For the last 26 years, teachers worldwide have been celebrated for their continuous effort in educating their citizens in all aspects of life, both in formal settings as well as informal settlements. Teaching to this day remains among the most essential workforce a country could ask for, as they form the foundation of knowledge that is carried on to propel an individual in their later adult life. Therefore, 2nd Class Citizens would like to take this time and celebrate with our fellow teachers by giving a point of view on the life of our teachers we went through during our academic years and how our experiences with them shaped how we think right now.
The Kenyan POV.
If I were to summarize my academic life in Kenya, I would regard it as a content period in my life. The kind where I was able to acquire a formal based education throughout my elementary and high school period in life without any major hurdle facing me (of which I’m grateful for my parents for doing their best to make me reach where I am) while at the same time I was able to as well experience the trauma that befell on me as a result of the learning culture in the Kenyan system.
For a start, when i was joining my local primary school in Nairobi, having abruptly switched from an international school, I was immediately caught with a culture shock, the kind where having been in an environment where your teachers were like your best friends, and swiftly moving to an environment where the teachers were literally your parents outside home, and when I say “parents outside home” I exactly meant that. Such that, the same strict disciplinary enforcement I was given at home, was further continued to the learning environment, seen teachers exercising their full control on their students who disobeyed them, through caning them, and doing all manner of kinds of punishments that brought direct humiliation to them. Funnily enough, it took me much quicker time than I expected, to adapt to the environment that would be with me for my next 7 years in my elementary school.
Through this experience, I was able to make stable relationships with my teachers because all I wanted at that time was just to be able to go home peacefully without having been scolded for the mistakes I did, or even worse, return home with a wound because of one wrong turn that I took. And indeed, it actually paid in the long run, because I would occasionally find myself been favored and ‘forgiven’ for some mistakes I did, majority of them being classwork issues as I used to either be terrible in Math, Swahili (local language course) or my horrid handwriting would be a matter of concern. So yes! It is very easy to say that I was the good kid in school who always obeyed their teachers and did everything as they wanted and that it played out quite well on my side.
However in my elementary period, If there is one thing that I wish could’ve been done better, was to reduce the beating and for the teachers to be more objective with life skills. Because from what I saw and from what I experienced, was the fact that teachers from the word go, were so focused on the students behaving right, passing all their exams with flying colors and to also further create some sort of “dictatorship regime” of which I could say was good to an extent, since it kind of made the school and students produce excellent results in their final years, however, more time should as well be spent on making the students understand why certain things work and also create a dialogue with them when making decisions so as it could enable the students practice the art of making their own decisions and taking charge of their lives at an early age. And for the beatings, that is a story for another day…
So continuing on to my high school life was a bit weird at first, because of the fact that I had to be in a boarding school which was a concept 6 years later I still regret why I did it. But I must say High School was kinda fun, the fact that I had nearly all my elementary school friends join me made me feel like home in a more mature environment, which was intercultural in nature, which was pretty cool since my school was very much focused on positive teacher to student relationships and this in turn made us feel like “humans” in every aspect. From the fact that we were given the freedom to choose the kind of courses to do, the sports to play and the hobbies to partake in. This kind of environment was very helpful to me as it finally made me feel that I could actually make decisions for myself and furthermore, be able to trust what choices I made, a concept which I must admit, was quite rare in other local schools in the country as the same principles used in elementary school was carried on to the various Kenyan high schools. The further fact that my high school teachers made me realize that IT was not my profession and that International Relations and humanities in general was more aligned to my character, was one of the major things that I appreciate most in my life there.
My high school experience generally made me appreciate the value of school, and the value of being in control of my life, in the decisions I made,and in how I interacted with others in the complex. It was able to make me understand that teachers are meant to walk with you in your life journey during that short period of time and that during that 4 year period, I should be able to make the most out of them. However I must admit that not all that glittered there was gold, the Kenyan education system alone was a setback to the experience I had, such that, the heavy content and the fact that I inherited math and sciences problems from elementary, meant that I had to continue with the struggle all the way up, however the fact that my teachers understood where I came from and where I wanted to head to, sort of kept me destructed from the difficulties that I was going through and eventually we made it! High School made me be forward thinking on various aspects of humanity, international relations as well as the politics that shaped our lives. It further made me a patriotic Kenyan and at the same time value the importance of Cosmopolitanism and the spirit of Pan Africanism, which for a long time, our curriculum books have been one sided on the issue and have continuously failed to bring out the truth of the situation and to promote the spirit of Nationalism. So it is safe to say, the high school experience and my teachers as a whole propelled me to be more oriented with the world around me and see the best way I could help contribute to it, something I knew I had a passion of since I was a kid, but did not really know where to start.
