Tahir Ali

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Best individual blog: http://tahirkatlang.wordpress.com/category/education/

tags: Edubllogs 2010 nominations

Every student’s nightmare

By Tahir Ali

Suppose a company wants to hire a new person. While many aspirants stand in the line, you quite logically think it will select the best candidate, one who has an outstanding academic record. That’s why you try to out perform others, in the classroom and outside of it, so that you could reserve a place for the job of your dreams … and with it a lifetime of happiness. “You must set a high standard,” your parents and peers tell you, because you have to compete with the world.

Your examination results are one of the biggest yardsticks for your ability. Educational excellence after all is judged through high grades and good results in examinations. The more the frequency of upper grades in your educational career, the more the chances of getting a coveted job.

This is why your parents, siblings, teachers and institutions urge you to excel in studies. Your parents want you to be trophy children. Your siblings pride themselves to be related to you. Teachers too expect you to add glory to their names. Schools, colleges and universities go out of their way to accommodate the talented students while rejecting or expelling those who are lacking in performance. You may feel like you are being pushed from all sides to be the leaders.

But let’s just face it, not everyone is cut out to be a leader. The weaker and failing students are disliked and maltreated. Not a single day goes by when they are not subjected to derogatory remarks and their nicknames by siblings, friends and teachers.

Their needs, problems, aptitudes and limitations may be neglected but the expectations from them are above their capabilities. The learners, as a result, are overburdened. So, they have to put in an extra effort in order to fulfil the tall ambitions of the others around them. This may lead to their developing psychological disorders, making them reclusive and temperamental. There have been cases of students developing anxiety disorders as well. Some have even been compelled to commit suicide.

The behaviour of parents, peers and siblings towards them is also characterised by extreme stances. Either they are too lenient or too stern. Of course parental attention and cooperation is beneficial. It goes a long way in improving the overall performance of any child. But parents also spoil their children by seeking wrong means to get them ahead such as sifarish.

Attaullah is a student of class eight whose father threatened him of dire consequences by telling him to not bother coming back home in case he failed in his exams. Unluckily for him, he failed. That was when Attaullah fled from home. But he didn’t know where to go. However, he reached Kohat and started working there with a local diary farmer. The four months he was there was mental agony for his entire family back home, who didn’t have a clue as to where the boy was. Their ordeal eventually came to an end when a villager spotted the boy grazing cattle in Kohat and recognised him. The family was informed and Attaullah was brought home.

On the other hand, Haleema and Sajida, students of class six at FG High School in Mardan say that their parents didn’t treat them harshly after they failed. But Altaf Hussain and Mohammad Aziz, two class nine students at the same say that they received a scolding from their parents after failing. Meanwhile, Zakir Hussain recalls how his elder brother boosted his morale and abilities too with his kind and encouraging behaviour. In comparison some students also said that their elder siblings and parents beat them severely after they failed. Gulshed Khan, the father of Atif Khan, a boy who failed his class 10 exams, was so angry that he left his son to his own sweet will. “It’s up to him to either carry on or give up his studies,” he said. Atif quite naturally went for the latter and is now working as a helper in a shop.

According to Dr Mohammad Farooq Khan, a psychiatrist and well-known scholar, the common behaviour of parents towards their failing children ranges from aggression to dereliction and from indifference to derision. “The parents’ initial response is of shock and denial. So shocked are they at finding out that their offspring is a below-average student that they find solace in believing that their children have been failed unjustly. After that, when emotions subside, it is time to analyse the situation. That is when their aggression turns towards the children. It is this aggression that may take the form of physical or mental torture … or both.

“Intelligent and clever parents console and support their children in their hour of need. But there are also some who show indifference. Again, the parents’ obsession with their children’s future and love for them can provide that much needed support,” says Dr Farooq.

He opines that parents are under increased pressure to see that their children as high achievers. “Our cultural values have changed. Love for money, materialism and prestige now matters more than anything else. The parents spend huge sums of money on their children, sending them to expensive schools, getting private tuitions, etc., and they want to reap the fruit. They want their ambitions fulfilled through their children. But when the child fails, they react harshly to the news. The behaviour may prove disastrous for the children and expose them to inferiority complex.”

The psychiatrist also points out that there is a huge difference in the way illiterate, poor and rural parents and their educated, rich and urban counterparts behave towards their failing children. “The former by and large behave positively while the latter’s behaviour demolishes the child’s confidence.”

The behaviour pattern of teachers varies too. A few demonstrate indifference, some display unwarranted aggression while passing insulting remarks, some offer individual attention but few offer their support and guidance right away. There are also some who urge their children to give up their studies for some other ‘profitable’ work. “Either you concentrate on doing well in class or leave the school. In the public sector schools where there is no robust system of supervision over the teachers, some call the failing students names such as ‘Raja’ or ‘Prince’ and completely ignore them. These students are not questioned during lessons nor is their homework checked for it is said that they don’t or can’t understand.

The Greek philosopher Plato says that the child is like a plant which if properly nurtured must necessarily grow into all virtue and if planted in alien soil becomes the most obnoxious of all seeds.

A hardworking, committed and friendly teacher can totally transform a student’s life and vice-versa. Dictatorial and unfriendly teachers prove harmful because they generate hatred which affects the friendly atmosphere in class, a must for successful learning. Individual attention from the teachers towards their weaker students is sine-qua-non.

“Some students who failed in English were given individual guidance and help in our school and they improved,” says Fazle Mabood, the principal of FG High School, Mardan. According to him, the superior teachers like all children and the inferior ones have favourites.

