Bored Teachers
Other than all the various 'teaching methodologies' available to both rich and poor countries, there's a key to making students understand what's being taught: Excitement!
How does excitement penetrate through a classroom full of sleepy, bored students? Through the teacher obviously. And surprisingly, most teachers are able to convey the thought that what they're studying is not the latest form of torture. However, when a teacher goes into the same classroom with the same subject year after year after year...after year....is he/she not bound to get bored? After 2 or 3 years you know the subject like the back of your hand, how can you be excited about it? And so many teachers do this. I know teachers who have been exactly that 'Teachers' for 25+ years. Now, there
are three kinds of teachers I've run into:
1. Those who are passionate about teaching
2. Those who teacher for the money
3. Those girls who are teaching to pass time before they get married
Given, that the passionate ones will never get bored, and the passing time ones won't have the time to get bored. But the greatest percentage of teachers are the second category - those in it for the money. A great number of them will also not have the skills to move beyond being a teacher - so is it not the responsibility of the schools to ensure that the stagnant phase in any teachers life is not reached? And if it is, what can be done to change the status quo? There's nothing worse than having a boring subject (in the eyes of children, ALL of them) taught by a bored teacher.
Trapping Students
This is a story of my university, a story which I'm sure stands true for many other 'Education Institutes' out there. Education Institutes which should actually be termed as 'Education for Business' - those institutes that would do anything to trap students like fishermen trap fish for a living.
I initially joined to do an MIT, only to find out later that it was not going to be offered due to the low number of students who enrolled in the program (Maybe if they used lappy's for bait they would've been more successful? :P) Anyways, I then transferred into the MBA program, and was told I could chose my major in the last semester, nothing new in that. So I continued taking courses like a fish swimming towards a juicy worm only to find out that the worm was made out of rubber with a sharp hook right at the center. In my last semester I was informed that my major, HRM was not being offered (due to too few students - *surprise surprise*) and that I had actually been given Marketing courses instead. Yay! I've been studying something that has nothing to do with my professional experience - I had been hooked like a fish - doing what was convenient and cost efficient for the university. NOT what was beneficial for me.
So the story continues, for myself and many other students out there - who have been trapped by the education system; trapped to 'make a living', rather lavishly for most of them.
Whatever happened to educating a person for the right reasons? Why and when did this become such a lucrative business? When the US started using its university as a trade resource? When rich parents were willing to pay anything to have their children go to a foreign university and poor parents were willing to sacrifice anything for the same privilege? When primary schools realized there's money in it for them and it no longer mattered how much you charge whether the child is in pre-nursery or secondary school?
So long as the money is raked in, nothing else matters.
Seeing in the Dark
To dream in color one must know what color is - Anonymous
Recently, a group of children in a village were asked what they would like in their environment in the next 10 years. All of them answered with two things: We would like roads and electricity. None of them envisioned anything for
themselves specifically.
One may think that it was a general wish they had for the betterment of everyone living around them. But also consider that these children were never exposed to the 'real world'; they probably didn't know wonders living in a city could bring like studying in a classroom, reading books, and watching movies. They only thing they could imagine was what it would be like to have a light bulb in their house.
Dreaming of carousel horses and cotton candy? Only if they knew what these things were.
They were simply trying to see in the dark
Corruption at the Roots
I'm sure many people who live in the third world with troubled education systems would agree that cheating in schools is prevalent through many levels. We're all aware that this phenomenon must be eradicated somehow, but often the question is easier to find that the answer.
But what does one do when the higher management not only accepts the fact that cheating occurs, but are willing to accept that it is
impossible to eliminate? Infact, they believe that since its there and nothing can be done about it, it's perfectly okay!
Education is the development of a child as a whole; not just developing the knowledge base.With that said, why bother with education if you are only going to put up a facade of
educating the child? Is their any point to the hypocrisy? I guess that remains to be seen. In the mean time, the rest of us will continue to do what we can.
