JOIN USTeachers to play a vital role
Schools have reopened after a long, agonising wait of 15 to 18 months. Children have finally returned to schools. Parents have heaved a sigh of relief, though they are still a wee bit reluctant as they are unsure of what lies ahead. Their anxiety is palpable and not entirely unfounded, for various reasons.
It’s not just parents who should be concerned about schooling. As a vibrant community, we all must be. Several months have passed without any systematic schooling. The loss of learning is quite huge and substantial for every child. It is not just the learning content, but it is the social and emotional deficit that the children suffered that matter the most. It is almost irretrievable. It is doubtful how many, including the decision makers, are aware of the gravity of the situation.
Schools are now expected to do everything in their capacity to bridge the gaps in learning and rebuild the social and emotional quotients that the children lost during this interregnum.
It is not easy to take schooling back to its original form. Teachers are central to this challenge. How they will cope is the single-most crucial question. It can reasonably be assumed that children are more likely to adapt to the change to regular school than teachers themselves. This is a seldom recognised reality.
We often talk about children’s loss of learning, lack of interest in learning, low attention span and the like in the present context.
But we need to acknowledge yet another reality. That is the fact that teachers have also lost the rhythm of classroom teaching, and classroom management. It is important that they get back the earnestness with which they were doing their work.
Not many teachers may own it up, but the fact of the matter is that teachers too have slid back and gone into an intellectual holiday during this long period of hibernation when they were not involved in real-time teaching. Just as body muscles suffer atrophy because of disuse, so does the brain when not used for long. Though teachers were doing online or live classes in many schools, it cannot be true of most schools in the country.
The situation was quite different in the case of government-supported schools. Teachers have been mostly staying home and getting paid for doing little or no teaching at all. This is a lesser known truth. Some of them would have secretly wished the situation would continue. They would never admit to it because it would be sacrilegious to do so. They know only too well that “confession is good for the soul, but bad for reputation”.
There lies the rub, to use a Shakespearean idiom. The most critical factor that is going to shape the destinies of the present generation of children lies squarely in the hands of teachers. Teachers have to rise to the occasion. It is a historic need of the day. A few things are needed to enable teachers to function at an optimum level at this critical juncture.
Retraining teachers: The Ministry of Education should set in motion a rigorous training programme for teachers, using their resources at various levels. Agencies like the CBSE and the ICSE also have their own mechanisms to train and retrain their teachers. This is supremely important. Alongside training of teachers, methods should be evolved to assess the outcomes of the training to determine its effectiveness.
There are two types of teachers as in all professions. The really committed ones and the half-hearted ones. It is the latter kind of teachers who need constant monitoring and prodding. Training is a tool to sharpen their teaching skills. Alongside teaching, they need skills to deal with children having emotional issues. A counselling attitude in teachers is the desperate need of the hour.
Teachers should stop complaining about their students’ behavior or learning for some time at least. This is the time for teachers to show empathy. The EQ of teachers must come to the fore at this juncture. Teachers with an acceptable level of EQ only can function effectively at this point of time. A balanced teacher-perception is the key to resolving the present problem.
Teachers should remember - “students don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. A caring approach can heal wounds, rekindle the love of learning and motivate even the most disinterested students.
It is all about a change in the teachers’ attitude. They should change from being grumblers and shirkers to be healers and mentors. Much depends on the teachers’ endurance and perseverance.
The world beckons the teachers to act with compassion and empathy. Teachers should accept this challenge with grit and grace. Grit is about how determined they have to be, while grace is about how willingly they need to do it.
(The writer is Director, Little Rock, Brahmavar, Udupi)