This teaching thing

THE Government of Guyana has correctly allocated the greater part of the budget towards education. It is to be supposed that this would cover infrastructural rehabilitation of schools, besides salaries, uniforms for school children, textbooks, stationery, Cyril Potter College of Education, and so on.Once again, we need to re-examine teaching. It still appears as if people simply happen to gravitate into the teaching profession because it seems to be a ready and secure job with a dependable salary. Apparently, only a handful of people who are in our classrooms at all levels know exactly why they are there. For teachers to know why they are teaching, they would have to think about it. That genius Sir V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Laureate, wrote: “There can be no analysis without self-analysis”. Therefore, teachers must analyse themselves as to why, how, and whom they teach.

This is called a Teaching Philosophy. Thinking alone is not enough, though. Teaching Philosophies need to be written. Writing helps to clarify thought, even as clear thinking yields good writing. It is a win-win situation, even though it is difficult work. One and a half pages ought to be enough for starting teachers, or teachers in training. Indeed, an initial teaching philosophy should be an entry requirement for students at CPCE, or students at the University of Guyana who are enrolled in the Education Degree Programme.

We would be hard put to find anyone involved in “teaching” who has written a Teaching Philosophy. UG lecturers are not required to write their teaching philosophies, and they tend to believe that it is simply “lecturing”. They tend to dispense bits and pieces of information, which are then regurgitated at exams, or quizzes or assignments. When the human being is reduced to the biological functions of ingestion, digestion, urination, defecation and fornication, that human being is reduced to mere animal functions. It is thinking that sets us apart from the other animals, and language is part of thinking.

But when it comes to teaching, the price of NOT thinking is very expensive. Poor teaching results in poor learning, and poor learning leads to a retarded nation in all ways. It is rather like slow death.

It is vital, therefore, that those who want to “go into” teaching should be able to explain in writing WHY they wish to do so. It is equally vital for those who are currently in what passes for teaching to explain in writing through a two-page Teaching Philosophy why they are doing what they are doing, how they are doing it, and to whom they are doing it.

We quite often hear the boast that people make: “I teach fuh 30 years!” There is the old caveat in teaching (as in other professions) that there is a difference between 30 years of experience and one year’s experience multiplied by 30 years. It is an important warning to all of us in all professions in this nation. In other words, if you have not evolved or improved or learned more, then you keep doing the same old thing in the same old ways in perpetuity.

Teaching is among the most demanding of callings; it is much more than a mere profession or job. Teaching is a demanding calling because it is an exercise in perpetual self-erasure. There is simply no room for ego in a classroom. The teacher who enters a classroom with an inflated ego has failed before starting. It causes children to lose, the nation to lose, and all of us to lose.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE :
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All our printed editions are available online
emblem3
Subscribe to the Guyana Chronicle.
Sign up to receive news and updates.
We respect your privacy.