Anybody can teach?

Anybody can teach?

Published at Hindu EDGE here.

Thanks are due to the team at Hindu EDGE.

Few weeks ago, I read of a government servant, in Uttar Pradesh, holding a senior position, going to teach at a government school each Saturday. The newspaper article, of course, was highly appreciative of the ‘noble’ deed and how it would benefit the school. It also encouraged others to take up similar action.

The article reminded me of a summer vacation, during school days in Gujarat, when we were supposed to teach the alphabet (or was it numbers or both) to under-privileged children. We were also given a book for this.  But, neither I nor my friends ‘did’ anything on this front. We had no idea what to do.

Strangely, even schools display this behaviour. Last week, while reading a book on ‘Schools that educate differently’ I got to know of one in West Bengal which used to send 150 students, each week, to the villages. This was to ‘reach out to the underprivileged students in the villages’. I had a series of questions including: Why are all students in villages underprivileged? Did the students in villages teach the city students farming or cattle-rearing?

In most cases, where it is assumed that the task it so easy that anyone can take it up, either the task ends up not being taken up at all or is taken up in a manner that is way below the optimal. One parallel that comes to mind is that of wildlife conservation organizations’ approach to nature education. When it concerns difficult activities like research and monitoring they look for specifically trained people. However, when it comes to a simple activity like nature education, they convey the message that anyone can take it up.  In the end, few organizations, if at all, end up carrying out nature education in a manner that it matters.

On the one hand, schools and other education institutions are struggling to get good teachers and facilitators to meet the needs of the day. They are increasingly investing more in the existing people so as to enable them to deliver better. These include efforts not only towards ‘content and pedagogy’ but also touch upon areas of ‘motivation and personal conduct’. While on the other hand we have this belief that anybody can teach.

So, what leads to this belief? Is it the arrogance of the urban over rural or that of the affluent over the deprived? In other words, of those speaking and writing English over those more familiar and comfortable in the vernacular. Does this depict the position in which we hold our teachers or a power position that we, adults, hold vis-a-vis the children? Is it about priorities? 

Or is this just how we address our craving to ‘do good’? But, we do not appear to be in a rush to become drivers or doctors for one day a week. So is teaching perceived to be easy and hence the only area where we exhibit this behaviour?

Flexibility and change are welcome in the classrooms but a potter teaching pottery is different from a banker working in a city (consuming resources like city dwellers do) and then going to teach nature education at a village school. While the potter may end up acquainting students with a craft, the city-bred individual may end up meeting only his (or her) needs and not that of the students.

Coming back to the government servant I wondered if she felt the need to get familiar with the school, its teachers and students and their needs prior to teaching. Did she plan with teachers and principal and check on the ‘other aspects’ which mattered. This ‘other aspects’ can be a long list in itself. With all the good intent, was she adding value to the school’s functioning or disturbing the schedule? What is the message that she is giving? That anybody can teach?