Category Archives: Education
The Extra Mile Teachers Walk
Search any site in the internet for the highest paid professionals in the world and you will not find “teachers” in the top 30. Expand your search and look for the list of professions in different countries where the practitioners receive the best compensation packages and you will find out that teaching is not among them. You will not find a country where teachers are ranked among the highest money-earners.
Teaching not classified among the highest paying jobs, of course, is not surprising. That has been the case since time immemorial and it is not expected to change anytime soon. However, insufficient remuneration do not deter teachers from performing the role they have embraced. Such is only one of the steps in the extra mile that teachers need to walk when they have accepted that teaching is not merely a profession but a vocation. It is not merely a job to perform but an obligation to carry out.
Acknowledging that teaching is not merely a job but an obligation to carry out is what makes teachers go the extra mile, to do what is more than required in the performance of their tasks, including sacrificing personal resources…sometimes happiness. Teachers know the nature of the responsibility that they agreed to fulfill when they signed up for the job. They know it’s not easy. How in the world would one consider being responsible for the education of other people, especially the young ones, easy? When did it become easy to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and values and the development of skills of your fellow human beings?
If only pay would be commensurate to how significant is one’s job in the enlightenment of the soul, the preservation and enhancement of the fabric of society, and the socio-economic development of a nation then teachers would get paid handsomely.
But it is what it is. Teaching is not a profitable profession. Realities teachers confront in the academe could really make them say a lot of things in the “present unreal conditional” form. There are times that they couldn’t also help but make a “wish-statement” like “I wish that I were a health care professional.”
Why?
Health care professionals (physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, etc.) consistently round out the top 10 in the lists of highest paid professionals.
What they (the medical practitioners) do, maintenance and restoration of good health, is very important. For that, they deserve the pay they get. But nurturing the human spirit…helping a person achieve holistic development is as equally important, if not more important. What professional endeavor could be more meaningful than helping your fellow men achieve their full potential for them to become responsible human beings and productive members of society?
And not only are the teachers not getting the pay commensurate to the importance of the work they do and the effort they need to exert when doing their job, they don’t also get the recognition they deserve.
American society, for example, does not generally view teachers in the same way, as they view other professionals; the belief that “anyone can teach” is not found in other professions (i.e., not just anyone can play professional baseball, or be an accountant or engineer, or practice law or medicine.)1
Such is the indifference teachers, as professionals, are getting.
How true is the contention that “anyone can teach?” Those who know what it takes to become a teacher would say it is a fallacy.
Education is not just a matter of whether you can teach or not but also whether or not you can make the students learn. Even if a person is an expert in a field of learning it is not a guarantee that he can teach what he knows. Knowing something is different from knowing how to teach it.
Hiring just anyone to become a teacher would be a huge mistake. It takes a lot to become a teacher. Teachers undergo rigid training for them to hone their pedagogical skills. They read a lot knowing that teaching and learning are both grounded on Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology and other related fields. They know they need to be familiar not only in their field of expertise but with different principles and strategies to effectively deliver learning and teaching. They know that when they are done teaching they still have to evaluate the learning.
The list of the things that teachers need to know and to do is long. At the end of that long list are two characteristics that teachers need to develop if they wish to succeed in the profession – PASSION for their work and COMPASSION for the students.
How then in the world it becomes possible that just “anyone can teach?”
Be that as it may, teaching will forever be a NOBLE PROFESSION! Nothing can diminish its intrinsic value.
One thing for sure, all the successful professionals in the world – business executives, lawyers, architects, engineers, surgeons, physicians, dentists, nurses, brokers, etc. – know that their teachers contributed a thing or two into whatever they have become.
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1 Tichenor M.S., Tichenor, J.M. (2005). Understanding teachers’ perspective on professionalism. ERIC.
Real Teachers And Pretenders
How many times have we heard this – “It’s not easy being a teacher.”
Is it true that teaching is a difficult job?
Ask the teachers.
Only the teachers themselves, the real ones and the pretenders, can answer that question. Real teachers who prepare lesson plans, motivate and treat students properly, teach them, and assess their learning, will answer emphatically with a YES.
