Learners are Not Dull, Teachers are Lazy

1. True Learners Will Ask Questions!

There are some teachers who get irritated when their students ask questions. They answer the queries fired from the first couple of benches, while the last benchers are treated as stepchildren. Every child has the right to ask and learn, and teachers have to encourage this habit. Even if the child is an introvert, it is the teacher’s responsibility to get out the hidden genius. Some people see answering as their fundamental right and choose not to answer often! This is a very wrong notion. While asking is a fundamental right, answering is a fundamental duty of every individual. You cannot earn your right without performing the duty!

2. Have You Done Your Homework Teacher?

Preparation for the next day class does not end with being a subject matter expert. The audience is not a well-renowned scientific community or experts-in-the-field, who would appreciate your work. These are little children who are looking up to you for knowledge. Make learning fun! If you teach biology, take them to a field trip to the nearby farm. If you teach history, narrate the events and personalities like a story, as they show in cartoons. English grammar could be taught by have role-play conversations. No child is too young to do role-plays if the teacher is mature enough to convene them. Extend a helping hand to encourage them to learn complex concepts and make learning fun.

3. Do You Know Your Students?

Not every child learns in the same pattern and even the same child learns in different ways based on their age. Find out ways to teach to engage all types of learners (visual / auditory / kinesthetic), and cater to each one’s individual needs separately by applying the age-appropriate pedagogy.

4. Teaching Is Not Scribbling In Boards And Reading Out Books!

Students have the books in hand and all of them can read them. They do not need book readers or a parrot in the class that would repeat what is told in the books. Those who created the curriculum did not complete their job of explaining everything. This is expected from the teachers. The books are just guidelines to ensure that no chapter or concept is missed. It is the teachers’ job to explain concepts and relate them with real-life parallels.

5. They Invest Time In You, Do You?

On an average, every child spends about 6 to 8 hours in school, depending on the age. That is one-quarter to one-third of their life depends on teachers. If the homework time is also included it goes up to 40% of the life-time and up to 90% of the time that they are awake (remaining 10% goes in preparing for school, commuting to school, worrying about school, etc.)

6. Are You Trustworthy?

While the children completely trust what their teachers teach, do teachers really repay the trust by teaching well? I’ve seen kids telling to their parents that they are wrong, as their teachers have told them in a different way. Are schools taking care to stand up to this exceptional trust!

7. Reliability Reassured!

The future generation relies on the teachers for its knowledge, as well as the parents and the community. Teachers are overburdened already, but it is their responsibility to create better citizens for the next generation.

8. Don’t Be Curious! Is This The Message?

Disciplining the hyperactive child is different from asking every child to sit idle without even having conversations. Are current schools, in the name of discipline, conveying the message of not to be curious to children who can learn only out of their curiosity?

9. Get Marks Or Get Out (To Where!)

Children in classroom are seen as marks generating robots or as answering machines who would give the expected answers for a certain set of questions. No wonder kids are born intelligent and they emerge as dull boring people after decade-and-half education.

10. Future Needs You!

Honestly, children, however cute they look, are not innocent toys, which are sent to school to be played around by teachers and parents. They are the future of humankind. Let the boring system of marks and evaluation be there. But true inquisitive knowledge has to be incorporated so that they emerge as intellectually talented individuals who can take the right decisions.

Teaching and Learning are fun! By teaching properly teachers benefit more than the learners (I learnt this is from my experience during my short tenure in this world!)