The most important responsibility of an educator

What if we were to ask the most important responsibility of an educator, if at all there is one. This question has been asked quite often and its answer has a huge impact on education system. There are three commonly accepted answers refuted below before I share my views on the question:-



Teaching (The Traditional View) - Traditional education had only one expectation from teacher – i.e. to teach. To make sure he does “teaching” (which mostly implied discourses on a topic by experts), we had strict teacher qualifications. Only a PHD in Physics must teach physics or only a masters in Mathematics can teach Mathematics. Teacher was least bothered about the student’s understanding; what mattered was lecture delivery. He would do his best to speak and transfer information from his knowledge bank to the student’s. Whether students have gained anything out of it was immaterial. Those who can grasp became toppers and those who couldn’t were labeled as “losers”.



Times has clearly proven this view as wrong. Over time, we have learned that lecturing makes only a small part of real learning in life. Most of the lectures are monotonous, uninteresting and outdated opinions – hence not providing learning in true sense of the word. Also as teaching was the key responsibility, some teachers (who were good communicators) excelled in it through use of interesting methods like humor, story telling, games etc…while majority of teachers just spoke out of a sense of duty and most students listened for they had no choice due to compulsory attendance. There was no real speaker and no real listener, let alone the teacher and the taught.



Ensuring Learning Happens (The Progressive View)



Our thinking evolved to realize that teaching cannot happen the traditional way and lot of progressive educators and thinkers stressed on learning and student centric approaches. So the progressive lot started talking in a new language and teacher’s responsibility became to ensure learning takes place in class. This meant deeper involvement of teacher and adapting ways to make learning more effective. This was a great shift and we are lucky that it happened (but we must be ashamed that it took us decades to realize this simple fact)

The methods used were more child friendly, the teacher now was concerned about student’s understanding the topic.

However, in spite of our best intentions we did not understood “How people learn?” and hence this also did not work the way progressive educators expected it to. (Although they seem to have not given it up yet.)

One of the things that’s become quite clear in the hazy field of educational research is – “People learn only when they want to”. We can do lot of teaching or activities in a class but who learned what, is not at all in our hands. True learning environment is beyond educator’s control.  Quite often what should have been learnt is not and what shouldn’t have been is.

For e.g. You discuss with students through videos/stories/book – two key events 9/11 and Laden’s death (Boy ! Can’t I think of a better example ;-) ) and would like students to learn “A,B,C” from the discussion. But what one may learn can never be predicted. One student might actually learn “A” but not “B” and “C’ , other may not learn any of it , a third one might just learn “D”, “E” and “F”. Further, if you are white and you smiled on one of the scenes (just like that) – you’d never know if it  might just make a student conclude (for now and for rest of his life) that whites hate muslims and make fun of them – a learning which you never even wanted to transmit.



The cultural background, social conditioning, limited and varied knowledge of students, current state of min, moods , socio-economic background and many other variables make learning environment completely uncontrollable and unpredictable.

Thus, the responsibility of a teacher to ensure learning happens – is a futile imagination.



Provide Inspiration and spark creativity (Idealist View)

Some other groups, experts especially idealists (usually great authors/speakers/politicians who have never even worked as a teacher or know little about realities of schools but they still wish to come up with solutions to all educational problems) claim that key responsibility of modern educator is to foster creativity and provide inspiration to kids.

First let me talk about creativity, Kids are creative by nature but schools suppress their creativity in early education. Later, we want schools to make kids more creative. ROFL. ;-) Further, if creativity is to be nourished in kids – an educator is least empowered to do it because the entire exam system is non-creative and our society doesn’t reward creativity. It requires a larger shift in the system.

Secondly, lets talk about inspiration – is there a group of people we can call “Inspirers”? Or Do people inspire people or it is the action of people that inspires ? Look at the dismal states of our teachers, they don’t know much about anything except their subjects. They don’t have a view on future of education (or event the present of it), they usually are non-creative workers. (Excuse me for this experiential stereotyping) It is just so unfair of us to expect our educators to inspire our kids without we having any proper inspiration in our system to become educators.

Inspiration and creativity is very subjective and we can never expect it to work the way we want. A simple new teacher might inspire a thousand students while a very interesting and experienced PHD might not be able to. The same simple new teacher might not inspire other set of students while this PHD guy can become a real inspiration in some other situation.  Inspiration and creativity are bi-product of some other unclear/unknown factors and cannot be dealt with directly, hence this expectation is just too vague and idealistic.



Being an Authentic Person is the Key responsibility

According to me the true responsibility of an educator is towards himself. Infact the only responsibility of a teacher should be continuous self improvement through self exploration. She needs to stay abreast with happenings in the world, stay aware of her own and social biases. He needs to stay full of life, creativity and excitement. Most importantly, she needs to be a happy, authentic and moral (for god sake, forgive me for use of this word but I am not talking about the hypocrite morality or a church type morality) human being.



Why?

Just pause for a moment and go back in time to remember your favorite teacher, your best friend or a person you truly admired and learnt a lot from. Think of someone who really touched your life, someone who changed the way you look at things, someone who really helped you learn a lot.

Now describe him or her. Most often, we learn from people and their lives not from what they say.  Mahatma Gandhi could stir a revolution and teach the entire world a lesson of non-violence not because he wrote a book or did something but because he lived his entire live in that way. He was a person of morals and thus people in touch with him learnt a lot.

Zen or Buddhist monasteries where monks are trying to learn the deepest secrets of life usually have some monks who really live their life in way that just being with that person becomes a learning experience.