Don’t expect from the pretenders the same answer. For them teaching is a walk in the park. They don’t take it seriously. They are the ones who became teachers by accident… or perhaps necessity forced them to embrace the profession. They were lucky to have been offered teaching positions by virtue of some factors that only those who hired them know. They may possess “knowledge of the subject matter” but they don’t have training in (or they don’t have knowledge of) pedagogy for them to understand that teachers need to have a plan before they enter the class…that they need to motivate the students, establish rapport with them…that teaching is different from talking in front of students…and that they need to assess learning.
Yes, real teachers prepare (or have) lessons. They never come to class unprepared. They always have a plan, written or otherwise. They know the parts and components of a lesson plan…objectives, topic/topics to teach, activities, materials, methods of assessment and assignments…and they know how to effectively execute it. Most importantly, they know how to improvise when the plan they prepared for the day is seemingly not working.
Real teachers also motivate and treat students properly. They believe in the basic tenet in education that students learn best in a positive and nurturing environment thus the first thing they do at the beginning of a term is to win the students’ trust and make them feel comfortable. They respect their students and believe that each of them has the capability to learn.
Conversely, the pretenders say that their students are dumb, lazy, hopeless and incapable of learning… that they are not worthy of their time… that having students like them in their classes is an insult to their intelligence.
The pretenders don’t care if the students learn or not. They maintain standards and set expectations that no matter what the students must meet. They don’t understand that they need to prepare and patiently guide the students in their difficult journey towards meeting those standards and expectations.
While the pretenders deliver a monologue and recite information from the book in front of their students, the real teachers TEACH. And when they teach, they do so guided by established norms and standards of teaching and learning. They know what methods and strategies are best suited for the kind of students they have and for the topic/topics they discuss.
The real teachers also keep up with the current trends and innovations in their fields wanting to improve themselves not only for their personal growth but also for them to be better equipped and have more to share with their students. They also know how important is technology to education thus they do not only exert effort to learn how to use them but invest on them as well.
Real teachers also know that assessment is a vital component of the learning process. They understand that the evaluation of the performance of the students is a continuous process…done while the school term progresses. They keep a record of the performance of their students and, accordingly, inform them about it. So, their students are aware of their standing in the class…their students know in what areas they need to improve.
What about the pretenders? How do they grade their students?
The pretenders believe that they are very smart…very sharp to know their students and determine what grade do they deserve even if they don’t assess periodically. They have so retentive a memory that they can recall the everyday performance of their students for the entire term. Thus, their grading is a one-time deal. They do it at the end of the term. It is during the last days of the term that they check exercises, quizzes and test papers. They don’t believe that students need feedback about their performance during the term. They don’t understand that returning “marked” exercises, quizzes and tests is a form of feedbacking…that through it the students get to monitor their performance.
Don’t ask the pretenders if they keep (or if they can show) at any given time a record of the scores of their students in quizzes, exercises and tests. They have nothing to show.
Well! That’s just the way pretenders are. They believe that they have their own way of doing things. They exist in their own world. They have their own standards.They would argue that asking them to do something they don’t believe in is an infringement of their academic freedom… unaware that the institution where they are employed and their students do enjoy also academic freedom that may possibly supersede theirs.
Of course there is no such thing as a perfect school organization anywhere in the world. Issues and problems come out anytime. Both real teachers and pretenders are affected by all of those but the former and the latter deal with them in different ways.
While real teachers try to find solutions to problems that they are capable of solving, the pretenders just whine and try to find more faults. The more faults they find the better so they can justify their indifference and non-performance.
Real teachers may also disagree with policies being implemented. They are not blind not to see loopholes in a system. They are not naive not to feel and be not aware of a prevailing organizational climate. But they would never allow those to distract them from carrying out their obligations. They know that no organization is perfect. Issues and disagreements may arise among teachers themselves and between teachers and administrators. But that notwithstanding the real teachers know that they need to carry out their assigned tasks , especially in the area of instruction. They honor their commitment to their students.
It is when confronted with uncertainties in the workplace that a teacher’s sense of professionalism could be put to a real test. Real teachers know that their students deserve nothing but the best from them every time, even if they are suffering from anxieties and stressed by some personal and organizational concerns.
