Teachers play a critical role in the growth of a country in economic, social and cultural ways. However, our policymakers have failed to grasp their importance
India’s strength has always been its people. Grand things have been achieved by harnessing people’s power; its movements have shifted empires. And yet, we do not recognise this in case of education. Our teachers are a force for good, and many of them remain mere taskmasters. Teachers are the engines of education and must be used to power education in the country.
All teachers cannot be inspirational orators, nor every teacher has the capacity to transform under performing students to grand Olympiad superstars. But all teachers know their classes — what works, what does not, and what hurdles their students face in the process of learning. The business of teaching is often a steady plod from one day to the next, their heroism is an everyday kind of heroism. Maybe, this is why we have forgotten to realise the power they wield. This knowledge is the power that India needs to understand and transform its education sector, drive policy and interventions.
The blame for the mess may lie with the teachers too. There are very few who choose to broaden their vision beyond their area of control. At best, they are concerned about the life-long progress of their students. Many merely restrict their interests to the tasks they are responsible for in the context of the school (apart from their personal life, of course). A few, and hopefully a significant few do retain an interest in the subjects they majored in, but that may or may not translate to better teaching in the classroom. But few, very few are able to see their place in the bigger picture and play their strengths.
Teachers can be more than exam coaches and facilitators for students. If they are able to lookup from their tasks, they will realise that they are the only person who can help policy makers understand how learning really happens in the classroom. Researchers too lean on teachers to be able to access this process. The real work of identifying gaps, and even trying out new things to fill learning gaps belongs to the teacher. Anything new that the teacher tries in a classroom is an act of research — if it is presented in a fair and shareable form. Teachers try new things all the time — and then, they watch if it works. If the results are recorded well, they become useful to others too. This, broadly is research. The teacher is an action researcher.
Educators need to have good information to know, what works in a classroom to be able to design textbooks, Continuous and comprehensive evaluation activities, and certainly exams and other programmes. The resources are meant to fill the gap between standards and students. If we do not know what works for students, then how can resources ever be gap fillersIJ Teachers need to step up and demand resources that help them in the classroom. But they can only do that by providing evidence for their demands, backed by their in class research.
Sounds like too much workIJ It isn’t as daunting as it sounds. All one does is record the difference in targeted results before and after trying something new over a period of time. And do it in a replicable manner. Teachers will need some support and indeed a platform to share their research in class so that others can try it out too. Tell us, did daily testing of students make them learn betterIJ Did more jokes and cartoons in class help youIJ Was it any help if peer learning was in pairs or in larger groups of four or fiveIJ Did project work waste timeIJ Did doubling play time improve attention spansIJ Was music useful to memorisationIJ Did more edu-tech improve engagementIJ There are so many questions that only you have the answers too.. you and other teachers. But not by just hearsay.