A short view of education nowadays
I attended last Saturday a short inaugural lesson about pedagogy and education in general. The guy, a very bright and interesting man, quoted Hannah Arendt and he included some perspectives from Psychoanalysis in this lesson about the role of teachers in current education issues.
He was right about many things, such as teachers no longer caring about their students, just doing our job, and so forth. However, I felt a little outraged because these critiques/complaints came from someone who probably spent little or no time teaching in the environment in which teachers of public schools have to work in nowadays. Nonetheless, I kept listening carefully to all he had to say because it was great to see his perspective.
Today I welcomed back to my classroom a student who had been stabbed and had a punctured lung after a fight; I gave him the chance to attend class because he just got back from a doctor's appointment to have his wound cleaned and didn't feel good enough to write. At the end of the day I had time to think about my job at school as a teacher and an educator and I felt that outrage surfacing again. Most writers who complain about the role of teachers and school in the education of teenagers aim straight to teachers and government policies to place the blame and make us responsible for the downfall of education.
I would say it's fair enough considering that we spent most of the time with them, struggling to keep them interested, to make boring topics fun, to have a fun time in the classroom, to give them the emotional and moral support that sometimes they can't find in their own homes, and I could make the list go on and on... but then we have to consider other situations.
I heard horrifying stories about other teachers in other school districts of Bogota, like the one in which the headmaster was murdered because he got involved into an argument with a student who sells drugs in the school premises, or the ones who got beaten up by students for a simple snack, not to forget those others that were mugged, robbed, physically attacked, blackmailed and threatened by their own students. Then I stopped to think that being a teacher in schools these days is really something you do because you enjoy it, not because it's a well paid job and receives enough acknowledgment from society in general; if you consider that most students are willing to stab you for flunking them or beat you down because you are trying to educate them and learn, then people should stop and think before blaming us for doing the job they probably don't have the courage to do.
5,365 teachers were hired to work in the Public School System of Bogota and two weeks later at least 700 hundred handed their resignation letters. I can say I was lucky to pick a school in which students still feel a little respect for their teachers, but others were not that lucky and had to face the awful truth. And here is when I say that the law doesn't protect us from our own students, which empowers them to abuse their freedom and do as they please; us teachers are always walking in thin ice, because sometimes students are not willing to 'take any crap from anyone' and you just happen to be in their way.
So, if we are willing to risk our emotional and physical health to teach them something, why parents are not doing their part?
Living in a third world country doesn't make things easier, the family as a basic unit of society doesn't exist anymore and children are lost without a real parenting figure at home, instead, they turn to us teachers but we are limited by law and capacity to help them. Sometimes it feels like a hopeless situation!
I try to reach out but they feel I'm more a part of the problem than a part of the solution thanks to the media which does its part by, again, placing the blame on us. Education is the base for change, but we have lost many students to the education they receive everywhere else, including the streets.
I wish I could have included the article in English.
He was right about many things, such as teachers no longer caring about their students, just doing our job, and so forth. However, I felt a little outraged because these critiques/complaints came from someone who probably spent little or no time teaching in the environment in which teachers of public schools have to work in nowadays. Nonetheless, I kept listening carefully to all he had to say because it was great to see his perspective.
Today I welcomed back to my classroom a student who had been stabbed and had a punctured lung after a fight; I gave him the chance to attend class because he just got back from a doctor's appointment to have his wound cleaned and didn't feel good enough to write. At the end of the day I had time to think about my job at school as a teacher and an educator and I felt that outrage surfacing again. Most writers who complain about the role of teachers and school in the education of teenagers aim straight to teachers and government policies to place the blame and make us responsible for the downfall of education.
I would say it's fair enough considering that we spent most of the time with them, struggling to keep them interested, to make boring topics fun, to have a fun time in the classroom, to give them the emotional and moral support that sometimes they can't find in their own homes, and I could make the list go on and on... but then we have to consider other situations.
I heard horrifying stories about other teachers in other school districts of Bogota, like the one in which the headmaster was murdered because he got involved into an argument with a student who sells drugs in the school premises, or the ones who got beaten up by students for a simple snack, not to forget those others that were mugged, robbed, physically attacked, blackmailed and threatened by their own students. Then I stopped to think that being a teacher in schools these days is really something you do because you enjoy it, not because it's a well paid job and receives enough acknowledgment from society in general; if you consider that most students are willing to stab you for flunking them or beat you down because you are trying to educate them and learn, then people should stop and think before blaming us for doing the job they probably don't have the courage to do.
5,365 teachers were hired to work in the Public School System of Bogota and two weeks later at least 700 hundred handed their resignation letters. I can say I was lucky to pick a school in which students still feel a little respect for their teachers, but others were not that lucky and had to face the awful truth. And here is when I say that the law doesn't protect us from our own students, which empowers them to abuse their freedom and do as they please; us teachers are always walking in thin ice, because sometimes students are not willing to 'take any crap from anyone' and you just happen to be in their way.
So, if we are willing to risk our emotional and physical health to teach them something, why parents are not doing their part?
Living in a third world country doesn't make things easier, the family as a basic unit of society doesn't exist anymore and children are lost without a real parenting figure at home, instead, they turn to us teachers but we are limited by law and capacity to help them. Sometimes it feels like a hopeless situation!
I try to reach out but they feel I'm more a part of the problem than a part of the solution thanks to the media which does its part by, again, placing the blame on us. Education is the base for change, but we have lost many students to the education they receive everywhere else, including the streets.
I wish I could have included the article in English.
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