Another question that people ask teachers – ‘Is it the joy of teaching that makes you stay with the profession…or the money?”
Only the teachers themselves also can answer that question. One thing certain… real teachers, satisfied or not with their remunerations, make sure that they deserve every penny they are paid.
What Makes A Great Teacher
Some have wrongly thought that if they know a subject matter then they can teach it. Some have claimed the title teacher, mentor, professor or what-have-you just because they know a great deal in a field of study. It takes more than knowledge to become a teacher, a lot more to become a good one, and a whole lot more to be great.
Being good at Math doesn’t make one a Math teacher. Having a perfect accent and impeccable grammar doesn’t make a person an English teacher. And if by luck, accident, mistake or necessity, a person was given a teaching load by virtue of just being good at a particular field then that’s very unfortunate, a disservice to the teaching profession.
There’s a whale of difference between knowing a subject matter and knowing how to teach it. It is not a guarantee that when one is an expert in a domain of knowledge that he could be a teacher in that field. Perhaps he has the potential to become one for he already possesses one of the requirements to become a teacher…and that is mastery in a discipline. But expertise in a field, knowing what to teach, is just the beginning of the journey we call teaching.
Source: What Makes A Great Teacher
Remembering My Teachers
“Happy Teachers’ Day”
“What is done in the classroom today becomes the indelible memories of tomorrow.” – Robert Brooks
What do we remember most about our teachers? Is it their intelligence or their wit and humor?
Why do we say that we’ll never forget some of our teachers? What made it hard to erase them from our memory – the positive influences they exerted on us or the emotional wounds they may have directly or indirectly inflicted? Do they remain in our memory because of the words of encouragement they said that motivated us to excel or the mouthful they gave that destroyed our self-esteem?
Do we recall the lessons our teachers taught in the class or is it the jokes they shared that we cannot forget to the point that to date those same jokes we still share with others?
Think about this… Is it our teachers’ impeccable display of mastery of…
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Remembering My Teachers
“What is done in the classroom today becomes the indelible memories of tomorrow.” – Robert Brooks
What do we remember most about our teachers? Is it their intelligence or their wit and humor?
Why do we say that we’ll never forget some of our teachers? What made it hard to erase them from our memory – the positive influences they exerted on us or the emotional wounds they may have directly or indirectly inflicted? Do they remain in our memory because of the words of encouragement they said that motivated us to excel or the mouthful they gave that destroyed our self-esteem?
Do we recall the lessons our teachers taught in the class or is it the jokes they shared that we cannot forget to the point that to date those same jokes we also share with others?
Think about this… Is it our teachers’ impeccable display of mastery of the subject matter we remember about them or is it their compassion which made us feel so comfortable in their presence?
Being a teacher myself I often wonder what my students remember about me…or do they remember me at all. Imagine how many students I already had having been a teacher since 1988. Has anyone of them proudly announced my name when asked “Who’s your most favorite teacher?” or “Who among your teachers influenced you most positively?”
Constantly asking myself those questions makes me conscious about my performance in the class. Not that I wish to be popular among my students. Teaching is not a popularity contest. But if I get to be remembered by my former students, I wish that it is for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.
As part of my planning, each time a school term begins I make a conscious effort of remembering my former teachers. Why? My teachers in the past, aside from the subjects they taught, they directly and indirectly showed me “what to do” and “what not to do” as an educator. They contributed the pieces in the teaching-learning model that guides me as I practice pedagogy.
There are several teachers whose names were etched in my memory (although I wish to keep their identities under wraps except for some clues). There are a variety of reasons why after all these years I have not forgotten them.
During my PhD days at Bulacan State University I always looked forward to attending the classes of two professors. One of them taught me that “Whatever we don’t use will die of disuse.” and “In onion there is strength.” Yes, that’s onion… not “union.” The other one bragged that “His PEN IS six inches long.”
I didn’t consider their brand of humor offensive although I know some of the ladies in those classes felt uncomfortable whenever those professors deliver those double-meaning sentences. I am not sure what made the students pay attention to those professors…the ideas they were expounding or the jokes they interspersed in their discussions.
