The Education world is crumbling today and yet the time was never been so right and apt as it is today for affirming our belief in our passion, i.e Teaching…. for we are Teachers and it is our foremost job and most important work to teach our students and testify them turn into good human beings! Trust me, this is our time and we shape future world leaders, solution seekers and society makers of tomorrow!
Welcome to the world of pandemic stricken learning which gave opportunities for every human being to transform into a teacher or an educator, with lots of inputs and support from the internet and web-based tools to operate and leverage from. The entire Educational Structure of the world had to undergo an immediate shift from the chalkboard to the screen-based learning and not many families and societies were ready to accept this immediate unexpected jump. This was so unprecedented and sudden that it left us with no time to fasten our seat belts.
The reality check of what happened in the Corona Times…..
The world order came to a standstill. Schools got shut as it raked a fear among the masses that school will be the breeding ground for this pandemic to spread like wildfire. Education was restricted to the four walls of the home. Enter the so-called Edu- Companies into the Education Market. Those who had little knowledge about education and other pedagogical aspects started advocating and preaching the merits of tech-driven education, forgetting the gorge differing difference between tech-driven and tech-enabled education. Not only did they start endorsing and marketing their products like any other FMCG products, but started tailoring and delivering cutting end to end solutions for teaching-learning, replacing and taking the authority of the chair of a teacher. The Educator who had given years of hard work, in molding and shaping the child somewhere got lost in this shift from real-time classroom teaching professional to an instructor or just a facilitator on a smart screen, being vulnerable to the prying and judgmental eyes of the parents who had otherwise never entered the child’s classroom but started comparing everything under the sky from teacher’s accent to the conduct, to the dress worn for the session to the background of the wall. Absolutely everything got exposed and the fear of being recorded and used as evidence later was another woe to add on…
Education was never ever limited to all these trivial things and certainly needed to be seen differently from a consumerism approach as it is seen today to be a more perseverance and austere profession.
Education is a building up process and needs the contribution of expert able hands. Hands that know how to nurture human emotions to achieve the highest potential of a child. Hands that know how to lift a fallen child up and give a push to run in a wide world of competition and cooperation. Hands that know how to pat the shoulders of a child for the success achieved and also know to pull the curtains of failure to new rays of customized learning and skill built up.
Just harping on the knowledge from the digital repository of a giant web structure doesn’t make particular software, a teacher. A teacher is much more than flesh and blood and years of sacrifice cannot be seen as just another means of earning a humble livelihood, often giving a feeling that it is sheer wastage and life could have been carved as some errand running high earning professional.
Teachers become Educators by their own choice and not by force or fall into any circumstantial grid. As famously someone has enumerated the 7 C’s of resilience in a teacher’s profile… It is confidence, competence, connection, contribution, character, coping and control.
A well aware and updated teacher knows how to merge and blend his acquired skills to contribute towards the greater good of the student learning curve.
Technology is the new chalk, Dear Educators!
It is how the world sees the learning now, so it is time to adopt and adapt to the new wave of technology in pedagogy, the art of teaching and learning. It’s more to just auditory, visual, kinesthetic, musical… it’s a blend of all these together in a virtual platform. The kick of doing it all virtually is the new game. For, eg- the new augmented reality and intelligence gives powerful tools in the hands of teachers to manipulate reality in virtual space thus impacting classroom teaching, making it more fun-oriented and interactive. Use your tools wisely, else time will come when a smarter virtual version of you will be placed in classrooms and you might be worrying where it came from…
It’s high time to clasp your open fists to a new tool which has toyed you enough, now needs to be harnessed and put to smart use. Being updated with the latest technology will never leave you redundant, it will only empower you with more power and smartness. And who doesn’t want to learn from a smart teacher? Tell me!
Happy Teacher’s Day to all my colleagues in this profession! Corona just opened doors and windows to a new style of teaching-learning in front of a computer screen, but core values remain the same. We are nation builders and society will always be indebted to our huge sacrifices and efforts in this path of formulation of new ideas, when we raise the next generation of individuals who are ideologically and technologically smart, to forge ahead into the next century quite capable and competent.
Trust your hands and intentions, My Friends!
