To be a better teacher

Public school teachers in the Philippines, they say, have big hearts. Many wake up before the sun rises to fix meals for their families while preparing to get ready for work, then clock in at their schools long before the morning’s flag ceremony starts.

There, they become a parent to a pack of students, many of who seem to be struggling even more than they do. Even with years of seeing pupils that look like they have not eaten a decent meal in 24 hours, or wearing mismatched and dilapidated slippers (not shoes), teachers still feel their hearts sink.

They endure basic salaries that are often just enough to buy for their everyday needs, especially if they took one or several loans against their monthly take-home pay. At home after work, they sit down after dinner to check their pupils’ homework or test papers.

Many of them enter the teaching profession in their early 20s, and will stay on until mandatory retirement at 65. In the grueling public education system for promotions, they try to score the necessary points that will pave the way for a rank upgrade, and an increase in salary.

In the cacophony of needs, both personal and their students, teachers often lose sight of the right road to becoming a better teacher. This is where the public education system, which would mean the leadership of the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, comes in.

The country needs a paradigm shift in how the three government bodies carry out their visions to prepare the citizenry to become productive individuals. Ultimately, they will have to influence our lawmakers on how best to use taxpayers’ money. Consider the following:

Basic learning

Studies tell us that a child must learn how to read right – and well – during the early formative years. After the parent, teachers in the first levels of learning play an important role in boosting a student’s literacy, love for learning, and cognitive development.

Bertrand Russell should know, when he said: “When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.”

In practice, our public education system does not give value to this. Teachers starting from kinder to Grade 4, thus, must be especially equipped to deliver that impetus for a child’s development in reading and understanding.

At Grade 1, students are also introduced to the basic concepts of Math and Science. We all know that these subjects are highly dependent on mastery of the basics, before progressing to the more complex. Once a concept is missed, the chance of a student floundering at higher levels is greater.

Bolstering the proficiency level of teachers assigned to kinder up to Grade 4 to top notch deserves to be given serious thought. This is our first line of offense in producing better students, and as such, the teachers should be the brightest, most dedicated and most committed.

This may have a profound effect on the quality of our graduates, an inquisitive mind in a child is often retained in later years. This could also stem the high dropout rates that the country currently has. Poverty is just one reason why there is little value given by students who opt to not pursue higher education.

As an aside, having batches or waves of brilliant students graduating from schools had always piqued my interest, and one of the reasons may be the fact that they all started with equally gifted and dedicated educators in their early years something that the succeeding batches would be deprived of once teachers are promoted to higher levels.

Opportunities to learn

Technology today offers many opportunities for our teachers to level up their competencies, and should not demand a significant time, effort, and financial resources from them. In fact, access to higher learning should be a right for every teacher.

How many of our public school teachers eagerly look forward to refresher courses or lessons that would upgrade their level of teaching skills, but are constrained by their schedules and even finances?

Online education (OE) over the last few years has made great strides, and this offers unlimited opportunities for our public school teachers hungry to be able to teach their students more, and become better teachers. OE costs much less to operationalize.

Especially for primary and secondary education, cloud-based e-learning offers the opportunity to disseminate teaching aids, tutor videos, and even academic papers — all these to help teachers make teaching more meaningful and enjoyable.

Responding to needs

One of the biggest constraints faced by public school teachers is the scarcity of learning materials, and this varies depending on the economic state of the public school.

It may be pad papers and pencils for a remote barrio, or a computer classroom for those in municipalities. A resourceful teacher will exploit opportunities that will deliver the needs of his pupils. There is also a multitude of do-gooders out there.

It need not be the local politician. An alumnus of the public school, now in a position of wealth and influence, could be the answer — or a company sympathetic to education, or even a media outfit. It just needs the will of one to be a better teacher.

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