The role of a Teacher

The role of a teacher is not just about teaching, it is about inspiring love of the topic amongst one’s students. After so many years of undergoing the education system, I’ve met teachers who made me love what I’m studying and I’ve met teachers from HELL. So what differentiates a good teacher from a bad one? I will attempt to quantify them now.

1. Encouraging
Teachers should always be encouraging. When a student scores 1/25 for a quiz, never ever tell him/her that the one mark was given out of sympathy. It is just plain demoralizing to the student, as he/she will start to hate the subject and hate the teacher.

Don’t try to use peer pressure on the student by announcing your magnanimous sympathy for the student to the whole class. For one, you’re humiliating the student. Second, you just revealed to the world what a bloody stinko you are when it comes to the word “generosity”. Thirdly, your attempt to be kind would have mutated into an insult- to me, you can keep the one mark and give me the zero for all I care. That one mark isn’t worth the humiliation and degrading treatment.

When a student scores well for other subjects other than your own, never discourage him/her by telling him that if he continues to fail your subject, he/she is still doomed to a bleak future. Instead, a good teacher would praise him for doing well in his other subjects and gently prod for a reason WHY he/she isn’t doing so well in the topic you’re teaching. There are two possibilities, either he/she can’t grasp the subject well or you are just one hell of a lousy teacher.

However, whilst taking pains not to discourage students, one must NOT encourage them either. It creates a false sense of security. Stop telling you’re students that they are fine when they have room for improvement. If you keep praising their efforts without any criticisms, they would think that scoring an A is guaranteed. Needless to say, they will hate you and the topic if they receive anything short of an A.

2. Dedication
When I mention dedication, I mean dedication towards making your students understand, love and enjoy what you are teaching. I do not mean dedication to career. I have met a teacher who cancelled a tutorial after reaching a consensus with her students, so that she could go to MOE for an interview (in hopes of an advancement in career). Unfortunately, she called her students back on a Saturday for make-up lessons (something that wasn’t mentioned before reaching the consensus).

I’ve met teachers who blame their students for not studying hard enough. However, some of these ranting sessions are unjustified- sometimes it’s the fault of the student for not studying hard or sometimes, it’s your fault for being a lousy teacher. Either way, heaping blame on your students it’s not going to work out because everyone will know that you are upset that their low overall scores are going to affect your next pay raise or promotional prospects. They will know that they rank second on your list of dedications. Remember, your students are smarter than you think they are.

3. Consideration and Care
In my opinion, all teachers, even lousy ones, should have a rudimentary amount of consideration and care for their students. Treat them like they are your little children that need emotional and psychological support.

I have seen teachers coolly reject those “under-achievers”- namely the residential Ah Lians, Ah Bengs, Minas, Mats, etc. These people are emotionally insecure, they may be brash and rude, but it’s all a facade. They want to succeed but they don’t know how to, so they don’t try anymore. Instead of pushing them to succeed, many teachers just leave them to their own devices, allowing them to engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy of self-destruction (in the academic sense). Oh yes, please don’t lower yourself and call your students “dumbo” or “bimbo” into their face. It’s not ethical and it doesn’t reflect well on your maturity or upbringing.

Once a teacher made my whole class stay come back on Saturday for an extra “extra lesson”. It was 1pm and we were hungry. All she did was the grab a plate of crackers from the Staff Lounge and that small little paper plate was supposed to be lunch for 20 odd hungry adolescents. It just shows how much consideration she had for us. The least she could have done was to order pizza! As a teacher, I’m sure she would have remembered what it was like to be a student- a hungry stomach creates cognitive shut down.

When a student’s grades drops, it may be an indication of emotional and psychological problems that could stem from relationship problems between friends, families or BGR. Instead of exploring this possibility, many teachers rather attack students for not putting in an effort or being lazy. That is the ultimate indication of a teacher’s lack of care/consideration of her student’s welfare.

4. Approachable
I think all teachers should be approachable but they have to create a glass wall. When your students like you, chances are, they’ll study harder for you. By spending more time engaging in informal interaction with students, you will come to understand each other better, instead of looking at each other as fellow cogs in the Great Engine of Education. This is a healthy relationship which I actively promote.

Sadly, most teachers today are MOE scholars- most of them see teaching as a career, rather than a passion. As a result, most of them are quite unapproachable. Teaching is their duty; therefore, most of them refuse to have anything more than a formal student-teacher relationship. Bad, bad, bad. By the way, I think being a teacher, does not give you the right to ride your students down by humiliating them and making fools out of them. It just makes you unworthy of approaching friendly, which is worse in my opinion.

However, it must be noted that being too friendly with students might result in insubordination. So there must be a balance.

5. Humility
Yes, we all know our teachers are supposed to be smarter than us. But some teachers just have to rub it into your face. I remember my first lesson with a particular teacher. Oh man, I came out of that class traumatized. First, I was told that I was useless and I had no future, so I should quit school and save the teacher the time and effort of having to try and teach me. Second, I knew she was an honors student and I was nothing compared to her. Lastly, she’s a scholar with a soaring career and I was a tiny nit with no future. Reverse psychology to make me work harder to prove her wrong??Nah, there are better ways to do that. That teacher was just a show off, plain and simple- her comments always came out as personal insults.

It’s just not ethical to tear all of your students’ egos apart. Hey, if they can make it to JC, they are good enough to have a decent future. There are hundreds of people who didn’t make it past O’Levels. The teenage years are fraught with insecurities regarding relationships, what the future holds for us and academic uncertainty. It’s not too much to ask for an encouraging teacher who will help you see alternate paths in life isn’t it? We don’t need proud teachers who like to regale every one of their past achievements and run down those who have yet to embark on their road to success. Success is relative; we attach differing amounts of satisfaction to different goals. To some, academic and financial success is not as important as spiritual belief.

In the elitist atmosphere in Singapore, humility is important and all teachers should embody that. A degree does not make you a smart person, you may specialize in one area but other people specialize in others. The Educated elite in Singapore like to call the lesser-educated people stupid. Well, let me ask you this- where did your plumbers, air-con technicians and rubbish collectors come from? Without them, the elites can live in broken down homes with trash piling up everywhere around them. That would be the day where wealth and brains will get you nowhere, because pride is in the way.