TOI : Teachers are on the edge : Sept 19, 2007
Teachers are on the edge
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
At a suburban school, a Class VII student showed his teacher the middle
finger after being pulled up for talking in class.
At another school, a teacher who asked a boy in the school bus to move to
the front of the bus was slapped by him.
Faced with an irreverent generation of schoolgoers, teachers are finding
it tough to command respect. While there are cases of corporal punishment
where teachers have gone overboard in meting out punishment, there are also
instances where they have been pushed to the edge by students who have
little value for school, since learning takes place in the coaching class.
Educationists feel the problem is that some parents abdicate their
responsibility and expect the school alone to discipline a child. Fr Gregory
Lobo, secretary of Archdiocesan Board of Education, says he has often been
approached by parents who say “Beat my child if you have to but make sure he
improves.”
This is easier said than done. A child who gets a lot of attention and
pampering at home may find the teacher hostile if he or she does not forge a
personal rapport. And this is a difficult task in a class of, say, 60
students.
“At a time when teachers are rushing to finish portion,
there’s little time to talk to students about anything else,” says Upasana
Saraf, counsellor at Bombay Cambridge School. But she agrees that it’s vital
that a teacher earns the respect of her students.
When information is freely available on the internet, students no longer
depend on teachers for knowledge. To capture a child’s attention in the
classroom, it’s important to give them something special.
“Students no longer accept what they are told lying down. They’re also
more articulate than they were a generation ago,” says Avnita Bir,
principal at RN Podar School, adding that old methods will no longer work.
The media exposure the current generation is exposed to surpasses anything
their parents had. “They are also exposed to more aggression. Their
attention span has shrunk with prime time TV and the constant stimulation
that they’re used to,” says Effie Acharya, co-ordinator at Our Lady of
Perpetual Succour High School, Chembur.
Teachers who have to cope with this, are usually insufficiently trained
for such an environment. Apart from low salaries, pushy parents and long
commutes, they have to contend with the pressures of completing the syllabus
on time and correcting papers.
“A smaller classroom will definitely reduce stress,” says Fr Lobo.
That’s
a long shot.
HOT SEAT: More training needed