A ‘boring’ teacher
Tshwarelo Hosia | Tuesday April 8, 2025 11:52
She was a soft spoken, unassuming but gifted teacher. One of her enviable qualities, which endeared her to the students, was the wisdom of building harmonious and cordial relations with her students while also making them feel at ease. Teachers who manage to create a relaxed and less intimidating teaching and learning atmosphere often get the best out of their students. Her trade mark question, ‘Am I boring class?’ distinguished her from the rest.
Albeit coached in negative terms, it was critically important. It was intended to check the pulse of her classroom instruction while ensuring that every learner was on board. Not only did the students value her humility and her openness to criticism but they also revered her for recognising their ability to evaluate her instruction and give feedback. Trust is the bedrock of effective teaching.
Teachers should not see students as a bunch of potential trouble brewers. While there could be one or two potential disruptive elements, but emphasis should be placed on acknowledgment of the vital role students play as a powerful and industrious teaching and learning resource. No small wonder many students passed the English subject offered by the special teacher with flying colours. Thanks to the attitude of the teacher!
This is what an ideal classroom interaction should look like - easy going like a Sunday morning as Lionel Richie and the Commodores would say in their famed master piece song. Effective class room is about winning the confidence and trust of students and making them feel good and treasured. While plying my trade in the history department at Lotsane Senior Secondary School, there was a time when we were giving our all but failing to achieve improved learning outcomes. Our students were keen to learn History but they were uncertain as to whether they had made the right choice. Some of them desired to quit at the earliest opportunity. An exodus of students away from the subject was looming and something urgent needed to be done to avert a crisis. We can with a plan to generate students’ interests.
The ‘marketing’ strategy included holding regular inter school debates and embarking on external educational excursions. Travelling to historical sites such as the Phothophotho Gorge in Malaka and bringing back trophies from debates brought about a significant turnaround. History teaching became alive and was no longer deemed as the pursuit of unworthy past with no relevance to the present. Experiences of traveling together built a spirit of camaraderie among staff members while also cementing the love of students for the subject, which was otherwise dwindling in status. The result was improved learning outcomes, which was all the school desired.
So the interaction between students and teachers in a classroom teaching setting should be akin to a union of two people united by a common desire to change the world they live in. The students may not be clear about how to traverse the road to success but they have a burning desire to accomplish something in life. The same spirit applies to their teachers. Teachers get into the mix for the same purpose. Their role is to engage in meaningful and impactful interactions that could unlock the flood gates of opportunities.
The most fulfilling reward a teacher can ever ask from a class is to see most students if not all moving towards proficiency across subjects. Disastrous student outcomes are humiliating as they do not add any credit to the teaching profession. Good learning outcomes glorify the teaching profession and embolden teachers to endeavour to strive for perfection, without ceasing.
In a highly interconnected technological driven world, students are not short of heroes and heroines. They dream big dreams because of the innate desire to reach celebrity and stardom status. In every class there is a little Diego Maradona, Michael Jackson, Letsile Tebogo and Duma Boko, among other heroes whose examples students seek to emulate. Teachers should exploit the students’ appetite for attainment of top notch status and sufficiently encourage them to work hard to achieve their goals even when appearing less serious and inattentive in class, students should not be dismissed as useless and hopeless.
Students are always trying to do something they consider valuable. But they get punished of course rightly so for singing or doing Michael Jackson moon walk at a wrong time when they are supposed to be doing a chemistry lesson. Students are always preoccupied in their minds with something consistent with their dreams. Sometimes they dream of traversing paths, which are not fashionable. All they need is not condemnation and judgement but support and validation.
Students become a bit rebellious when their dreams and aspirations are marginalised and deemed unworthy. The little spirit of Michael Jackson inside this or that child requires a bit of expression if it is to blossom. Teaching should be synonymous with change and impactful interactions - the process of making something better than it was yesterday.
Students fail to apply their best selves because their inner most selves is often denied freedom of expression. Teachers should be retrained and retooled to make them versatile and adaptive creatures, capable of identifying and nurturing varying talents students display. Teachers should always find a way around any problem even when scantily trained as in a case where they are required to navigate a newly crafted curriculum.
Problem solving defines the teaching profession. It is against this background that teachers, if retooled, there can never be any doubt about their capacity to provide a solution to the problem of declining student achievement levels. A versatile and resilient teaching force has no match when it comes to giving the necessary inspiration to students and sufficient knowledge and skills to overcome under- achievement . Teachers should never fall short of generating novel ideas to meet the challenges of the 21st century learner. After all, a teacher is expected to be endowed with innovative ideas in stupendous proportions.