More than facilitators of learning
Teachers themselves will admit that in the eyes of their students, especially the younger ones, their roles are pretty important and in certain situations even more significant than their parents.
ALTHOUGH our teaching contexts or settings are not similar, whenever we hear news of something major that has happened involving any student or teacher, it impacts us all in some way.
In different ways and in varying degrees, we are all affected when we hear of school-related incidents that result in teachers or students choosing to end their own lives.
Even when we are so far removed from the event and even when considerable time has passed, there remains an uneasy feeling that we can’t shake off.
Memories of incidents in our own past return, sometimes unbidden, uncomfortable and often without closure. We think back of our own school days, teachers who have taught us and seem to recall dimly, some story that is vaguely related to the tragedy that has just happened.
We remember hearing other stories, knowing other incidents and whisper little things about them to each other or to ourselves.
One question lingers in the air, however, even when everything is over, when the jury whether real or imagined, has made its decisions and “guilty” verdicts have been proclaimed.
“Whose fault is it?” We have often heard that question in other contexts. It is a rhetorical question, which is spoken aloud sometimes when nobody knows the answer, when there are too many answers or when the answer is too terrifying to be voiced.
There were similar incidents in the past that may have happened to our own students or young people we know.
We recall the ones who chose to end their lives because they felt they had failed to live up to the standards expected of them, for examination failures, for a broken relationship, for heartbreaks or disappointments that loomed so large and were so black that any light of reasoning or chances of viewing things from the right perspectives were blocked out.
Routine of school life
Perhaps these were from a class we didn’t teach, perhaps they were not the ones whose names rang out during prize-giving ceremonies. Perhaps they were not on the discipline master’s list, infamous for their discipline records nor the ones who were constantly hauled up for misconduct.
Rather they were the ones we labelled “average”, somewhere in the middle, whose faces blended into the mass of blue, white or green uniforms during school assemblies.
They were part of the line that marched in single file to their classrooms, their voices part of a chorus that chanted “Selamat Pagi Cikgu” (Good Morning Teacher) each morning.
These were the ones in our schools, sometimes even in our classrooms, that we often passed without thinking about their family backgrounds, what went on in their lives or inside their heads. And even if we did stop for a moment to think about this, we would probably settle on an answer pointing towards a “probably no better or no worse than the others.”
Could any of these children come from seriously dysfunctional homes, could there be among those blue, grey, green uniforms someone who is subjected to daily abuse?
Could any of them be exploited or deprived of their basic rights in some way? The possibility hangs like a vagrant cloud, over the entire student population.
But then again, there may be nothing perceptible, nothing at all to indicate whatever horrors that may lie beneath the surface of the outward normalcy, the everyday routine of school-life.
Besides, we do have counselling programmes in our schools with counsellors who are qualified for the task of identifying students with problems and providing them with the advice and guidance they need.
Our school counselling rooms are open to any student who needs to be heard. There are specially organised programmes to address a range of growing-up problems, individual and group counselling sessions, talks, seminars and follow-up with relevant organisations if necessary.
The heart of education
We have also our class teachers who have more accessibility to information on the backgrounds of students in their own classes and more opportunities to meet the parents or guardians of their students if necessary. Still, in the midst of so many school-related duties that they have been assigned, it is often an uphill task to constantly have more than cursory contact or keep track of the performances and behaviour of every student in their class.
Maybe we can’t all always have a deeper knowledge about the students we teach. With all the teaching duties and deadlines that preoccupy us, there is not enough time in the world to know every student we teach, listen to their problems or what they dream about.
But teachers themselves will admit that in the eyes of their students, especially the younger ones, their roles are pretty important and in certain situations even more significant than parents.
Those of us who are parents ourselves may know how futile it is to argue with a younger child when the argument opens with, “But my teacher said...”
And yet we often do not have the time to reflect on how significantly important our roles are in the lives of these, our students.
Our focus on being the facilitators of learning and the ones who progress and implement the curriculum often deflects us from the truth that at the very heart of education is the child himself, a person with potential, vulnerabilities, and naiveté with the need for security and to be considered important as a person.
Although we have all heard stories or little snippets from inspirational tales about how the lives of people have been profoundly impacted by words their teachers have said to them, we ourselves sometimes forget how important our own words are to the students we teach, both the words we speak and that we refrain from speaking.
Words are sometimes so carelessly tossed by teachers who don’t realise or care about the impact they have on their students.
Most of us have known teachers who have made it their daily routine to yell at their students and remind them of how dim-witted or useless they were.
To be fair, there are also teachers who always have a quiet word of praise or encouragement for their students even when they don’t get it all right.
But in the end whose fault is it when teachers don’t have the conviction, time, or energy to treat their students as more than just sources of data that the school needs to fulfil its student outcome requirements?
Whose fault is it when students do not get to hear the words they need to hear the most from the people who need to say these words?
Whose fault is it if despite getting all the care and attention they deserve, our students still choose to make tragic decisions?
Instead of looking for answers that may never be found, perhaps we need to find ways to ensure questions like these may not need to be asked in future.
Our focus on being the facilitators of learning and the ones who progress and implement the curriculum often deflects us from the truth that at the very heart of education is the child himself, a person with potential, vulnerabilites, and naiveté with the need for security and to be considered important as a person. Dr G Mallika Vasugi