Teaching Perspectives

The title of this blog may sound like something you have heard and read about many times before! The role of a teacher, their importance to the education system, the importance of teacher training programs has all been discussed extensively. So we ask, what is different in today’s piece? Well, the difference is that today we introduce our new series of blog articles titled ‘Teacher Perspectives’ where over a few weeks we explore the lives of teachers and teacher trainers by actually talking to them, looking at what inspires them, understand their goals, challenges faced by them and what drew them to this profession.

The first place to start this journey into the minds and lives of teachers all over the country is by asking what draws people to this profession. The question to be asked here is: "Why am I aspiring to become a teacher?"

  

  

The above quotes by students of Elementary Education from different parts of the country shows that most of them believe in the ideal of teaching and consider teaching one of the key instruments in bringing about the change that they want to see in society. However one cannot overlook the fact that teaching is also considered a ‘soft’ career choice. By this we mean something that it is considered easy and convenient to undertake. This may not be the actual case. Now that we have understood what drives people to this profession, it is time we look at teachers who have been teaching for a while now and see what they have to say about why they are teachers.

The students who aspire to become teachers have almost an idealistic view of the profession. They believe that their vision to make a difference would help them overcome the challenges and the lack of motivation faced in this profession. However, after talking to experienced teachers we see that after many years they still remember what drove them to become teachers and it is this vision that helps them learn as teachers and bring the change they want to see!

Today’s blog was the first step in understanding why people become teachers and what keeps them in this profession. In the upcoming weeks we will explore what teachers do every day and how they grow.

Nature Wise

In our previous posts we have shared our thoughts about the change that is in happening in schools, families and within society. Meanwhile the mother of all changes has been taking place around us. 

Mother Nature has been stretched quite a bit with all the human action of ‘modernization’. Her reaction to the mayhem we created has come forth through global warming, changing seasons, melting glaciers, parched lands in one geography and torrential rains in another. It is not difficult to understand that impacts of these changes are going to stay with us for a while.

We often hear environmentalists complain about people being completely disinterested in issues related to conservation of the natural environment. 
Most middle-class families have a car, often more than one. They consider it inconvenient to use public transport, have a car pool or walk. People pluck leaves and flowers from trees with the same nonchalance as they throw a soft drink can out of a moving car or dump garbage under a tree or any vacant plot they can find. 

Yet, we also know that some people like our friend Tara carry back a toffee wrapper home to dispose it in the bin if they do not find a suitable spot to trash outside. Tara attributes this to the fact that ‘No littering’ was a message drilled in her school. She explains that the convent she attended was spotlessly clean at all times. The teachers constantly talked about the importance of cleanliness.

This brings us to the question: “Given that each one of us needs to become more sensitive and caring towards the environment, how do we instill this in the minds of young children?”

A story that a kindergarten teacher shared with us recently, provides us with a clue to answer this. 

This teacher is a Nature lover. She introduced her students to gardening in school. Every day her students would visit the patch of garden where they had sprinkled some carrot seeds, until one day it was time to pull out the carrots from the ground. Her fondest memories are of the look of wonder and amazement on the little ones’ faces as they realized that the seeds they had sprinkled had grown into marvelous red carrots. “This was hiding under the ground,” one child said.  “Miss I can smell the mitti!” said another one. This small exposure for the children to the wonders of Nature would have probably developed a greater sensitivity and interest in plants than all poems, stories, songs put together they had heard in class. 

So let’s think of how adults can create real and authentic experiences with Nature for their little ones. What about lifting a huge rock and asking children to see what is underneath? Or pointing to a squirrel seated outside the window and having children decide on a name for it? Then weaving a story around it? 

In this context we share a curious problem that a teacher faced in her class. There was a lizard that refused to be chased out. Several of the children were scared of the lizard; while many others were for throwing things at it or stamping on it. The teacher named the lizard ‘Changu- Mangu’ and created a story about it. So every morning the Circle Time concluded with a story about “Do you know what Changu-Mangu did last evening?” Finally when the housekeeping was able to remove the lizard from the class, the story was concluded because “Chang-Mangu had gone visiting her friends.” 

This is not to suggest that we allow our classrooms and homes to be infested with pests. We want to highlight a teacher’s ingenuity in turning an irksome situation into an opportunity to help children develop a feeling of compassion for animals including the not-so-cute-ones.

Simple initiatives like setting up a bird feeder so that children can feed and observe birds can bring children close to Nature. Another suggestion is to have children lie on their backs, observe the clouds and then draw them. Or have them adopt a tree or a plant during a year and care for it. 

We adults in our role as mentors and parents have myriad ways to help our children develop a sense of fascination and respect for Nature. Caring for the environment will be a natural corollary.