SOUTH AFRICA
I was teaching a comprehension passage entitled Hidden on our Road when I remembered a story involving Mr Madambi, my standard-four mathematics teacher. I was impressed by the message contained in that passage, but depressed when realising that the Department of Transport continues to neglect the problem of driving when fatigued, which is often the cause of accident and death.
It is true that sleep deprivation prevents people from performing their duties effectively and efficiently. Some people ignore the importance of sleeping and compromise their time boozing and socialising with friends. This is one the hidden menaces in our workplace.
Madambi taught me in 1984 and was a committed and dedicated teacher, but he was troubled by sleep deprivation. He used to slumber in his first morning period. He could enter the class and give us classwork and sit on his chair and pretend to be marking other books. He only needed five minutes to start snoring. This problem of sleeping in classes was often reported to the principal, but she took no steps, as she had no evidence.
One day the principal decided to visit Madambi’s class where she found him napping. Luckily for Madambi, he smelled the principal’s scent before she came closer to him and he started to pray. His prayer said: ‘Lord who art in heaven, I pray for the development of our school. Help us to execute our duties loyally and responsibly. I pray for our educators and our school, In Jesus’s name, Amen.” When he opened his eyes, Madambi saw the principal standing close to him with a radiant smile on her face.
‘It is good to have teachers who care for this school and its leadership,” said the principal.
‘Thank you very much,” said Madambi. ‘The secret of success is in prayer.”
Doboro Livhuani
Thulamahashe
INDIA
I am sitting in my class, frowning at the lesson plans that I need to submit — I’m way behind schedule — and thinking to myself: ‘Why do I have to do this? We don’t have to submit lesson plans in other jobs.” And this little hand creeps into mine and I hear this voice asking: ‘You’ll come tomorrow?” I nod my head and three-year-old Aditi’s face lights up with a smile that brings out the twinkle in her eyes.
I used to work in sales and marketing in a corporate firm and I hated it. One day, I realised I was working really hard without making a difference to anybody’s life, least of all mine. That is when I decided I wanted to teach. Teaching is something I stepped into by accident. But having gotten into the profession, I cannot imagine doing anything else.
Today, I manage a pre-school of 50 children and teach a class of 10 five-year-olds. Why pre-schoolers, you may ask? Because I cannot imagine anything more satisfying than watching that light bulb of understanding switch on. Because knowing that whatever you say, whatever you do as a teacher helps to shape this child’s life. Because you are helping lay the very foundation on which this child will base all his/her future experiences, thoughts, expressions, actions and so on. Because the first transition between home and school, between familiarity and uncertainty, is a large one and teachers help bridge that gap.
Teaching can be both highly rewarding and incredibly frustrating. For me, it’s a process of trial and error. The one thing I have learnt is that no two children are the same. You may find certain traits of child A in child B and so on, but they are never entirely the same child. What works with one child may or may not work with another. It’s a profession that works on instinct.
A while ago, it was nearing the end of free play time and I asked the children to come in for their next activity period. But the children were playing in the sand pit and were reluctant to return to the classroom. So, I joined them at the sand pit and we had a wonderful, impromptu lesson about the properties of wet and dry sand, its texture and how to make moulds.
The children loved the lesson and I loved their enthusiasm. All the books and theories in the world cannot teach you that if a child is acting up in a classroom and is throwing things and calling you names, it is because he needs a hug, because he just found out that daddy does not live with him any more.
Working with young children rejuvenates and restores my faith in this cynical world. Their spontaneity, their uninhibited show of affection and their ability to wear their emotions on their sleeves provide a refuge from the world outside.
I work at a pre-school called Gintara. In Hindi, metaphorically it means ‘counting stars” and literally it means ‘abacus”. In a time where the majority of Indian pre-schools are opened by housewives in a garage, or by business people looking to make a quick buck, it is refreshing to find a school where the management has actually been in a classroom and understands where the teacher is coming from.
Space is a premium in Indian cities, so to find a pre-school with wide-open spaces and a garden for children to play in is rare. For the children, it is a home away from home.