For my ongoing tertiary education, it made me have a dynamic approach to my thoughts concerning various political issues facing the country and the globe as a whole, and through the continuous opinions brought out by our faculty staff, it has continuously made me understand the fact that everyone has a right to own their own opinion and that everyone’s thought process needs to be understood at a deeper level and not on a surface level which could potentially lead to misunderstandings, so the lecturers that continuously administer to us in our courses enable that open space to hear all kinds of thoughts circulate and furthermore, create an environment of learning from each other of which is very essential when dealing in today’s diverse world and community as a whole.
Therefore with all this mixed bag of experience that I’ve had, I at the end of the day could not fault how important the teaching community is in our lives.
Filipino POV:
Since grade school until college, I have been schooled in public institutions. My parents believed that we get better education when we study in public schools for a fraction of the cost in private schools. I don’t know if that’s the truth or if there’s any difference at all, since I haven’t been under the tutelage of a private institution (except in kindergarten).
From when I was 5 years old until now that I am 22, I was under science programs-- the SMART section in elementary, in the Engineering and Science Education Program (ESEP) in high school, and one of the students of the premier university in the Philippines where not everyone can easily enter (at least, that what most claim) and can get out (this I’m quite sure of!). I admit that the separation of the “cream-of-the-crop” sections to the “ordinary” sections have harbored an elitist mindset such that students outside the gates of my section are seen as inferior than those in ours. Growing up, however, many teachers had made me realize that this should not be how a Filipino should think and act.
Some of the memorable teachers I had was my Philippine History teacher in Grade 5. She made me love the subject so much that memorizing and understanding facts were not considered a hefty task anymore. I remembered that she was the one who taught me to love my country more by knowing our roots and knowing the past narratives of the Filipino people. Another teacher I’ve grown to love was my Grade 4 Science teacher who inspired me to become a doctor in the future. She may have no idea but all the lessons about the bones of the human body, the skeleton she used to display in front of the class, and even the plants we used to grow for that subject had made me enjoy the intricacies of the world and of the people we meet everyday. My Trigonometry and Calculus teacher in the last years of high school also made me love something that I used to hate before. By breaking down complicated concepts into more understandable processes, he made me believe that every problem in the world has a solution and that we should not give up easily especially if there are still ways.
Tertiary education had made me meet various memorable teachers who had largely impacted the way I think, the way I view things, the way I form myself, and the way I am currently becoming. My university is one that is criticized so much by other people because of its radical and progressive beliefs, but believe me when I say it molded me to become the Filipino that I am today. During my stay here, my professors and all the lecturers I have met challenged the past History lessons I used to believe (as some facts written in public school textbooks were altered) and made me have second thoughts about becoming a doctor in a country with close-to-incompetent healthcare system, or even made me hate Maths.
Such change in my political and personal beliefs prodded me to be more vocal about issues in my country. This shocked most of my past elementary and high school teachers because I was that student who was always quiet in her seat and who rarely participated in speaking stints and class recitations unless they let me hold a pen. I found myself at the center of the jest and criticism when, in one of my social media accounts, I expressed my dissent against the government. These teachers came into the comment section and flooded me with statements very unlikely of those who work in institutions that supposedly instill learning and healthy communication amongst individuals. With them doing these and with pressures from my parents to delete my remarks (as I might have made a bad reputation amongst my school teachers then), I was pushed to the brink of doubt and questioned myself of my own beliefs.
Such impact was so great that until now I still carry it deep inside. I still find myself cowering down whenever I am asked to speak on a certain topic, which might be controversial for some. Such impact was so great that until now I do not go much in my school in my hometown as frequently as it was back then.
But with all these experiences, I am still quite thankful for all my teachers who made me discover who I really am as a person and to find my niche in society.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE TEACHERS
As said earlier, teachers represent a very essential demographic in a country’s population, and the best that we could do to them, is to ensure that the environments that they work in are well suitable for them. What I mean is, teachers should be able to teach in an environment that ensures peace and comfort for both the learners and the teachers, furthermore, more support especially in the public schools are needed for example, supply of learning material to propel the transfer of knowledge, more remuneration for the role that they do should be further considered so as to further increase their motivation when teaching.
On the cultural aspect, through the actions they do such as caning students in a bid to discipline them, I advocate for more cultural understanding as well as teachers should take time to establish other methods to ensure discipline is controlled in their school, and they be made to understand the long term effects that children go through while being ‘assaulted’ by their teachers.
And during this COVID-19 pandemic, we continuously call for the support of teachers who have been rendered jobless as a result of retrenchments, pay cuts, and shutting down of schools which have directly affected them and further call for governments to continuously support them and ensure that they can be catered for the misfortunes that have befallen on them. Teacher security should als be considered, such that those teachers who teach in high risk areas should be protected and be adequately catered for as they administer education in areas where there are children in dire need of education.
And with that, we continue to celebrate the impact teachers bring to society.
Happy World Teachers' Day 2020!
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