# 043 Qualified teachers Vs Quality teachers

Does anyone teach a student here?

During a question and answer session with teachers, Mahatma Gandhi was asking them about the subjects they taught. The answers were predictably around each teachers’ expertise - history, geography and mathematics. Gandhi turned around and asked a crucial question; does anyone teach a student here?

Here is another question that can amplify what Gandhi was asking; what is more important to a teacher - the content of teaching or the brain state of the learner? If downloading the content is all that matters, then teachers end-up becoming content fillers like those gas station salesmen who fill cars with petrol.

Discovering learners

The teachers’ obsession with finishing syllabus truly makes learning a function of periods rather than in line with the mental capacity of learners. Some learners may take one period to learn the laws of thermo dynamics while some others may take several periods. Students learn best, not when they are racing against time but when they are able to set their own pace and learn in their own way.

Covering the curriculum is a perennial obsession that teachers have. This is like a still photographer trying to capture the journey of a flying plane through the lens of a camera. The lens only captures a small image of the plane – it cannot really cover the entire dynamism of a huge jet plane roaring through the air. Teachers who are only hung up with the curriculum do not quite experience the thrill and adventure of teaching or learning. They are like a still photographer trying to capture learning from the outside.

To use another more familiar example, the curriculum is like the menu card in a restaurant. Discovery of the learner is like eating the dish you ordered from the menu. The proof of a pudding is not in the description of it in the menu, but in the tasting of it. Once a teacher samples the enchantment that is inside the learner, she has truly discovered the learner. Once the curiosity of the learner is evoked by the teacher, the curriculum is spontaneously covered.

Teachers must enliven

If a student asked a good physics teacher what ‘gravity’ was; Prof Yash Pal would explain gravity to students this way.

He would draw a circle representing the circumference of the earth. Then he would draw pictures of tiny human figures standing around the circle. He would point to a human form on the top of the circle and say, “He is standing upright right at the top. That is not so surprising. But look at this fellow standing upright at the bottom of the earth. Do you now know what gravity is all about? The whole class is enlivened by the mystery that gravity is.

Great teaching is the ability to distinguish between what can and needs to be explained and what cannot be explained. The working of a computer needs to be explained as it is made by the human mind. But a butterfly need not always be explained. A butterfly has to be seen with the lively eyes of wonder as it is a natural expression of life and not of the mind

Mastering the craft

Qualified teachers are aplenty, but quality teachers are so rare! Teaching is a craft rather than a qualification. Learning to be a quality teacher is like learning to make vintage wine. Both require time and years of culture. Serving as an apprentice for 2 years under a great teacher, just by listening to him is what is required. Listening, though somewhat forced like a bottle of wine locked up in a cellar, ultimately helps in maturation as a good teacher.

Most teachers are not happy being teachers. More often than not, they are forced to take up the profession because of the security of a ‘job’. After acquiring a degree in education, many teachers get into a groove of subject teaching. They start teaching to tests.

Their minds and hearts harden prematurely without the inner maturity that comes from Self-awareness. Qualified teachers who lack those qualities of head and heart such as authenticity and empathy for students are like teaching machines. They churn out an assembly line of students for the competitive world outside.

In the process what the world gets are unthinking, ruthless and corrupt men and women who lead our societies. Quality teachers evolve through constant practice of their craft and diligent self-reflection. If they are lucky, they get inspiring mentors who give them valuable feedback and insights into their own strengths and vulnerabilities.

It takes no less than ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery over any craft. That would mean three to four hours of practice every day for ten years at a stretch. Teachers can spend ten thousand hours repeating the same lessons over and over again till the cows come home. Alternatively, they can reflect on how they teach, and learn from their own mistakes. This way they can eventually master the craft of teaching!

Transmission loss 

A fundamental truth about the teaching profession is that nothing is taught until it is learnt. This means that a teacher may be very learned, yet the students in his class may not learn much at all.

Between a well-intentioned teacher and a disappointed learner there is a huge transmission loss. This loss happens in the battle field between the current of knowledge broadcast by the teacher and the resistance of succeeding generation of bored students. What gets lost in transmission is not just information but also energy and enthusiasm for learning.  A teacher who cannot connect with the learners is boring a generation to death. He is guilty of culpable homicide.

If he is not killing them, he is creating permanent learning disabilities. One way to prevent transmission loss between teaching and learning is to ask each student at the end of the class to prepare a note on what they learnt. They can then share their notes with each other in groups of four or five.

This will ensure not just learning from the teacher but also from the peer group.  The critical thing here is knowledge that a teacher possesses will have to cross the brain barrier of students in order that this frozen knowledge begins to flow through the minds and hearts of learners.

(Extract of an article by Debashis Chatterjee, Director of IIM, Kozhikode on Education in Deccan Herald dated 12.9.13)