REFLECTION: The Role of the Teacher in Modern Education

 

 

 

 

 

The Role of the Teacher in Modern Education

Miamo Lydie

Department of Pedagogy, University of Warsaw

M3 - Professional and Academic Discourse 2300-GPTE-M3-PAD: First Year Writing

Professor Małgorzata Matysik

January 31, 2022

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

This paper gives a brief history of the general trend that characterized the role of the teacher in the traditional educational system, and the gradual reforms that have led to the consistent development and transformation of the role of the teacher from a “producer” of knowledge in a teacher-centered classroom, to an “extractor” of knowledge in a student-centered classroom. It also outlines a number of roles identified by some educational gurus, that a teacher evolving in a modern system of education should ideally assume, in order to ensure learners’ autonomy and meet their individual needs and goals.
 

 

THE ROLE OF A TEACHER IN MODERN EDUCATION

            Over the years, the teacher’s role has been to transfer knowledge, in complete derogation from what it was initially meant to be - “to lead out of”, as the term “education” connotes-. As a result, the classroom was teacher-centered, with the teacher being the only source of information in the class, and with the students receiving a lot of information as input. This situation was worsened with the advent of the Industrial Revolution that further influenced the role of the teacher with a curriculum that was designed to meet the requirements of the numerous factories that were fast emerging. In a sense, the teachers became “producers” of knowledge, while the students became “consumers” of knowledge. This led to the classification of school subjects according to their importance determined by their high demand in the labor market, where graduates in the top scientific subjects had the highest chance to get jobs while graduates in the bottom subjects remained jobless, or hardly got employed. So, the teacher, besides producing leaders and civilized citizens, had the mission to produce readymade workers who were qualified with the required subjects, to be employed in factories and offices.
           In the contemporary era, the need to reform the educational field was soon felt because the traditional system of education limited the learner’s creativity and produced unfulfilled and unsatisfied citizens. This resulted in a series of approaches, methods, and techniques, with underlying theories, principles, hypotheses, or concepts, in view of finding a unique and best approach to teaching. In so doing, they implicitly and explicitly defined the teacher’s role in modern education with obvious resilient manifestations in today’s teaching practices, with the hope that they would be able to preserve the creativity and the personality of both the learner and the teacher. Today, the ideal has now been to move from an information-oriented system of education to an inquiry-oriented system where the teacher elicits the information from the students.
            Hence, education is not only to acquire knowledge but also to develop attitude and aptitude in the learner. This implies that the teacher’s role here is to extract the best out of the learner. Socrates compared this profession to that of a midwife who helps to give birth, where the teacher is expected to help bring out what is naturally embedded in the learner. By so doing, the teacher assumes the role of a scaffolder and offers his support to help the learner unleash his inborn potential.
            This is why the Method Era that has ruled the educational field was not completely outdated in modern education because they still provide a guideline to novice teachers as to what precisely a teacher’s functions are in the classroom. For example, with the Grammar Translation Method -, the Direct Method, the Audio-lingual Method, the Total Physical Response, and the Test-Teach-Test Method, the teacher is actively involved in the teaching process. (S)he translates, performs instructs, coordinates, and supervises the learners; should have a good mastery of the target language; and should or should not tolerate mistakes, based on the method chosen. The bulk of the burden of implementing the required principles to achieve results was placed on the teacher.
            On the other hand, with the Whole Language Teaching Method, the Communicative Approach, the role of the teacher is more or less that of a signpost indicating to the learner the way to follow, and a notice describing what (s)he should do and how. The teacher’s sporadic intervention was just to evaluate, correct, and finalize the learner’s work. The Suggestopedia wants him to be a good designer, the Task-Based Approach to be highly creative, the Silent Way to be a keen observer, and the Content-based Instruction, to be very cultivated. The bulk of the burden of implementing the required principles to achieve results was placed on the learner. Fortunately, the post-method era brought more independence and flexibility to the teacher in using methods, as advocated by a great reformer, Kumaravadivelu who defined specific goals in education. He called on teachers to be creative in achieving these goals, among which is the maximization of learning opportunities and raising of cultural awareness. The teacher should bear in mind that they are “a particular group of teachers who will be teaching a particular group of learners following a particular set of goals within a particular institutional context embedded in a particular socio-cultural milieu” (Kumaravadivelu 2003, 171). Kumaravadivelu’s called on the capacity of teachers to analyze their respective teaching contexts, reflect on their various techniques and classrooms procedures, and actually assess their practices, in order to be able to identify why they worked well or why they did not. As such they would make the necessary adjustments to reproduce reinforce, and build on the positive outcome, or prevent the negative ones, bearing in mind the ultimate interest of their peculiar students.
            Closely connected to Kumaravadivelu's idea, is the emerging concept of Action Research advocated by Allwright (2005) and Burns (2010) among others, to the effect that teachers should undertake Action Research and make it a continuous enterprise that will enable them to observe, reflect and strategize over issues to solve in their classrooms, to eliminate some doubts, or simply to satisfy a curiosity and be fixed on possible opinions. This implies collecting data in a participatory methodology where (s)he is directly involved with the student(s) under study and has first-hand information that would help understand the effectiveness or defects of specific techniques in the class. Richard and Rogers (2001) are of the opinion that applying techniques and procedures developed by other people, may be a good starting point for novice teachers, but as they grow in experience, they should be able to come up with their teaching principles and theories from their own practices in their classrooms.
