Where have the good ones gone to?

Salaam and Greetings,

What I would like to talk about is teacher training and teacher development.

I was fortunate enough to listen to a talk online given by Sir Ken Robinson. The first time I heard about him was about a year ago. It really changed the way I think. I shared this with my wife, and she cried listening. You can read more of what Sir Ken talks about in his book, The Element. Or, you can listen to him talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html. However, if you are a visual person like me, a company RSA Animate, converted his talk to a very visual version at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U. 

Why am I interested in schools and teacher training & development? I have six kids. 2 in universities, 2 in high school and 2 in primary school. Excellent family planning eh. Each day, all my kids tell my stories of something that happened in school or universities about what the teachers say or do. I am not sure whether those daily anecdotes my kids share are amusing, or frightening.

Once, my son reported his university lecturer didn’t know whether Dato’ Idris Jala is still the CEO of MAS. One daughter came home one day and asked me if there is such a thing as “most shortest”, because she was told by her teacher to write that. My 11 year old son, who is fascinated about astronomy and can tell you that there are many types of the suns, feared writing his own sentences on astronomy for his essay because he was instructed to only memorized the sentences given to him by his teacher. 

I have a niece who just finished teacher training and was sent to a primary school. On the day she reported, the headmistress told her, and I am paraphrasing, the headmistress doesn’t like graduate teachers. According to the headmistress, attending a one year training does not qualify them to become teachers. And only those who went through the four year training at teacher’s training colleges are qualified teachers. Hmmm…

My wife’s friend shared how her daughter’s teacher were screaming and yelling at the kids in class for submitting work that is not up to her standard. And she is throwing the kids’ books all over the class. This is standard four kids. 

My wife and I know this couple who has a 7 year old son who is a bit challenged. He attends a school for kids with special needs. One day, the boy comes home with a note from the headmistress addressed to the his parents. The note says, the boy is disruptive in class and in school. And that the parents are required to do something about it. Aren’t challenged kids are by nature disruptive. Isn’t that the reason we send these kids to special schools with specially trained teachers to help these kids?

Well, I can go on. But, enough said.

The point is, I know there are many good teachers out there, and I am what I am because of them. Unfortunately the few that spoil the profession is taking its toll on the good ones.

As a Learning and Development specialist, I am at awed at what kind of development programs did the headmistress have to go through to become a headmistress. Was there something wrong with the program, or was there something wrong with the selection process.

My sister in law used to be a secondary school teacher. She resigned many years ago. I asked her, what made her resign. She said, when she was teaching, she has this senior teacher who told her, that if she wants to be a great teacher, leave the schools. Schools are an excellent place to make great teachers become mediocre. I hope not. But then again, I can’t help to shudder that we need a bunch of Mat Sallehs from US, to help us teach. I guess we don’t have any Malaysians to do that job. Isn’t that a slap to Malaysia and the teaching profession? And how low we have gone?

Yet, there is a glimmer of hope. My son told me, how his secondary school classmate, have always known he wanted to be a teacher. And he is graduating soon, and looking forward to teach in remote area schools, sharing his passion is sports, especially hockey. And I know this kid since he was 12. I salute you. You give me goosebumps just thinking about it.

One of my sons, had this teacher when he was in secondary school. When he went to collect his SPM results years ago. I was there and standing with the teacher facing me. He looked at my son’s result, and suddenly, he wiped a tear of his eyes. You could imagine how I felt. The blood literally drained off me. Did my son do that badly? The teacher then hugged my son. I went up to them. My son turned to me and said, “I pass my Arabic!!!”. My son, is not known for his prowess in the Arabic language. And his teacher knows that. The teacher cried because he was so happy to see my son pass. I still get a lump in my throat thinking about that incident, because, I have never seen a teacher who cared so much for their students. I salute you Sir!

Why can’t we get more teachers like these two examples I shared? Where have all the good ones gone?