Are Teachers Ready to be there for the Students?

by Priya Gopal

Every day millions of young people enter classrooms where they are sent by their parents to be educated. In this process of acquisition of education, they encounter a number of rules and regulations, which tell them that they can learn only if they are quiet, if they don’t move around in the classroom, if they don’t disturb the teacher and if they behave in ways that are comfortable for the teacher.

Classrooms tend to move towards uniformity and conformity as its easy for the teacher to “teach” when there is “pin-drop silence” in a classroom.

The teachers of today are armed like soldiers on the battle field. Their ammunition is strong: well-chalked-out lesson plans, organised activities that make the class fun and interactive, their teaching aids – audio-visual or otherwise – in place. They are trained in the best pedagogy. What do you mean by pedagogy?

Pedagogy usually means the methods used by a teacher in the class to teach any content. Every teacher enters the new academic session armed with the latest pedagogical tools – new ideas, methods and content and new tools to tackle the content. Every year there are discussions galore in the staff room on the latest research in the field, the new methods that will keep children glued to the class or the latest techniques that will help children think more critically, participate actively and learn more vigorously.

Yet we constantly hear people moaning about the lack of great teachers. Where are the teachers who inspire, who motivate students to change the course of their lives, who challenge their spirits and who navigate students to reach higher goals in life?

Sadly, there are so few of them. A constant refrain from school leaders and parents is the lack of quality of teachers. Why is quality so low? One aspect is definitely the money that one earns by being a teacher.

This has been a perennial problem. Teachers have never been paid very well. Compare a trained professional in any other field – the engineer, the doctor, the MBA – all well-paid jobs. The idea perpetuated through the years is that teaching is a noble profession and somehow nobility doesn’t always correlate with money. Education – and teaching – do not give immediate returns to the economy. However, the bigger reason that we find very few motivated teachers is a lack of passion for the job. Teaching is never just a job. It comes with huge emotional investments.

Schools of today have highly planned curriculum goals and focused result-based outcomes set up for their teachers. Given this, teachers aim at completing portion and ensuring their students get good grades. The focus of the educational system is in ensuring that students in every grade are prepared for the next grade. A preschooler needs to be prepared for grade 1. A grade 5 student needs to be prepared for grade 6 and a grade 10 student needs to prepare for grade 11.

Additionally, schools claim they are trying to create individuals who can drive and rule the workplaces of the future. There is hard talk about creating lifelong learners and entrepreneurs. There are attempts to create technology-based learning in tech-driven classrooms. That all this is highly essential is not a question of debate.

But what are the repercussions of this near-sighted vision? When schools and teachers run with the aim to prepare their students just for the next class, we are losing on creating a generation of human beings. We are creating mark scorers, so-called high achievers with limited social skills and emotional development.

A successful school system needs to think far more than that. The ecosystem of the school should be one that is inclusive of all students, thoughts and ideas and should ideally be a space where children read, think, create and be their own self. Schools and teachers need to wake up to the fact that the human connect within the classroom is essential to create the magic that they aspire to.

Along with the master plans, the rigorous exams and back-to-back classes, there needs to be space for emotional pedagogy.

What do I mean by emotional pedagogy? Emotional pedagogy goes far beyond the curriculum. As a teacher, one deals with children or young adults, human beings capable of love, affection, care and other human values. How many teachers realise the immense power they wield over the students?

Teachers have to develop a connection between them and their students. Children respond to love, care and affection more than rigour, discipline or strictness. There has to be a focus on emotional growth of the child along with concern for social values and value systems.

Teachers who do not involve themselves in the emotional development of their students lose out on a great opportunity to create free thinking human beings. When the teacher limits interaction to handling of content, there is a huge gap in the learning cycle. No learning happens without emotion. For a child to learn, he /she has to connect with the teacher.

Children from preschool to grade 12 do get attached to their teachers and show visible improvement in learning if they are taught and mentored by teachers whom they like. The emotional attachment that children have with their teachers significantly influences their development.

In pre-school, we usually notice children getting attached to their teachers and schools take note of this and make efforts to keep children happy. But as children move ahead, the personal relationship between teachers and students reduces and in many schools, even discouraged. This is not helped by the high rate of attrition among teachers in many schools. Schools where teachers continue for years till they retire almost seems a legacy of the past. School managements are not worried about teacher movement because they know they will get replacements. For them it’s just another employee number, but they do not realise the impact this has on the children.

I remember as a child when I studied in Arya Vidya Mandir in Santacruz, we had the same teacher teach us all the subjects. The whole day, except for Music or PT or may be a Library period, when we met some other teacher. The class was a bonded group where the teacher knew each child at a very personal level. My teacher even knew that I loved to read books while eating my food!

These “mundane” details help the teacher to channelize the student. I remember the teacher being able to give me tasks that I really liked!

Today the scenario is different. We have subject experts. Each teacher has a 40-minute period when s/he teaches. There are record books to be filled, diary notes to be made, attendance sheets to be completed, anecdotal records to be written and a dozen other written parameters that schools and educational boards demand from teachers. In all this data collection, we have lost out on the emotional pedagogy. Teachers have no time to think and reflect about their students. They have no time to discuss their problems with them. They certainly do not have any inclination to figure out the bully in the class as they are bothered about their tasks for the day not being completed. In attempting to finish all the tasks for the day, teachers are losing out on their biggest task on hand – the creating, thinking, feeling, and caring human beings.

Emotional pedagogy is the most important aspect of the teaching learning process. Research has proved that children who have had better interactions with their teachers during their early years have fewer problems. Research also shows that when children who are struggling to learn are supported by their teachers, they have a better chance at handling those struggles than those who are not.

However, emotional pedagogy doesn’t rest with the teacher alone, given our education ecosystem doesn’t recognise its need. Teacher training courses also do not include emotional pedagogy. The entire focus is on transfer of content while dealing with age-appropriate learning. The courses do not empower the teacher to teach with compassion, develop the sense of gratitude or another value in the child. They do not teach teachers how to handle emotional upheavals in children.

So how can emotional pedagogy be a part of the classroom?

This can happen only if teachers are empowered with the following social and emotional competencies:

1. Being aware of the fact that every child has emotional needs and they need to be a part of fulfilling those needs
2. Being mindful of their actions and reactions in the classroom
3. Reflecting on what happened in the classroom and thinking about why
4. Keeping communication lines open and lending an ear to the students. They need to be heard. You never know what stories they will have to say.

Pedagogy for the new generation needs to focus on getting children to think, feel, emote and be creative. Google has content. For the rest the children need their teachers. Are we ready to be there for them?

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