No room for despondency

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday February 6, 2023 06:00

There should never be any room for despondency because far too many people regard a school as a beacon of hope. The expected and much desired results may be delayed but a school system that keeps a sharp and increased focus on the one thing that matters will eventually get the dividends. Every day is a learning curve presenting an opportunity for the system to reinvent itself and create a fertile ground for all learners to prosper and succeed in their learning tasks.

No system should under estimate the worth of its students. If sufficiently supported and encouraged, students can play an active and prominent role in their education.

They can only become free passengers in a teaching environment that promotes and perpetuates teacher dominance of classroom instruction. The overbearing influence of teachers, if not checked, can suffocate students’ freedom of expression and classroom participation and therefore render them impotent in the learning process. When recognised as important learning resource, students are motivated to bring their deepest selves to the classroom. They can search for knowledge on their own and enrich their understanding of the content.

Teachers and managers should shun any practices and negative tendencies that deprive of learners opportunities to show case their God given talents and skills. The school environment should consistently feed students with positive messages promoting virtues of hard work, focus, discipline and excellence. So in order to be effective, a school system should not only pay attention to teacher capacity building but should also equip students with research and independent study skills. An empowering school system ushers learners to a world of possibilities while motivating them to dream heroic dreams. No school system should accept, celebrate and tolerate mediocrity. A system of education that seeks to redeem itself should deliberately initiate programmes aimed at tapping the potential of students. Students who excel and quickly demonstrate tasks should be accorded the privilege of assisting fellow students lagging behind. Students who lag behind in certain subject areas can benefit a great deal from peer teaching. Students usually comprehend and grasp learning tasks in a less formal and less exacting teaching environment. Peer teaching is one way diversifying the teaching portfolio and if used wisely can address and close performance gaps of identified students. Lamenting lost opportunities in the classroom, renowned Educators Elizabeth A. City and Rachel E. Curtis made this observation, “when we are in classrooms, we are astonished at how little is asked of students, how greatly their capabilities are underestimated and how willingly students by and large tolerate adults’ limited imaginations.” Clearly, if not given the air space to fly and soar like eagles, sadly, the potential of students can be subdued. Indeed it is impossible for students to blossom and thrive when the school has low expectations of them. Setting high expectations of students and a non-negotiable code of conduct exerts pressure on students to apply and give a good account of themselves. The bottom line is that in every school there is lot of potential and opportunities, which if harnessed could change the performance trajectory of students. Change should be engineered from within. Externally motivated changes may not have a sustainable future due to lack of collective ownership and buy in. If a school is genuinely looking for positive and sustainable change, considerable efforts should be made to explore possibilities within itself. Looking out windows is not necessarily the solution. Schools are primarily human driven institutions and this makes the human resource factor the most important element in the teaching and learning process. At the apex of a school, there is a team of leaders working under the direction of a school principal. Having the title of principal comes with the heavy responsibilities of defining the purpose of the school and identifying a cause around which to rally everyone. The running of a school is never a one man’s show but the work of a team. But the team mainly exists in the background, pulling the string behind scenes. This leaves one man on the spotlight – the principal. As the sole face of a school, the public expects a high degree of accountability from the principal. Parents send their children to school to succeed and later to join paid employment to improve their livelihoods. They yearn for only the best for their children, nothing more, and nothing less. The society for which the school was built expects a principal who will help their children to find their purpose and fulfill their dreams. Anybody who signs for the role of principalship must be ready to deliver. Therefore running a school is serious business. Those who may not measure up to the task of securing the future of our children should not sign up for the position of principal. This job is requiring someone who can bring his deepest self to the school and when the chips are down, sacrifice personal resources to keep the teaching and learning train on the rails. Meeting public expectations is mission that should never fail. To accomplish the mission and avoid public condemnation, what should a principal do? A principal should make students the epicentre of his or her work. When confronted with a choice, he or she should settle for anything that champions teaching and learning. The primary job of a principal is to channel the energies of his teachers, funds and time to class room work. Essentially, classroom not office work, is the core business of a school principal. Schools can achieve more and raise student learning outcomes when principals can consistently subject classroom instruction to closer and increased scrutiny. It is vitally important to monitor not only the physical presence of a teacher in the classroom but also the rigour of learning. The presence of a teacher is no proxy for good teaching. There are instances where a teacher could be in the classroom but not necessarily providing any support to the students. Teaching at all times should be tailored to meet students better than yesterday. Vigilant principals regularly monitor performance data to check how well students are learning. Monitoring lesson attendance as it is the norm cannot reveal anything about the rigour of instruction. Instructional matters are more important than investing in the construction of physical resources. Again City and Curtis put succinctly when they wrote that “what students do matter, what families do matter, what society does matters, but what we (teachers) do when children are in school matters most for what they will know and be able to do as adults.” This is a clear and unmistakable advice to school leaders that they can only ignore classroom instruction at the risk of failing students. It is a good lesson for regional oversight bodies and the central ministry to direct time and more money to instruction. Everyone in the industry of education should learn going forward to keep the school focused on teaching and learning. The interests of students should dictate the agenda and the support outsiders may wish to extend to schools. Efforts should be made to scale down activities which may derail schools form the core business. There are times when external players disengage a school from learning by demanding the school to collect data on things which do not add value to teaching and learning. Yes, a school is regarded as a three legged pot requiring the services of all parties concerned being parents, teachers and students. But it should be borne in mind that parents can only perform a supporting function. They can never be a substitute for good teaching and as such principals are called upon to watch closely the interaction between the student and teacher. During the interaction content should be present. There are instances where teacher-student interaction can be devoid of content. This means it is possible for a teacher to engage with students in the absence of learning.