Even without those double-meaning sentences those two professors were really committed to bringing humor into the classroom. A lot of times that they shared hilarious personal stories. 3-hour long classes in the graduate school are stressful and the best known antidote to stress is laughter.
That’s what they did…gave entertainment on the side while we go through the rigors of graduate school.
But when it comes to sense of humor, no one beats my Psychology and Political Science teacher during my first year in college. Aside from his contagious smile, he had the knack for injecting humor during discussions. I remember him making exaggerated facial expressions and movements.
As Maurice Elias suggests, “Let’s add some more enjoyment to school. We don’t need guffaws — a smile and a little levity can go a long way.”
I was also blessed to have three teachers (one each in High School, College and Master’s) who modeled academic excellence. Each meeting with them was always an opportunity to learn something new. Of course I learned from all of my teachers and they all contributed to my development but these three are simply a cut above the rest.
Their common denominator is they never came to class unprepared and demanded nothing less from the students. They were demanding but were very supportive. I don’t know but there was something different in the way that they taught and the way they carried out their duties as mentors.
Because of this dedication to excellence, one of them (the professor in the Master’s program who influenced me the most), became “the avoided one.” Students, as much as possible, would avoid enrolling in her classes. They were students who wanted their grades to be given to them in a silver platter. They were the ones who consider a weekly reaction paper and several book reviews too much for a graduate student. For me, that was the challenge that I wanted to undergo to test my mettle… to hone my skills.
That was the kind of attitude inculcated upon me by my High School Biology and English 2 (and 4) teacher. She gave us assignments and projects that I considered at that time the equivalent of the requirements for college students. It was difficult but it prepared me to the rigors of college life.
Then in College I had this teacher who taught Shakespeare (and his plays) rarely bringing instructional materials to the class from beginning up to the end of the semester. She did not use audio-visual materials when teaching. She would just stay seated the whole period. But when she talked it was like listening to an audio book. There was never a question from us (the students) she did not satisfactorily answer.
However, I don’t remember the said teachers only because of their brilliance. I had a lot of equally-intelligent teachers but whose names I could no longer recall. But these mesdames are different. They displayed enthusiasm while teaching. I witnessed how much they loved what they were doing.
I would also not forget my Grade VI adviser. I felt so sleepy in her class one day but I was trying very hard not to fall asleep. The reason was during my Elementary days, almost every morning I needed to wake up around 4:00 AM in order to sell “pandesal” (bread) before going to school so I would have extra allowance.
While she was discussing I closed my eyes but I was awake. Then one of my classmates said, “Look ma’am! Ching (that’s my nick name when I was a kid) is sleeping.” My eyelids were a bit heavy so I couldn’t open my eyes immediately when I heard a classmate say that. Then my adviser responded, “It’s okay. Let him sleep for a few minutes. I saw him selling pandesal this morning.”
That for me was a display of compassion. My teacher did not get angry. She was aware of my situation and she tried to understand. Her simple act of kindness made me feel I am important. It started to develop my self-esteem.
Then I had these experiences with two of my High School teachers that reinforced my self-esteem. My English 1 teacher told me one day, “You’re performing well in the subject. Keep it up!” That was the first time I received a positive comment about my academic performance. Then my Biology and English 2 (and 4) teacher, the same one I previously mentioned, told me also that I can be a good student if I study harder. In addition, she told me that I have a talent in writing.
The words they said nurtured my self-esteem. The things they told me awakened a self-confidence that until now is alive and strong in me. The words they said encouraged me to excel.
Those teachers believed in me and I promised myself not to disappoint them.
In his book entitled “Self-Esteem Teacher,” Robert Brooks explained that “Teachers have a very significant, lifelong impact on all of their students. This impact involves not only the teaching of particular academic skills, but as importantly, the fostering of student self-esteem.”
What do I remember most about my teachers? What qualities did they have that made their memories persisted in my mind and continued to influence my practices as an educator?
Answer: Sense of humor, dedication and enthusiasm to the craft, compassion for the students, and the practice of praising students.
The foregoing are the building blocks of the educational philosophy that I have embraced.
