This is a great time to be a teacher. The classroom has become the centre of constant innovation in learning activity with the teacher’s role increasing in subtlety and sophistication vis-à-vis the learner. Anyone who was a student within the last decade or so will find the scene almost unrecognisably changed at present, both in terms of classroom environment and well as procedure.
With fusing boundaries in various disciplines in the modern curriculum, art, music, dance, drama and sports have penetrated into the study of the sciences, mathematics and languages. The new liberal eclecticism that is in practice in some schools is focused on enabling the learner to develop in multiple ways instead of merely leading through tunnel-vision towards examinations. The challenge is to learn as much as possible and discover oneself in novel ways instead of being merely judged by what one does not know.
The CBSE has been gradually reducing the predominance of traditional examinations and mark sheets with the aim of making learning more rewarding and motivating. Students all over the country have responded positively to this, thereby proving that learning is a natural process and intrinsic to human nature. In fact, it has always been an illogical notion that examinations are the sole way to make students learn.
I have always contributed to Miháli Csikszentmihályi’s concept of flow, where a learner becomes so creatively and deeply engaged in a task that all sense of passing time is lost and the deepest mental effort is poured into solving the problem at hand. No extrinsic reward can bring about this state of being totally engrossed with a problem in physics, mathematics, sculpture, map-making or any other subject. To create such a passionate interest in the learner for the subject is the teacher’s greatest challenge today.
Another reason why this age is so vitally interesting is because of the information explosion brought about by the Internet and the inventions in digital technology. Free information (of a sort) is available at the click of a mobile via web-surfing. To quote Dr. Karan Singh, the challenge for the teacher here, is to lead the student from random information through facts to wisdom. With choices increasing exponentially as every minute ticks by, skills like divergent and critical thinking for problem solving and decision making have truly become life skills for the generations currently in the classroom. Teaching solely from the textbook in this day and age is an insecure refuge for the cowardly, a refusal to look at reality happening all around.
One of the prime dilemmas faced by society today is the shortage of good teachers, right from the primary to the tertiary levels of education. There are some qualified teachers and good teachers – but often the two do not coincide in the same person. Teaching has become one of the most challenging professions today – with the demands made on the teacher far outpacing its financial remunerations. Truly dedicated and committed teachers remain in the profession because the classroom is the most thrilling place to be, surrounded by live human intelligence sparking off every second.
The passing of the Right to Education Act might increase the number of good teachers in the future. Looking at the acute shortage of good teachers and the crucial need for them, I sincerely hope that among the new students who derive the right to educate themselves, there will be some brilliant young persons who decide to take on the challenging mantle of teaching. Most people take it for granted that there will always be teachers to help educate the future generations. There are even a few tech nerds who actually believe that a good teacher can be replaced by some software gizmo. But a teacher is not by definition a pre-programmed entity. To be able to confront the unexpected and deal with it in the most humane way possible at the cost of immense personal sacrifices in time, money and energy – that is a teacher’s job description today. I am not surprised that most people prefer to beat a safe retreat into medicine, engineering or other less bothersome and more secure niches of our socio-economic structure.
But the question still stands – if the cream of our universities and colleges continue into fields other than education – then who will take on the grave responsibility of teaching the generations of future Indians? Exactly who?
Dr. Sanjukta Sivakumar
Principal