Warning against ‘coaching’, ‘drilling’ students

SOME good-hearted teacher threw my name in the Literature-in-English Teachers chat-group on WhatsApp. Thank you very much for thinking I could be useful on this platform.

The obvious feature I saw within minutes of being connected was a flurry of desperation for notes, scheme links, specific questions about how to teach this or that, what this or that meant in Literature, a whole paraphernalia of questions that demand answers from experienced or knowledgeable teachers. This is the advantage of Connectivity and modern Communication Technology.

I could not help noticing the hype of euphoria and business of hunting this and that, asking this or that question almost every minute. Ndokunonzi kupinda busy nhaika? Inyaya yenew curriculum-ndizvo? And new teachers I am sure joining the ‘ industry’. Eich, zvakaomashuwa! Nhai guys, ndipeiwo chino nechino and then this and that—every minute of the platform. Foni yangu dai yaionekwa naMaiChisamba she would say, “yatsvuka ikakwata!” I have now muted my phone on that platform to make sure it allows me to do my work with little disruption. I sometimes open up to 100 or more messages when I finally attend to them. And when I do, I enjoy every bit of it.

I am humourously surprised with the amount of business going on among ‘comrades-in- arms.’ I also notice common challenges and anxieties among teachers.

For example, Literature itself being pushed to the back burner by the school subject-combination panel, some schools choosing to abandon Literature altogether; the best students being reserved or pushed into Sciences and Commercials and the riff-ruff dumped into the Literature classes.

Some teachers are tired of being requested by the school head to defend their pass rate, which they say does not make sense because it is the school subject selection panel which gives them dead horses in the first place, but blamed for the strings of Ds and Es in the outcomes.

In some schools teachers are called upon to defend subject pass rates before an SDC tribunal. The world never ceases to amuse and amaze, does it not?

It is easy to notice there is more discomfort and anxiety among the new and obviously inexperienced teachers.

Someone wrote: “Nhai magogodera tipeiwoka manotes isu majuniour teachers tione pekutangira. Please ‘war veterans in teaching’ give us teaching notes so that we know where to start.

Hello Literature-in-English teachers! Some haven’t an idea where to begin? What do they want in the kitchen, in the first place? Be very careful about this hyper activity of exchanging notes and referring each other to internet commentaries and all of it amongst new and inexperienced teachers.

While it is good and unavoidable to guide students to know what to include in their literary appreciation and practical criticism, in their essays, make sure you don’t coach them to master your own evaluations and conclusions. Don’t impose your own feelings and responses on students. Or indeed those of commentators!

Literature seeks the responses of the students, not those of their teachers or of writers of commentaries. If students study set books, poems and plays, then reproduce what their teachers think and feel, why did they read them in the first place?

Students’ responses which are influenced by the opinions of shared views circulating amongst teachers are not a result of individual effort and understanding. They are simply ‘ his master’s voices’, sung from one shared hymn book and literally diverted to the marker or examiner. That is cheating.

If Zimsec applauds essays that read the same because the teachers shared notes and ideas, I hope not, please be warned. Cambridge Exam Board does not tolerate this kind of nonsense which they openly describe as public cheating. And I am afraid I agree with Cambridge.

Literature must examine or test individual depths of comprehension and appreciation. It must test the student’s personal understanding and personal evaluation and judgment; not the teacher’s or the internet commentator’s.

Literature must develop a child’s critical thinking, not his or her teacher’s. Not the student’s knowledge of other people’s thoughts, responses and feelings. If ZIMSEC allows this, it too has lost the whole idea and purpose of teaching and learning Literature. I am tempted to think there is this kind of executive permissiveness if the hoity-toity anxiety and ‘research’ on the Literature-in-English social platform is anything to go by. If it were not so, there would not be so much of this scramble for notes and commentators’ remarks. And so many shared questions and answers!

Cambridge will not hesitate to send a school or exam centre with essays that look the same to the cleaners. Rest assured you will be lowly marked if you are lucky. If not, you can easily face a penalty from Cambridge, including being banned from sitting their examinations in future. I do not speak like a Cambridge examinations official. Because I am not! But I know schools that were investigated and warned against this kind of ‘cheating’. I know such teachers and schools will defend themselves as excellent examination coaches. Yes you may be great coaches, masters of drill, but that is not what literature seeks to find out from students. And Cambridge is not impressed, please note.

And I did not find one piece of advice from the teachers on the common platform encouraging strictly individual responses from students. Sort of disturbing, isn’t it?

I would want an informed response from teachers or examiners of Literature on this concern? Why this hyper anxiety and scramble for answers to questions from other teachers? Literature examinations seek answers from students, not teachers. And why the anxiety even before students have started on the Literature course…and teachers, not students per se, are already looking for answers and looking for them from the wrong people.

Ability to teach Tone / Mood (atmosphere), how to make a conclusion or judgment for example is not the same as telling students what you think or what commentaries say. It is the ability to allow them to observe, reflect and imagine and critically express their personal understanding of issues independently.

Literature is a thinking game, not a plagiarizing skill. Let the students think, not remember what their teacher wants and how he or she feels about a character or characters. In Literature if brilliance manifests, it must be the student’s brilliance, not the teacher’s.

While the misguided and incompetent Literature examination markers (and there must be quite many of them) do credit evident plagiarism of remarks, comments, ideas and responses, from whatever source, I am sure it is the competent, effective and knowledgeable markers who give the ‘copying’ students the feast of Ds and Es we are now all too familiar with in the ‘A’ level Literature.

There are no short-cuts to earning a good or high mark in Literature. It takes a competent teacher to make a competent learner in Literature. Sharing notes, schemes and answers to questions is a fascinating thing, hyper-business indeed, but sharing wisdom is best. And wisdom comes from doing the right thing well, not doing the wrong thing well.

Consult experts. Consult gurus in your areas of concern. Don’t just circulate notes and possible answers. Teach your students to think and make personal conclusions, of course guided by structural demands. Don’t supply prepared or common answers. Don’t give them an impression that Literature has set answers and expected responses. For to do so would be to underestimate Literature’s power to develop individual critical thinking.