What can an unhappy teacher give to the class ? He is struggling with his marriage, he still is confused about his career choices, he is still quite insensitive and non-creative. Such a person, in spite of best intentions – cannot do good to the students.

Whereas a happy teacher, who is creative, loves life, takes pleasure in everything she does,  lingers to have fun, who herself is a rebel and a truly passionate person – such a person without fail will teach a lot more the kids beyond subjects. Subjects she’ll teach would come alive as she’ll strive to make her own life happy as usual.  A happy person cannot be sad in classroom. Happiness is the first condition of learning anything significant.

I strongly believe that students can’t be happy unless school management is happy, educators are happy. The only qualification for a teacher should be to be happy and creative. Happiness is the key ingredient that makes a learning environment.

Educators must fight for their own growth, for their own space in schools, to stay calm and happy. They must be aware not to have a stressed lifestyle. They must demand space for creativity and fun. They must be fearless and revolutionary. They must do whatever it takes so that teaching doesn’t remain a job but a lovely experience of life which he enjoys immensely. He must strive to get clear about his morals, ethics and values without being stereotyped and old fashioned.

Irrespective of the intention, quite often –

A violent educator will teach only violence,

A confused educator will increase the confusion,

A sexually pervert educator will only fuel up perversion in students,

A hypocrite personality can only teach hypocrisy.

A person blind for fame and money just cannot teach spirituality..

A religious person cannot teach critical thinking.

An egoist or fame loving educator cannot teach anything but would only do things to impress or gain acceptance.

Most of above teaching will unfortunately happen without even the educator doing anything consciously.

Educators must be greedy for self development and self improvement in all the spheres. That is, according to me, the only true responsibility of an educators.

I might be mistaken as stating that “Only perfect souls should be educators” , No ! I don’t mean that. What I mean is that educator must be aware of his/her own imperfections and should consistently strive to become a better person, should be open to change, to challenge, to question and to learn.

Must read books for Educators : Part II

There are three more books that I think every educator concerned with authentic education might find useful. Infact all three books mentioned below are such that anyone can read them irrespective of their profession. These books talks of deeper and important issues of life which are so closely realted to education.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed :  By Paulo Friere

[caption id="attachment_177" align="alignleft" width="195" caption="Pedagogy of the Oppressed"][/caption]

 





I was almost too sure that there could possibly be no “Manual for Rebels” or a book on “How to create true revolution?” but Paulo Friere made me rethink.

Ofcourse, still there can’t be a book on revolution or rebels but this book comes really very close. They way he explains the Banking concept of education and its relation to the oppression in our society is thrilling. His practical  wisdom on authentic education really makes one think deeply. Some of my favourite quotes are :-

“An act is oppressive when it prevents people from being more fully human… education is thus oppressive for it reduces the taught into an object.”

“Education is a tool used by the oppressors to make individuals better “fit” for the world. (a world that has been created by oppressors where other human beings are to be treated merely as objects.)”

“A teacher’s thinking is authenticated only the authenticity of the student’s thinking.”

What I really like most about the entire pedagogy proposed by Paulo Freire, something that very closely resonates with my own take on educational reforms is “mandatory and equal participation of both the parties (here, it would mean we and the students).” As he explain in following quote :-

“ Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation is (again) to treat them as objects.”

“Education must be more as a practice of freedom opposed to (current system), practice of domination..”

“Authentic Education is not carried on by “A” for “B” or by “A” about “B”, but rather by “A” with “B”. “

Actually the entire book is worth quoting, so go get a copy and read it.

On Education by J. Krishnamurti

[caption id="attachment_179" align="alignleft" width="162" caption="J Krishnamurti on Education"][/caption]

Pick up any book by J. Krishnamurti and you’ll find deep insight into the issues in our education system with lot of hints on how to take things forward. The questions that he poses are really shattering and makes one think and act.

“Why are you being educated ? Have you asked this question ? Are you concerned at all ? Are you being educated just to find a good job, fit into society, get married and produce kids ? Or is there anything more to life ? “

“So Sir, the problem is to have an education where both the educator and the educated bring about a good society.”

“The function of education, then, is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time and to cultivate true freedom.”

“ You might know a great deal outwardly but are you also aware of the yourself inwardly, in reality , just naked as you are not the superficial personalities that we carry”

J. Krishnamurti’s profound views on education are rooted in practical wisdom because he worked closely with 5 schools for almost 4-5 decades. He discussed all kinds of issues with teachers and students and thankfully we have records of most of it.

The best thing I like about his books and his work is he never gave a system to follow but challenged each one of the educator (as well the students) to find his or her own clarity on all the educational issues which are nothing but also the issues of our society, issues of our life.

How to talk to kids so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk. By  Faber and Mazlish

[caption id="attachment_178" align="alignleft" width="172" caption="How to talk to kids so kids will listen"][/caption]

 





I can’t believe I am recommending this book because I just found it full of crap first time I read it. Crap because this book tells you nothing but what is “Common Sense”.

However as I observed closely, I found common sense missing in schools, in society and especially in teachers and parents at all levels (especially when it comes to handling kids). I found it to be lacking in me too. I went back to the cartoons in the book to regain the common sense and then realized the importance of this book.

This book just tells us how to listen compassionately and talk sensitively (to kids but it works for adults as well), explaining them clearly through number of practical and real life examples.

What I really liked about this book is one constant question posed by the authors throughout the book under various situations – “How would you feel if you were this kid ? Would you feel useless or confident and loved ?” . This single techniques has really changed the way I treat kids.

I think this book is a good read for all teachers, parents and even lovers.