“Most children will not remember what a teacher taught as much as how he or she made them feel. Children who perceive themselves as accepted and valued will work harder and have positive feelings about their school experience.” – Leah Davies
VALUING GRADES
Students are labeled as pesky when they pester their teachers with questions about their quiz and exercise scores. They are viewed as annoying when, near the end of a semester or shortly after final exams, they email their teachers or call to inquire about their grades.
Teachers say that students are desperate when, after seeing their report cards, they move heaven and earth to make the former reconsider the grades they have given and possibly award higher marks, citing 101 reasons why it must be done. Reasons they give range from queer to valid.
How many times have some teachers violated established rules on testing and measurement, rolling the correction tape over the grades they gave because they were moved either by student appeals or by pressure from the academic gods and goddesses?
Students are often criticized for being so grade-conscious.
But is it their fault?
No!
Students are grade-conscious not because they want to be, but because societal standards force them to be. The policies and procedures in the academe instill that kind of mindset in students’ consciousness. They are seemingly programmed to become grade-conscious.
It all begins at home. Parents keep reminding their children to study hard and get good grades. When the children get to school, the indoctrination goes into full swing. Teachers give a battery of tests and exercises, telling students to perform well if they want to pass the subject — and that, if they want to be on the honor roll, they need to earn high scores.
Parents tell students to study hard; the teachers tell them to study harder. Day and night, students are told that they must get good grades. After school, parents would even acquire the services of a tutor to further improve the academic performance of their children.
That’s how the “getting-good-grades-is-a-must” mentality gets ingrained in the consciousness of the poor little kids.
Companies and corporations deliver the coup de grâce by frequently advertising that they hire only the best and the brightest. And what’s the tangible measurement of these superlatives — best and brightest? Grades. A+, or 1, or 5, or whatever the system calls it.
Society has assigned grades as proof of excellence. Students’ academic performance is measured by their grades. The higher the grades, the more excellent the student. That’s how it goes. Result? The students become grade-conscious. The grades they receive are a microscope, and they are the specimen on the slide. Their academic marks are lenses used to magnify the contents of the shell between their ears.
The parents want them to work hard for their grades — yes, perhaps for the children’s sake, but the grades they receive are also an instrument the parents use to monitor their investment. They want to make sure their children are not wasting the money being spent on their education.
Parents get so mad when their children bring home unsatisfactory academic marks. And of course, when their children perform well academically, they are elated no end. It is a boost to their pride, a feather in their caps.
Schools in any country push their students to the limits of academic achievement because passing standardized examinations administered by their governments redounds to their benefit. It’s good for ranking and accreditation purposes. It’s a boost to their reputation, resulting in more government funding and more enrollees flocking to their gates, with parents more than willing to pay so their children can take a bite of the academic excellence pie.
Parents and teachers keep telling children that good grades are a prerequisite to success, the only way to get a good job. And so the students come to think that the purpose of education is purely economic — to prepare them for a job. And if they fail to get good marks, they believe their future is doomed. They will not succeed.
This is how students are brainwashed into achieving the highest possible marks. This is what has developed among students: tunnel vision about education — that it’s all about getting good grades to be among the best and the brightest, the ones to whom big companies would give a chance at a high-paying job.
Grades have seemingly become a curse. They take the joy out of learning. They make students prisoners in the classroom and the teachers the unforgiving, unrelenting prison guards.
Grades put blinders on students, preventing them from seeing the bigger picture — that education is more than getting good grades, and that its purpose goes beyond getting a job… that education is a preparation for life.
It’s sad that both parents and educators themselves are the ones putting the blinders on the students. They are the ones who put enormous pressure on students to get good grades.
There is nothing wrong with inculcating excellence among students. That’s what schools ought to be doing. There is nothing wrong, either, with encouraging students to get the highest marks possible. But both teachers and parents must not forget to tell them that grades are not the be-all and end-all of schooling. Students need to be told that the world does not end if they don’t receive an A+ (or a 1, or a 5).
Schools must not forget that they exist to prepare students not only to find a job after graduation, but to live life and be productive members of society and humanity.
M.A.D. L I G A Y A 