The school accommodates children from two to six years old. The primary objective is to teach them to question. Once the child is able to ask questions, he/she will learn for the rest of his life. The adult-to-child ratio is one to four for the two-year-olds and one to eight for three years old and above. The curriculum ensures well-rounded development, focusing on language and comprehension skills, social and personal development, mathematical and reasoning ability, fine and gross motor development, exposure to the world and the creative expression of knowledge.
Children are exposed to gardening, yoga, playing musical instruments, dance and drama, carpentry and a range of other activities to enhance their personalities.
The unique thing about working in an Indian pre-school is the multicultural context in which we as teachers find ourselves. India is a diverse country with a multitude of languages, religions and ethnicities, and we have children from various social and cultural backgrounds. My school in particular has quite a few international students. As a result, I have learnt to say ‘mama’s coming” in seven different languages. India also has a rich folklore on which we, as children, have been brought up. So, we incorporate a lot of these stories (using a variety of media such as puppetry, and dramatisation) in our classes to bring across concepts and theories to children of all age groups.
Though we are considered an avant-garde school — in terms of the flexibility we offer parents and children, the caring, home-like atmosphere, wide-open spaces, and activities that are geared towards understanding rather than learning by rote — such schools are on the rise. Efforts are being made to reduce the number of children in each class and decrease the student-teacher ratios. Extra-curricular activities are being given greater importance and teachers are being given a little more freedom to creatively enhance the curriculum.
Parents in India have become more discerning and want to reduce the burden and stress of academics on their children. So, there is an increasing demand for progressive, forward-thinking schools where the focus lies in allowing children to think out of the box and to express their thoughts and opinions in a non-judgemental environment as compared with yesteryear’s stereo-typical notion of a child robot who learns by rote and obeys every command without questioning. And though we have not yet developed the perfect education system, we are taking small but steady steps in the right direction.
Akhila Prabhakar,
Gintara Pre-school,
India
ZIMBABWE
I am a teacher at Deli Primary School in Umguza district, Matabeleland North province in Zimbabwe. My school is situated in the rural area of the district, about 62km north-west of Bulawayo. I teach 11 subjects at primary-school level.
I have 42 pupils in my class. The class comprises a mixture of slow, average and gifted learners. Because slow learners take time to grasp concepts, especially scientific concepts, it becomes imperative for me to explore diverse techniques in lesson delivery and concept formulation. Some children are barely able to conceptualise an abstract idea, therefore an approach that uses concrete examples is important.
In Umguza district we have a primary school science programme that seeks to empower and develop scientific skills in learners by using locally available resources. The programme is called the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire). Children take part in scientific competitions in the categories of collection, investigation, and design and technology.
In 2000, I had a girl in my class who was not good at academic work, but she had a keen interest in working out scientific solutions using her hands. I decided to introduce her to Campfire. I explained the programme and its expectations and she really surprised myself and other teachers when she decided to make something different, a marula yoghurt. I advised her to collect the necessary materials and she bought ripe marula fruit, sour milk, sugar and wild fruits called umkhemeswana. The girl took the time to explain how she intended to make yoghurt out of these materials. I helped her mix Marula foam with wild fruit foam and sour milk, adding a bit of sugar.
On the day of the inter-schools competition, her project came first in the design and technology category. She went on to win at district level and provincial level and, finally, at national level. For each level she had to make a new product. I helped her with the write-up and to make an appealing display for each stage — she seemed to gain more and more confidence after each competition.
The girl’s marula yoghurt was given an exhibition stand at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in April 2003, where she had the opportunity to display and explain how she had made her yoghurt. A lot of people tasted the product and agreed it was really delicious and two big beverage companies showed interest in the yoghurt.
This year, the girl is at a local secondary school and is doing very well in science subjects. I therefore urge all educators, especially primary-school teachers, to help children expose and develop their potential scientific skills so that they may have a better future.