It is common to see the parents putting the blame for their children’s’ failure on the teachers. “The teachers work less in class and carry little commitment as they are in the profession not by choice but by chance. But the students see the teachers as role models. What can the students learn from dull and weary teachers? They must instil a yearning for knowledge in their students,” remarks Khalil Khan, the father of a student named Aiman, who unfortunately failed last year. He holds the teachers responsible for 90 per cent of the students who fail and opines that students are punished for the wrongs of their teachers.

Failure can also become a source and basis for prosperity and success provided that the right guidance is given to those who fail. Failure can make people push themselves harder in order to prove themselves to all those who saw them fall. It is on, after all, our failures that we base a new and different and better success. But although failure has uplifted the spirits and performance of a few, most have been overrun by the repercussions.

Many believe that the system of failing should be wrapped up altogether. It is not that prevalent in developed countries. Mohammad Haleem, a teacher, says that no child should be made to repeat a class at least up to the 10th grade. “It destroys students’ personalities and shatters their confidence, which is responsible for pumping antisocial elements in our children while making them misfits of society,” he reasons. By Tahir Ali, tahir_katlang@yahoo.com (Dawn)

Home visits by teachers

By Tahir Ali

Attaullah always took keen interest in his studies. He was regular in class and was popular in fellow students as well as teachers. But then he bagged inconsiderable marks in his 10th grade examination. He felt alienated by the treatment of his father over his poor result. He was remorseful for wasting his time. Life lost all charms for him. Dejected and enraged at himself, he indulged himself in activities that were detrimental to his time, studies and goals. He thought it was all over for him. But then a teacher visited his home a few times and talked to him and his parents.

“Reflect on your habits, priorities and activities. Think as to which were the things that distracted you from studies and wasted your time. Also know about the things and habits that had proved useful during any stage of your academic career. Avoid the distractions and follow the plus points…..,” he told him.

That lifted his spirits. Attaullah started working with a new zeal and commitment. Later, he won two gold medals in his career.

The above story illustrates that a hardworking, committed and friendly teacher can transform a student’s life. There can be tremendous interest in this home-visiting model provided these are carefully planned and effectively executed. These have the potential to improve low performing schools and provide an opportunity to build relationships with families that go a long way towards success of educational endeavours.

Though teachers’ visits to students’ homes usually follow problematic student behaviour or an urge on part of the school and teacher to ensure success of the students, an interested and committed teacher can spot pretty early on which are the students who might face some challenges and problems needing intervention and guidance.

Teachers’ visits can turn around weak students and schools. They give personal touch to the teacher-student relationship and create a sense of importance and confidence amongst students. They not only help build good inter teacher-students relationship and love but also give good information about the likes, dislikes, weaknesses and strong points of the students and teachers, which are crucial for educating the children satisfactorily. Poor performing children can excel with compassion, kindness, and some one-on-one help.

Educational experts say students do better if teachers, schools and students and their families act in unison. Our teachers need to come out of their ivory towers and be more friendly and close to their students and their parents if we hope for a better learning environment at schools.

Teachers may be lacking vital information about their students, and meaningful opportunity on part of the teachers to engage with their students and their families can solve the problem.

These visits and conversations not only help build a relationship with the parents and congeal one with their children, they also can create many other possibilities. For example, the teacher learns a ‘funds of knowledge’ from the parents and gets an insight about the prevailing situation at students’ homes, about students’ peer group, his neighbourhood behaviour and the way he deals with the situation.

Even though well-intended, these visits have both the potential to become a source of strength as well as trouble for the students and teachers. For example, there is the problem of reluctance on part of the teachers, especially female ones, and resistance on part of the parents towards this phenomenon.

Educators don’t want to be unwarranted guests and female teachers especially feel vulnerable to visit the homes of their adult students. Though parents usually like to be contacted for their children, sometimes they too resist these visits as encroachment and interference.

So, the visits should not be made mandatory for teachers, students or families. What then is to be done to make all these go for this highly beneficial practice: Teachers and educational administrators should be given financial and professional benefit for each visit they make. Parents and their studying children should receive stipend and educational credits on these visits respectively.

These incentives, rewards and chastisement and conditional cash transfers for teachers, parents, and schools will help foster friendly environment at the visits. We also need to ensure that training and a respectful structure is provided, and that visits don’t just target troubled students.

One important reason for the success of the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, a successful project run by teachers’ union, school district, and a community group run in parts of USA since 1988, is that teachers are compensated for their time if they choose to participate voluntarily

The main problem is where will the funds come from and who would organise, supervise and evaluate the work of these bodies.

The thousands of Parents Teacher Councils (PTCs) functioning in public sector schools could make the task of organising, supervision and evaluation quite easier. Over and above, the national commission for human development (NCHD), that has huge budget with little practical impact, cannot find worthier business to pursue.  

Good communities create the foundation for great schools. In transforming public schools into the hubs of their communities, teachers and principals should play lead roles, supported by mentors, counsellors, media personnel and media outlets.

As far the funds, the government may allocate some funds for the project. If not, then the funds available with the NCHD and PTCs –the latter are given considerable funds for repair and maintenance of schools each year0- could be utilised. Similarly, grants and donations by public and private sector and by local or foreign NGOs could be used to fund these kinds of visits.

There should be no problem of resources. Various foreign bodies such as USAID, UNESCO and the like or the funds available with the NCHD could be utilised for the purpose. Anyway they are worth investment, because home visits can have far-reaching effects.

Besides, the project can be easily carried out by graduate teachers, especially female ones who are naturally more sublime and careful in dealing with students. It doesn’t require a psychological expert to do this as almost each working teacher is an expert in public dealing. However, for making and maintaining track-record of the meetings and findings of these visits and implementation and effects of these findings certainly warrant a short training. This can be done by plentiful public or private colleges, universities or the provincial and regional training institutes in the country.

Writer email: tahir_katlang@yahoo.com

http://tahirkatlang.wordpress.com

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