It was just another day when I was on my routine of taking my
son studying in 2nd grade to school bus pick up point. The bus
arrived and children boarded the bus, soon driver noticed that one of the
teachers who used to board the bus as same pick up point was yet to arrive and
so he waited. I overheard one parent saying sarcastically - ‘see the bus is
waiting for teacher, they have no value for time’; soon I saw couple
of others nodding and questioning the ‘value of time’ , all this was
happening in front of students standing nearby for other bus. While the point
on punctuality was acceptable, what was missing was 'respect' for
‘teacher’ in general.
And this is just one example, there are scores of these
instances we see where teachers are judged so easily by parents & openly –
‘they (teachers) are not paying attention whether kids have put seat belt’, ‘why
are they not teaching advance topics’, ‘they are not giving any homework at
all’ and even ‘when she gets to time to put so much makeup’; all making me
wonder what inferences my kid will be drawing hearing all this!
As a student, the image that I carry about all my teachers is
that of most respectful person in life whose integrity and persona was not questionable. It was built not by force but by their (teachers') life and conduct & positive reinforcement from parents. Not that today's kids don't have this respect, rather till primary education stories are same, however soon after that children start observing environment outside, start applying their mind to what they hear and see, things start changing.
Perhaps with every passing generation parents are more
educated themselves, have more opinions on how ‘teaching should function’,
which is coupled with rising cost of education which has reduced status of
education as ‘commodity’ which can be bargained for and negotiated like any
other paid service.
Today we hear in news shocking stories of sexual abuse, corporal punishment incidents and schools extorting huge sums as donations;
which put our head down in shame and shakes the image of this whole
institution called education. On other side there are parents who are looking
at complete ‘outsourcing’ of their parental responsibilities to ‘schools’ and
want value for every penny they shell out; concerned more about what is
‘delivered’ than what my child ‘needs’. No wonder the attitude of students towards teachers has changed as well and respect is replaced with 'casual and informal' and loose talk.
Is education industry headed towards
total commoditisation? Is so much parental activism needed? Is anyone caring
about ethical standards in this profession? Is situation really so bad or we are blowing it out of proportion due to sensational media hype? Millions of questions pop up!
We really need to dive deep in each of these areas and try to find our answers.
