Effective Teachers Need Training and Status Upgrade
From the time I was a student to this time when I have experienced education in India from all angles as a teacher, teacher trainer, academic content developer and school reviewer , I can say with authority that the practice of teaching has changed significantly, so much in fact that schools may not be what some of us remember from our own childhood. Changes have affected both the opportunities and the challenges of teaching, as well as the attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed to prepare for a teaching career. Effective teaching is no longer about following a rigid list of the most popular teaching methodologies and strategies because effective teaching also includes intangible qualities that directly address the fundamental human needs of a diverse classroom community traits such as empathy, kindness, and a deep respect for the lives and interests of individual students.
Teachers have to be accountable in finding the right mix of practices, at least to some extent, for knowing what each child needs. By most definitions, an occupation like medicine , law or in this case teaching is a profession, where the members must take personal responsibility for the quality of their work, hold each other accountable for its quality, and recognize and require special training in order to practice it.
As a school reviewer I have met scores of teachers and listened to them and talked to them. Asked them what has helped them or what has restricted them to bring out the best in their students. Here I am presenting some of the most significant findings that informed me about the teachers’ mindsets.
Most of the teachers agreed that they were stuffing students with content and knowledge through a system designed on a factory model, and they give up too soon on students if they don’t get to grade level by the time the system says they should. When students fail to improve after teachers’ efforts, they say students are not ready to learn or are hopeless. But teachers knew that it had nothing to do with students’ innate potential or abilities. There are so many opportunities to miss certain students and not see them, not hear them, shut them down. They found it very challenging to work child by child. They did not have time to connect with each child individually, not that they did not want to, but because of the curriculum overload and lack of time management. They had no opportunities to recognize and support student efforts because they focused more on issues like late submission of work, incomplete work, lack of imagination and incorrect answers etc this resulted in students feeling discouraged.
After teaching all day, grading assignments, entertaining students, and family queries, and preparing for the next day’s lesson, finding time and head space for reflection is also very challenging but absolutely essential to effective teaching. I have realized that teachers hardly get any time to reflect and go over their day at the school for example any body language of a student that they might have noticed to indicate disengagement, any expressionless faces, or heads on desks, students chatting spontaneously about assignments, all this shows disinterest and lack of participation. The reflection at the end of the day will equip teachers to synthesize, analyze and adjust her lesson plans for the next day. Sadly, most teachers I met either lacked the time or the professional knowledge to do so.
I strongly believe that teachers should think laterally too, by acknowledging and tapping into the strengths of their colleagues. A vibrant peer network allows teachers to learn from each other, enrich their practice, and access a valuable support network. Peer networks are the main mechanism for transferring collective wisdom and acquiring tacit knowledge that can’t be learned by reading a book or listening to a lecture, skills such as designing a strong lesson plan with precise pacing, rhythm, and clear focus for instance, or identifying challenges students are facing and building positive relationships among students , all this can be learnt by peer networks. Most schools I visited, failed to satisfy me on this account.
There is so much potential exhibited in the National Education Policy 2020, innumerable ideas, and suggestions by experts in education field are doing rounds but according to me accountability, professionalism and team planning is needed to meet the increased expectations. Additional possibilities and holistic development of students mean that teachers have increased responsibility not only for their students’ academic success, but also for their own development as teachers.
In India becoming a new teacher now requires more specialized work than in the past and these increased requirements are partly a response to the complexities created by the increasing diversity of students ( urban and rural, privileged and underprivileged) and increasing use of technology in classrooms. Teachers need training on war footing and a status upgrade.