Happy Teachers Day

THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE: FROM A THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW

It might be wrong to make theoretical assumptions without a proper research, but we can definitely argue about the level of seriousness of the teachers regarding the in-service teachers’ training.  And I think we can safely argue that at least half of the teachers are not serious about the training; and I think, we all can make certain valid assumptions on why the teachers are not serious.  A few arguments could be made that (a) the teachers had attended such training for so many times without any visible or observable benefits, (b) the frequency of the training made them took it for granted, (c) based on their previous experience, they have no or very less expectation from the current training, etc. 

There are two concepts from psychology that can help explain the above behaviours/perception of the teachers, and understanding those concepts will also help us in understanding what we can do. The two concepts are (i) self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 2004) and (ii) learned helplessness (Peterson & Seligman, 1993; Fogle,1978).

Psychologist Albert Bandura has defined self-efficacy as one's belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations. One's sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. So, how do our teachers see themselves, their performance and effectiveness, and the challenges they faced every day in the form of their students whose learning need to be facilitated in such a way that we can fulfil the aims of our education?  The aims of education is not only about moving from one grade to another, and then find a job.  Education has a much broader objectives such as those value laden qualitative concept like justice, liberty, equality, democracy, good citizenship, etc. which are practically impossible to be achieved.  Unless one understand that we are not going to achieve those goals overnight, and we can only work towards the achievement of such aims, one is bound to doubt our capabilities in the process.  Besides, the teachers’ effectiveness is measured through observable results inside the class-room, and if the students are not learning or progressing as expected, the teachers are going to doubt their own ability to help the students learn.   

The other concept, Martin Seligman's concept of Learned Helplessness says that people who had tried and failed many times before have an attitude of hopelessness and passivity towards everything, including their jobs, based on their past experience. Such people will fail to respond even when there are opportunities available to them to improve.  Such people have seen and experienced many things, and their attitude is based on their personal experience.  Many teachers started out their teaching careers with high hopes and many interesting teaching methods and/or passion.  They started with much enthusiasm and inspiration, trying to improve our education system.  But in the first few years of their careers, they have seen and experienced an inflexible and unresponsive system, an unappreciative colleague and seniors, etc. and as such, they gradually lost their enthusiasm and inspiration, and become a part of the system that they wanted to change so much.  They tired and made many attempts and efforts to change or help the system, but their efforts were not appreciated or not even acknowledge, and thus ultimately they are forced to give up. Their passivity is learned and thus real, and you have to ‘move a mountain’ to earn their trust and be able to inspire them again.

In both the situation mentioned above, the solutions psychologists gave are very simple, though it is difficult to achieve.  People who have self-efficacy issue must be made to realize that self-belief and self-confidence come from our understanding of our own capabilities and capacities.  Teachers need to be encouraged and motivated from time to time, not just financially, but also verbally; and ISTT is one good opportunity for us to encourage and motivate the teachers, and take full advantage of the opportunity. 

Regarding those teachers with an issue of ‘learned helplessness’ must be assured that they have our full support in their desire to provide quality education, and bring change.  The only thing we can do for them to put their belief back in what they have already given up is to build trust and let them see our seriousness and commitment towards our goals.

And one precautionary note is that, we should try to avoid directly criticizing and belittling the work being done by the teachers during the training, doing so will serve none of us any good.

The Integration of Work and Education

I had earlier reviewed Marjorie Sykes’s The Story of Nai Talim about Gandhi's idea of education which I dismissed with one word: “romantic”!  I said the idea was romantic because the education system started by Gandhi’s failed to survive the economy of post-independent India which is an infant version of our current overtly commercialized capitalism.  Besides, I thought of the possibility of having such a school in the city and considering the kind of space it required, I thought it was practically impossible. 

Now looking back on my argument, I was too focused on the infrastructure aspect and not on the ideology of education.  If we take a good look, there is an integration of work and education at all level, and it cannot be separated.  The only thing absent is that raising the consciousness that the thing that we do everyday involved as many knowledge as available to use, the only thing is we are not aware of the knowledge we use, and we don’t know how to categorize them.

For example, a farmer integrated many knowledge in his day life.  He knows about the season, the rains, the pattern of cloud, how crops grows, what crops will be good in the type of soil, how to tilt his land and what to do with pest.  In other words, he knows botany, holti-culture, geography, language, applied science, etc. 

What we can do about the integration of work and education in our school is that, we don’t need a field where they can grow crops, or rear cattle, all we need is a room where we can store all sorts of things and give the freedom to children to do whatever they want to do with it.  For e.g. in the book “To the principal with love”, the author mentioned that we can collect old and used cycles and cycles part and store them in one room, children should be free to bring their own cycle and repair it, or build a new one from the parts that are available.  They should be allowed to tinkle with it, play with it.  We can do the same for computer parts for those of our children who want to be a computer/ hardware engineer, old (but clean) clothes for those of our children who want to be a designer.