Tendency of Teachers

TEACHER’S TENDENCY TOWARDS CHILDREN SHOULD CHANGE

It is high time that we have to watch the attitude and tendency of the teachers in the Society towards the children studying in their schools. Daily we come across with various news items through print media or electronic media about the behavioural attitude and tendency of the teachers towards the children when the children, inadvertently, knowingly or un-knowingly happened to commit little lapses during the school hours either in the class room or out of the class room but within the premises of the School. The teachers resorted to punish the children with high pitch without knowing the consequences that occurred later. All of us know that the Children in Schools are poor in knowing the behavioural culture in the Society, and rather resorted to some narrow mistakes in their schools, which resulted a high pitch of punishment by their teachers. The Teachers must necessarily fully aware of the psychological behaviour of the children.

At the outset, it is the duty of every teacher to understand and estimate the psychological behaviour of every child and administer them in accordance with the styles of living and the Socio-Economic background of each and every child. Every teacher must understand the situation of the children and treat them in such a way that they should not be punished severely for little lapses.

Maintenance of Discipline is schools, now a days, has become a punishment to the children often. Many more schools in the State or in the Country, occupied by the un-qualified and un-trained personnel as teachers. Naturally, those types of un-trained teachers do not aware of the Child psychology. Many un-trained teachers are becoming teachers in the regular private schools, and they are constrained to obey and adhere to the unconditional pressure of the management on them, thereby the teachers looses tolerance and showing un-necessary displeasure on the children. Even trained teachers, some times lost tolerance, and behaving like anything towards the children. Many of the innocent children are unwittingly facing the cruelty of the teachers. Many more incidents of this nature have been brought to light by the print media and electronic media in the recent past. Every responsible citizen must condemn such type of cruel acts of the teachers. What is prompting the teachers to do such instances? Not only the Management of the Schools, but also the Society and the Community in particular, should think of it predominantly and try to make an end to such type of activities. Corporal punishments by the teachers in Schools completely prohibited by the Government, but such type of incidents are usually occurring off and on. Incidents like this prompt the Society to think about the way such corporal punishments result in bruised psyches, physical injuries and even deaths. Though there is every responsibility on the teacher to control the classroom, but the teachers have to deal with very difficult students at times, but there are better and suitable ways to control discipline. Naturally corporal punishments make the student more stubborn. It is better to have discussions and dialogue with the students. If the students are very mischievous and cannot be handled with explanations, it is better the Teachers should discuss the matter with parents, but beating them up is no solution.
Common Physical punishments
q Keeping the school bags on the heads of children
q Make the children kneel and work before letting them enter the class room
q Making them squat and touch their ears
q Sit-ups
q Canning and pinching
q Ask the children to run around the play ground ten times or five times
q Keeping the children stand on bare foot under hot sun
Common Emotional punishments
Ø Slapping by the opposite sex
Ø Scolding, abusing and humiliating in presence of the co-children
Ø Pinning a paper on their back with a label like “ I am a fool”, or
“ I am a donkey” or “ I am a bad boy” etc.
Ø Removing the shirts of the boys
Ø Brutal canning on the hands of the children
Ø Ask the children to clean the toilets
Ø Removing the clothes of the children
Ø Sexual harassment
Training of Teachers:

There are systematic Training Programmes for Teachers in our Country. Many Teacher Training Institutes/Institutes of Advanced Study in Education are imparting more technical and modern methods of teaching and pedagogy to the Teacher Trainees. But still, many more teachers are not sticking on to the instructions, guidelines, observations, precautions that are imparted to them during the training. When once they entered into the School premises, they forget about the way in which they were trained up, and they simply behave like ordinary citizens, rather than adopting the systematic and prescribed pedagogy. Many individuals are taking up the Teacher training Programmes, simply to become teacher job in Government or in any Corporate Sector Schools to get more salary perks, but some of them are not whole-heartedly receiving the training, but taking up the job simply for the sake of job only. The teaching profession is very respectable profession.
What the Teacher Training Code tells?
According to Manu, “ a teacher is the image of Brahma” There are some professional ethics to the teachers which they should not forget. A flower in bloom is loved by all and in this lays its glory. Similarly man may be viewed as having achieved everything in life when he becomes perfect in character. If the best flowers among mankind take to teaching, society is abundantly enriched, their fragrance and beauty and then made the best use of. If the teacher becomes an embodiment of right conduct in thought, word and deed, the students by their association will learn virtue and develop manly qualities. They can be humanized and can live and act like normal human beings. They can become thoughtful, concerned and courageous.

According to the Teacher Training syllabus, every teachers should have some pre-requisite characteristics to become an effective teacher in class room in a school, such as tolerance, Interest, Adjustment, Attraction, Carefulness, Thoughtfulness, co-operation, reliability, enthusiasm, vocabulary, courage, health, integrity, industriousness, leadership, availability, cleanliness, broadmindedness, progressiveness, correctness, accuracy, obedience, self confidence, self reliability, self control, self fulfillment, self realization, self satisfaction, self evaluation, courtesy, kindness, helpfulness, mercy, etc.

Education as a lamp lighting another lamp, one life making another life and a spirit speaking to another spirit. Teachers with good mental health can achieve this objective. Sociability is another important quality of a teacher. He should have a sound social philosophy. It is the primary duty of every teacher to understand the children, to be just, courteous, to promote a spirit of enquiry, fellowship and joy in them, not to do or say anything that would undermine their personality, not to exploit them for personal interests and to set before them a high standard of character, discipline and personality.
Problems of the Teachers:

Teachers face some problems in the school environment, such as feeling of frustration, feeling of rejection, feeling of rivalry and jealousy, and feeling of insecurity, Groupism, Right-minded rather than duty-minded. There may be some teachers like lazy teachers, undemocratic teachers and disagreeing teachers. Suitable steps have to be taken to realize solutions for taking remedial steps.

Teachers should develop utmost sympathy towards children studying in the schools. They must understand the psychological attitudes of the children. They should treat the children whole-heartedly and mould them in such a way to become respectable citizens in the society, by means of their day to day advise, and observing modern pedagogy , techniques of teaching, and pave the way for them to live in the Society without any fear or fervor. No pupil will experience any difficult situation towards his teacher. It is normal that pupil do commit mistakes. But it cannot be said that they are intentional. Wittingly or unwittingly they may resort to some unhappy activities which we should curtail them by watching their behaviour from time to time and let them know about the future consequences on account of their unknown mistakes and try to explain them in a broader sense and cultivate good mannerisms in them and convince them not to do such mistakes in future on pain of severe action. But in any moment, their feelings should not be hurt, and no physical harassment to be meted upon.