            In addition, and to back up the above points, I would like to mention Ali Fenwick’s TED Talk speech where he strongly advocated on the advantages of developing a reflective mindset. He defined a reflective mindset as our aptitude to be able to deliberately and automatically react to changes and challenges in our environment effectively, thereby fostering our ability to withstand diverse adversities that may come in the form of failure, great loss, or a broken-up relationship, or even diseases. Adapting this definition in a classroom for a teacher would mean reflecting on his or her potential and prior knowledge as a teacher, consciously adopting a critical attitude towards himself or herself, and constantly challenging his or her own personal convictions about his or her techniques and teaching.
            Many educational theorists continue to be unanimous about the limits of the traditional system of education and advocate not for reform, but for a total transformation of the whole system. Sir Ken Robinson for example upheld a system that would prepare the learner for an uncertain and unpredictable future, not to meet the immediate need of companies; where all subjects would be attributed equal value and importance so that creativity will not be squandered, and error permitted as a means to develop. Other reformists like Roberto Guzman, Carol Dweck, Azul Teronez, Rita Pierson, and Sugata Mitra, evoked in their Ted Talk speeches the need for the teacher to prepare and equip the learner with the necessary tools that will help them emerge in the society to their full potentials, and adapt to real-life contexts. Referring to Tesia Marshik (2015), the teacher should be able to identify the student’s learning preferences -rather than learning styles- and build lessons accordingly, in order to cater for their learners’ specific needs. This means the teacher’s defined role should be to raise the learner’s self-esteem, promote his/her autonomy, extend learning beyond the classroom and involve practical experimental learning. They also suggest that the teacher should encourage risk-taking by the student who will be able to learn through discovery, trial, and failure, freedom of speech, and eventually develop and enhance critical thinking, inquisitive, and growth mindset in the learner. He should provide a variety of choices to the learner in terms of subjects, time frame, and goals. The teacher is encouraged to remain true to him or herself, assume his or her human nature in front of the students, and actually show that they can also do ordinary things like singing, may not have answers to all their questions, and would also like to learn from them and that there is no shame in being ignorant. However, the teacher should reserve the discretion to choose what or what not to reveal about him or herself in the course of teaching, because the idea here is to remain genuine, not to change the real self, but to limit exposure to the real self. This goes a long way to create the necessary rapport that will promote effective teaching and learning and produce tremendous results.
            Carol Dweck deplored the grading system that focused on result rather than progress and effort, and went further to include the promotion of equality as a key function of the teacher in the learning environment, where every talent is taken into consideration, not just the IQ criteria, and explained how 4th-grade student, on whom everyone had given up, became 1st in a 4th-grade contest in New York during a state Maths test in South Bronx, just because his effort was recognized. Sugata Mitra’s figures showed that in a Self-Organized Learning Environment (SOLEs) with the right attitude toward education and a change of mindset, it will be possible to transform the educational system in 10 years with 1 billion children, 100 million mediators, 10 million SOLEs and $180 billion. Azul Terronez requires the teacher to be attentive to details, be able to listen to the silence of the learner, and interpret the unspoken words. Moreover, in his methodology handbook, Jeremy Harmer (2010) proposes some key roles that a teacher should assume in the course of teaching. He sees the teacher as a prompter, an assessor, a resource person, a tutor, and a feedback provider. Someone who is available to satisfy the learner’s inquisitive mind, and provide support and guidance to help bring out and develop the natural gift buried in him or her, and to put it at the service of humanity.
           To conclude, I would say that in a nutshell, there has been a general call for drastic reforms in the educational system concerning the teacher’s role in the teaching process and his or her attitude toward the learner at various stages. It is obvious that the overall aim of every education has always been to perpetuate the cultural values of every people and above all to help the next generation find its way in a highly challenging society subjected to a very unpredictable future. From their experience, surveys, and research, great reformers of our times have demonstrated how the current traditional system of education has failed to give the power to the learner to decide on his or her own future, and also the power to the teacher to discern and design what best fits his or her specific learner within specific teaching and learning contexts. The main ideas that transcend all the others are the ability of the teacher to guarantee the learner’s autonomy in order to enhance and preserve their creativity, which will prepare them to meet their self-imposed life goals. Referring to Sugata Mitra’s definition of education, the teacher should be able to create a self-organizing environment “where learning is an emergent phenomenon”. They should maximize learning opportunities to help the students acquire basic skills, ensure social relevance and raise cultural consciousness for a better, healthier, and happier society.

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Alliterative, (n.d.), Class, classics, & the classroom: a short history of school Class, Classics, & the Classroom: A Short History of School - YouTube

Allwright, D. (2005). Developing principles for practitioner research: The Case of Exploratory Practice, The Modern Language Journal, vol. 89

Burns, A. (2010). Doing action research in english language teaching, Routledge

Culture and Recreation, (n.d.). Education When were the first schools established? - The Handy History Answer Book (papertrell.com)

Fenwick, A.,  A Reflective mindset – the secret to a better and longer life | Ali Fenwick | TEDxHultAshridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM1yPq0Q_MM

Harmer, J. (2010). How to teach English, (new edition). Pearson Education Limited, 23-30.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Post-method as critical pedagogy, Academia,171. (PDF) Kumaravadivelu 2003 Postmethod as critical pedagogy | Bala Kumaravadivelu - Academia.edu

Marshik, T., Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection | Tesia Marshik | TEDxUWLaCrosse (22) Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection | Tesia Marshik | TEDxUWLaCrosse - YouTube

Richards, J. C & Rigers, T. S. (1986, 2001).  Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.