 students. Yet, teachers have to be extra careful about raising their voices or using words which may upset children. Children can exploit such situations to great advantage. I wish parents who have difficulty managing one child would sometimes put themselves in the teachers' shoes instead of finding fault with them all the time. One of the reasons why teachers are soon disenchanted with their profession is that there is teacher-bashing in the social media and press, together with meddling and ungrateful parents. Other reasons are heavy workload, too much work outside of school hours, unnecessary paperwork, constant changes in school and education policy and inadequate pay.
Sugata Mitra of "School in the Cloud" fame believes that teachers as we know them are quite redundant. His experiments with slum children, computers and "holes-in-the-wall" have established that if left alone, children would not only learn but would take responsibility for their own learning. Mitra also declares that what you want are people who don't care about how they talk or dress but would like to think of things from different angles. He goes on to say, "These are the guys who do well." According to him, spelling does not matter - the computer has a spell-check anyway. And people should not bother about grammar if the communication makes sense - the Americans and the Chinese don't. Nobody should care about good handwriting and the less arithmetic you do in your head the better. I think Mitra would be happy with the typical 21st-century teacher, but old-school teachers, often described as "Victorian", expect their students to speak well, dress tidily and pay attention to their grammar and spelling. Some diehard ones also insist on a certain elegance of expression.
It is because of the human mind's total dependence on technology today in functions like finding one's way around (now that we have GPS) and even basic calculations (a calculator is built into most mobile phones) that some educators and scholars are trying to reactivate the human ability to gauge position and direction with the help of stars and keep alive the mental agility of working out mathematical problems in one's head. Of course, we must keep in mind that at the time of a natural disaster, there would be no access to functional machines. I am really glad that even in the 21st century we still have schools. And these schools have both computers and human teachers.
Teachers may be out of favour but coaches are very much in. We are indeed happy that Gopichand was given due credit for Sindhu's Olympic achievement. But all coaches are teachers too. A legendary American basketball coach looked upon himself as a teacher who used the platform of basketball to instruct his team members about "winning in life". Whatever the pundits may say, I don't think that teachers can be done away with in the near future. Since "teacher" is not a nice word any more, they may be given different names like "facilitators" and "cloud grannies". But, I am quite sure that the world will continue to need teachers in some avatar or the other. So, let us treat them better.
The author is director, Modern High School for Girls, Calcutta
