TEACHER ORIENTATION [TEACHER ETHICS] -3

 TEACHER ORIENTATION [TEACHER ETHICS] -3

Utility:

Utility of a teacher rests on the individual’s attitude to ‘official work’. There are levels to which a teacher can raise the quality of effort to T/L. Those settling for the essential minimum fail to create enthusiasm for the process. It is here that human minds deserve attention. Listeners arrive with an open mind ‘expecting’ something ‘new’. When this desire stays un-catered to, learning turns lackluster and teaching stays mundane. It is well within a teacher’s grip to optimize performance to the delight of the audience. This is what ‘utility’ means to students. It is not just providing the material [notes] for facing examinations. It is rather infusing the correct levels of confidence to face examination of any type-Subjective, Objective, Explanatory, Interpretative, Analytical or Inferential in outlook. In plain terms T/L shall be parallel appearing as a single act.  If teaching helps comprehension, it offers the best utility. All other approaches of dumping information and forcing a rote methodology are exercises of learning with displeasure. A sense of alienation runs as a deep undercurrent between teacher and learner because the interaction stays peripheral [Audio-auditory link] without connecting the minds. Teaching is thus an act of reaching the minds.

Reaching the minds:

Most teachers desire success. They strive to achieve it. Yet, they keep on striving with little or no success. Why? There is a gap in T/L ensemble.     

The gap can arise due to several factors which together form ‘communication’. Naturally, any item that weakens the act of communication, widens the gap paving the way for alienation between T/L. Teachers need to respect the value of communication instead of placing faith on their technical qualification. After all, what helps the process of teaching is the lucidity of communication and not what the teacher ‘knows’. Reaching the minds of wards is the crux of the processes of teaching. Any function in teaching must strive to penetrate the minds of listeners without inconveniencing them. If rightly done, teacher enters the deep corridors of minds and takes possession of minds, Thereafter students willingly lend themselves to the dictates of the teacher and turn partners in T/L exercise. Until teachers make the best use of this strategy [reaching the minds], gap remains in T/L . Gap is a major limiting factor between successive attempts and success.

Reducing the gap:

Reducing the gap in the T/L ensemble is but a regular component of teacher-career, since the process is adopted for different batches of students for decades. Also, it is the foremost signal to students that this teacher intends ‘getting across’ by honest efforts. Co-operative attitudes from students come forth if students spot the sincerity of purpose in a teacher. Obviously, several functional parameters suggest the sincerity of purpose. Broadly, these are: attempts to reach minds, strategies, tools in exercise and the tendency to assess performance of self and systematic sorting of learner difficulties. All these elements should be integrated to teacher-function as a daily routine. If the teacher impresses as of his /her being student-oriented, a sense of balance comes to students with reference to ‘that’ teacher. So long as the teacher makes it a point to ‘reach’ minds, there is a near automatic effort of getting closer by the learner towards the teacher. This effort is mutual and simultaneous. All of these are components of ‘teacher image’. So, taking care of image is a critical component for success.

Elements that help reaching the minds:

Felicity

In the Indian scenario, to-date the teacher is a verbal communicator. [S]he, survives by the mechanism of ‘Speech’. Therefore, the felicity by which the teacher handles sessions on all occasions, gives the impression of his/her earnestness in reaching the audience. Two things determine the feature of elegance. These are the two Vs of the language namely Vocabulary and Voice. Vocabulary - per se is a tool to explore varied alternatives to suggest an intended idea; it is voice that manages the ‘reach’. Cultivation of excellent audibility is a prime necessity for penetrative or punchy delivery. It is just not decibels but modulation that transcends barriers.                           

TO CONTINUE