One of the key things that I learnt from working on field projects early in my career is the importance of teacher communities. I realised quite early that regular training and updating of skills for teaching, organised by the government, was a far-fetched dream.
Although things have since changed at school level, many have often complained about the futility and irrelevance of the training organised. At the higher education level, the government barely provides any training for teachers. We are expected or encouraged to take up courses but it is in our own time and at our own cost. This leaves many everyday questions unanswered. It is not that every teacher is asking a question. But those who are, often find themselves at a complete loss on how to move ahead.
A couple of weeks ago, I got into an interaction with A. about the need to streamline assessment in checking weekly reflective journals. This was followed up with a discussion with N. And today, the three of us somehow found the time to collaborate and work on developing an assessment rubric together. The discussion was hurried and we didn’t have clear answers. But we shared and collaborated.
I feel now that I was in so much a hurry to look for answers that I probably did not hear them through as much as I should have. I am wondering what inputs did I miss in my hurry to find answers and solutions. The haste comes from knowing that we are doing this in the middle of classes and other tasks and that each of us has limited time. In competing with other more necessary, and urgent tasks, this collaboration was an add on that each of us took. Nobody asked us to. Nobody cared. No incentive except that we wanted to do it. We are trying to be better teachers because we want to be.
In this process, I realised that if I had not interacted with A. and N., my learning would have been lost. I would have probably not taken it up further, carried on with whatever I thought was best and in the long run, probably lost the zeal to teach better. Forgotten that forming a community was a possibility. In recent readings (Anurag Behar, S Giridhar), I have read about teachers collaborating on holidays, weekly offs and free times, to discuss and learn new pedagogic strategies and techniques for classroom management. This has somehow not carried on into higher education, or in urban spaces.
The idea of staying back in school to collaborate, to reflect, share and grow is alien. Most teachers look at staying back after students have left, as a waste of time. Teachers stay back to prepare for tomorrow, finish administration work, update records. End of the day, teachers may be too tired and may just want to go home to rest.
I am wondering if teaching is so tiring, should we not be doing something about workloads? Would a tired teacher be able to go home, finish home chores, and late in the evening, be genuinely interested in reflecting, preparing for the next day or taking up other school related tasks? Would a regular 9 to 5 work time have been better for teachers then? I may as well be slaughtered for considering this. The amount of work and the exhaustion we experience is an indication of how grossly undervalued teachers’ work is. Most people only focus on teaching as half a day’s work. If it were so, it would not lead to good teaching- good in terms of the sheer thought and effort put in for engaging with teaching.
In such a work environment, teacher communities seem an impossibility. Teachers in colleges collaborate over necessary tasks. They sit and talk about the world, personal lives, and sometimes fashion. On rare occasions, there is talk about the struggle with administration, increased workload and the changing face of the student population. But rarely do we talk about teaching.
The interaction today, with A. and N., has given me hope. If there are enough like minded teachers, we can continually strive to be better. Not because of the system, but in spite of the system.