Tsola Nare
Deli Primary School
Zimbabwe
ENGLAND
It is not often that teachers hear school students being totally candid, but it is something I experienced on a bus recently. A group of learners from a local school were sitting behind me, deep in discussion. I strained my ears. What were they talking about? I expected to hear them discussing England’s surprise defeat in World Cup soccer, the latest songs topping the charts or the merits of their cellphones. Instead, they surprised me. They were talking about their school and specifically their teachers. More surprisingly, their comments were totally positive. As I continued my journey to school I reflected on the lesson these off-duty school students had just taught me.
I teach at Swanlea School, a state secondary school in the East End of London. It is a working- class community, home to waves of refugees and immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom. Statistically the community suffers from poverty, high unemployment and overcrowded housing. In reality it’s a rich and vibrant corner of multicultural London with the city’s best street markets and Indian food.
Swanlea has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. It was built to accommodate a rapid growth in the numbers of school-age children in the East End. From the outside it resembles a luxury convention centre with striking glass, steel and brick architecture. Inside, it is generously resourced. During my time at the school the computer network has been completely replaced, there is a well-stocked library and textbooks are provided for every student. There are two new developments. The first is the installation of interactive whiteboards in every classroom, allowing teachers to use the latest computer technology to present their lesson materials. The second is a school website on which teachers may display learning materials and students submit assignments. The days of ‘chalk and talk” seem a century ago and the challenge of keeping up with new technology is almost dizzying.
Moreover, teachers’ salaries are paid on time, a class size of more than 30 would cause an outcry and a team of school-keepers take responsibility for keeping the buildings in good repair. The register is taken with the click of a computer mouse and the school restaurant serves 1 000 meals every day.
With this high level of investment comes teacher accountability and a responsibility for professional improvement. Students’ performance is analysed in detail and the school’s data manager regularly produces statistics to monitor progress. The buzzwords are ‘value added” and ‘outcomes”. Schools compete with each other to see which can achieve the best results. These are published in an annual ‘league table”. The comparison with a football league table and the team’s fear of relegation is all too close. With the high level of financial investment in schools, any failure, the logic dictates, must be because of poor teaching or weak management in a school. All schools nervously await a visit from the school inspectors, who can arrive at a moment’s notice.
So, in the classroom I’m always having to think not only about whether the boys at the back are listening, but also about how I’m going to get Farhana or Rashid through the next tests so that my class show sufficient ‘value added” during the time I’ve taught them.
During term time, getting my head round the individual needs sorry, targets of a couple of hundred students keeps me at work for nine hours a day and involves three hours’ preparation every evening. Lunch is for wimps and Sunday is not a day of rest. Today a successful teacher requires endless energy and stamina, a thick skin, superb pedagogical skills and the administrative capacity to run the civil service of a small country.
Maybe some of this isn’t a bad thing, and the focus on ‘inclusion” for all learners is certainly helping to improve the life chances greatly for those from backgrounds traditionally excluded by the British education system. But it is also a steep raising of the bar for virtually every teacher and makes teaching in London’s disadvantaged areas much more challenging and potentially much more rewarding. Our job, put simply, is to achieve success rates on par with those of privileged students in the leafy suburbs. By Friday I know many exhausted colleagues ask themselves if they’re up to the challenge.
Looking around my own classroom, my main fear is that our system’s focus on seeing young people as statistical ‘outcomes” is distracting from the teacher’s wider responsibility for educating the whole person. Too many young people appear to graduate into the adult world with good grades but lacking in social skills, confidence, respect and empathy for the positions of others. I believe recapturing the social role of the teacher in an increasingly materialistic environment is the next challenge of the British system once it tires of statistics. The current focus on ‘citizenship” and the ‘global village” may be the first steps in that direction.
Which brings me back to the discussion I overheard on the bus. What unites teachers is that we, and our schools, are important to the young people whose lives we help to shape and influence — no matter how hard our students try to persuade us otherwise. The main emphasis of our job, no matter where we work, is to inspire and build rapport with young people and to show them there is something bigger ‘out there” .
Thirty years ago I had teachers who performed this role for me, whose names and faces I can still remember clearly today. Today, interactive whiteboards, computers, performance targets and league tables notwithstanding, I am still trying to follow in their footsteps.
John McLaverty
Swanlea School
United Kingdom