Classroom: The heartbeat of any school system

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday March 27, 2023 06:00

Granted, it is desirous to forge a network of alliances with business community and to motivate parental engagement. However, support from outside is indispensable.

With diverse talents at its disposal, a school can still stand on its feet and accomplish its purpose. If in the event of a worst case scenario, every external support system falters and performs less than anticipated, a self-reliant school, motivated by faith in the teaching prowess of its teachers, should prevail.

Schools can develop their home brewed coaches and mentors covering all subject areas.

Given a choice, any education system should place its bets on the interaction between teachers and their students in the classroom. Asking rhetorically, is there anything that can stop teachers if they work collaboratively and wholeheartedly to invest their energies in ensuring instructional excellence? There is absolutely nothing. If the system of education is not delivering as expected, it is important to take a deep breath and consider investing in the one important thing that can alter the game. This is the teacher.

No classroom instructional challenges can withstand the creativity, tenacity and resilience of a united teaching force. Buoyed by intrinsic motivation and sheer love for the teaching profession, teachers can and are capable of bringing their best selves to the classroom, mobilising their collective gifts and when the situation so dictates, teachers cannot shy away from sacrificing what is theirs to safeguard the interests of students. Schools are littered with many examples of heroic teachers who literally give their all to keep schools going.

The patriotism in every teacher may not be so obvious, to everyone sitting outside the school system, because it is very a subtle and quiet one. Many teachers quietly and selflessly commit their finances, automobiles and time towards the creation of an excellent teaching and learning culture and while providing aid to students when in need. They do small things with a profound impact on students.

Their patriotism is particularly displayed when schools are plagued with a wide spectrum of problems ranging from non-availability of official transport, recurring breakdown of reprographic machines and the usual shortage of other critical inputs.

This special breed of people - the teachers - usually wear their parental hats to place their vehicles at the disposal of their schools to ferry sick students to medical centres and while also playing their noble role of contributing to the creation of a rich teaching and learning environment by volunteering to carry examination papers in their own cars for duplication in places beyond the school.

This happens too often because of the nagging challenge of shortage or breakdown of duplicating machines. Clearly these examples show the extent to which teachers are generally motivated by what is best for children and how far they can go to defy the odds in order to make the school climate conducive for teaching and learning. Teachers continue to showcase dexterity and resilience in the face of a long and overloaded curriculum. The long and content-based curriculum poses a challenge to both seasoned and inexperienced teachers because it was designed to cover a considerable ground. Doing justice to the curriculum is a laborious and energy sapping exercise often demanding personal sacrifices. It has not been always possible for all teachers to complete and successfully navigate the syllabus within the confines of a normal working period.

Many teachers of their own volition, under the circumstances, offer additional lessons outside working hours. This is done without expectation of additional remuneration.

In spite of the challenge of negotiating the heavy syllabus load, teachers are known for putting in a lot of blood, sweat and tears to ensure timely completion of the syllabus. Problem solving, it would seem, is part and parcel of the teaching profession. In times of adversity, teachers had from immemorial times displayed in stupendous proportions their innovative skills. The education system has evolved through many phases and challenges calling for sacrifices. But the teachers have always responded manfully to the challenges. The one affliction that continues to dog schools and inhibits provision of quality education is that of shortage of instructional materials. Ideally when a new curriculum is born, it should be followed by a quick production of books in the market designed to facilitate effective implementation.

However, the arrival of a new curriculum does not always come simultaneously with immediate production of relevant textbooks. At any stage in the life of a curriculum, there are subjects which have to run without principal text books. But even in the case of long established subjects, shortage of instructional materials can be occasioned by either provision of inadequate funding and loss of stock due to carelessness on the part of students. But the business of teaching normally cannot wait for production and supply of textbooks and this situation challenges the teachers to fill the vacuum in order to deal with the teething challenges associated with a new curriculum. To their credit, teachers would never fold their arms and do nothing when the situation calls for their creative energies and minds. And more often than not, teachers do respond positively and adequately to the challenge. It takes a big organisation to trigger off a self-supporting culture in a school environment. Any school is endowed with diverse talents which require harnessing.

Teachers can only run the risk of failing students when they elect to work in silos. Instructional gaps, which often plague schools, are mainly caused by inability or unwillingness to pool resources together. But when they join hands teachers can, without external aid, overcome whatever challenges. Collaboration is the most potent weapon at the hands of teachers when confronted with the challenge of producing instructional materials. Experience is the best teacher. Seasoned teachers within the same school can rise to the occasion to give amateur teachers guidance in this regard. This means it is relatively easy for a school to raise the rigour of instruction and fast track proficiency of students across subjects when it enjoys some semblance of self-sufficiency in teacher development. Schools which choose to rely heavily on school-based pedagogical experts have a better chance of success than those waiting for external support.

In any case external support can prove to be costly and not so easy to arrange. Working together in the task of producing common instructional materials has a lot of advantages for a school or department. It enhances a common understanding of the syllabus while helping to create the much desired synergy. Collaboration promotes a spirit of collective ownership of problems and builds an atmosphere of mutual respect and survival.