Many have called for the role of teachers to go beyond merely teaching students how to read and write. Guidance, counseling and advising on various issues should also be an integral part of schoolwork. It is unfortunate that this is not the case in our schools where the conviction prevailing among parents, principals, education supervisors and teachers is that students are not sent to school to be educated, polished and prepared for future life but simply to learn how to read and write, add and subtract.
Some still think it is not the duty of teachers to direct and guide students even if they see students behaving wrongly. The situation has reached the point where teachers have lost their rights and the respect due to them. It sometimes happens that when a teacher meets a group of students, it is the teacher who gives way rather than the students.
Imagine a teacher stopping to allow a whole group of students to pass. This situation has developed because the students think it is the teacher who should make the first move.
Behaving otherwise on the part of the teacher may be interpreted as an insult to the dignity of the students and it could even prompt some of them to leave school completely.
There is a strong belief that the education methods adopted in our schools have failed because they lack a human factor. Instructions limiting the teachers’ authority prevent them from providing guidance and advice. This in turn makes a teacher think a thousand times before making any move. Students have thus come to understand that the teachers have very little jurisdiction over them and that a teacher’s responsibility is limited to the subject taught in class.
The teacher is not even required to ask if the students understand the minimum of the subject. This has led teachers to confine themselves to offering the minimum. Under the circumstances, teachers should not be required to bear responsibilities for which they have not been prepared. It is no wonder the teacher has turned into a tool for conveying information, just like a television set that broadcasts information and leaves it to the viewer to accept or reject it.
