REGARDLESS of when we attended school, most of us have vivid memories of our school days and the teachers who helped mould us. Some of us can name those we liked and even those we disliked, recalling incidents which may have helped shape our attitudes towards these educators.
Those of us who were students in the 60s, 70s and the decades before that in this part of the world, no doubt remember the iron discipline with which teachers ruled their classrooms, ‘wild cane’ at the ready.
Today the great majority of teachers in schools are committed to their jobs and worthy of our respect and appreciation, because on their shoulders lie the education of future generations.
It is in honour of those who work hard to help mould our youngsters that UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation) launched World Teachers’ Day on October 5, 1994.
On this day each year, and celebrated last Wednesday, we say ‘thank you’ to teachers this year under the theme: ‘The transformation of education begins with teachers’.
UKFEIT – The Education Development Forum – declares that this is a day to celebrate the transformative and critical role that teachers play in growing learners’ potential. The organisation urges that we ensure teachers have the tools they need to effectively carry out their jobs and that they be recognised for their ‘key role.’
While UNESCO is addressing calls for action made at a recently held ‘Transforming Education Summit,’ UKFEIT partners are working to strengthen the role of teachers and provide them with the necessary support.
One such group, PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools) takes a look at the role of senior female teachers, noting that they play a central role in empowering female students, prepare girls to create and achieve goals after leaving schools and serve as a source of inspiration for their young charges.
In her blog, Dr Lindsay Brown, Steinhart Institute of Human Development and Social Change makes the salient point that few of us were prepared to take on the role of teacher following the school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. She suggests that these pandemic years should have taught us the value of student-teacher contact.
She cites research which confirms that, “teachers are the most important school-based factor in student learning and their effects can be detected well into adulthood.”
However, Dr Brown delivers a scathing criticism of our attitude towards members of the profession, saying: “But while we expect teachers to don the hats of social worker, psychologist, and mentor, among others, we collectively do little to support them in their work.”
Certainly in this country far too many parents are still inclined to visit the school for a confrontation with teachers rather than to attend a parent-teachers meeting where they can be of help to both the teacher and the school and learn of their child’s progress.
Researchers observed that in developing countries, teachers, who often face many of the difficulties that their students encounter, may be met with challenges the children themselves bring from home.
Dr Brown notes: “Poverty, domestic violence and [in conflict areas] the emotional toll of losing a parent or sibling can all contribute to inconsistent student attendance, difficulties concentrating and disruptive classroom behaviour.” These are issues that teachers are often called on to deal with and expected to do so effectively.
Thus, one Teachers’ Day greeting, in the words of a child, says it all: “If parents give us life, teachers teach us how to harness life to the fullest.”
