What should teachers do at schools– teach students or subjects? Teaching subjects is one thing; teaching students another. An effective teaching – learning activity rests on two key requirements: efficient teachers and motivated students. However, this activity proves a tragic experience for a sympathetic and devoted teacher confronting demotivation from the students. It is only pure, passionate and potential-rich teachers that can overcome the demotivation of students to make them usefully willing and receptive for classroom activities.
Psychologists, educationists and thinkers hold that motivating students is a prerequisite for learning by them, underscoring its significance for successful and meaningful teaching-learning activities. Put simply, good learning is literally impossible unless students are enabled to pay attention. A motivated attitude makes individuals more likely to invest time and energy into learning activities. Benjamin Franklin has said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
This columnist’s twenty – year experience in the teaching field has taught me that readiness for learning — by students– is an engine for effective teaching. Willing students focus and cooperate. This climate makes classroom activities progress smoothly and yield a good crop for a teacher and students. Unwilling for learning, learners make the classroom performance of a teacher unhealthy and unproductive.
Also, it emotionally hurts a teacher of conscience. In his poem, “The last lesson of the afternoon”, by D. H. Lawrence, the teacher feels compelled to sit and wait for the bell: the hounds, his students, were unwilling to hunt the prey , learn. This frustrates the poet, forcing him to just wait for the bell so that he walks off.
Arguably, it was the last lesson of the afternoon when interest for studies mostly remained very low. But the years of experience substantially proves that unmotivated and unwilling students are just like the hounds in Lawrence’s case. Timing of teaching on a day does impact one’s learning interest. Learners mostly show signs of demotivation right from the first lesson of a day, a situation resulting from multiple factors, it must be admitted. Social, cultural, school, academic and family atmosphere — these all play a useful hand in making students willing or unwilling for studies.
The fact is that attention of students is imperative for learning a lesson. But when not ready and interested, students are very difficult to control which reduces classwork to a boring and dull exercise. Worse, the situation at times becomes unmanageable and a source of disillusionment for a well-intentioned teacher. Physical/verbal punishment– standing unlawful with respect to formal education– do not pay ultimately to discipline inattentive or problem- making students; nor are they the permanent mechanism to address the challenge.
Notably, imposing knowledge upon unwilling students hardly works: it does not take into account a student’s level of intelligence, age, previous knowledge of a lesson, social needs, academic needs, classroom context and aims of the lesson. True, such a situation exhausts a teacher while the communication ends in smoke. Worse, learning goals remain unmet and formal schooling ends up as an attendance – recording exercise and syllabus – finishing race.
Pertinently, coaching culture plays a major role in demotivating secondary level students for formal education at schools. When a student has learnt a lesson or is going to learn at a coaching centre, she/he comes up with little interest in learning the same lesson at school. 90% secondary students attend coaching centres before or after school.
Since coaching culture for academic classes suggests that all is not well with school – level academics, it is safe to say that the scenario can be reversed if teachers improve themselves regardless of the facilities available at schools. Undeniable, adequate infrastructure and compassionate adminstration are vital for successful and productive academic achievements at schools.
A demotivated teacher whose major priorities are other than teaching can never be a source of motivation for students. Teaching is a means and learning by students an end; teaching at schools is not a means to become leaders, lobbyists and traders. This situation badly hits the academic climate of a school at the expense of honest teaching and proves a strong factor in enrollment decline. Good news is there are several teachers whose priority is nothing other than teaching; such teachers, however, become victims of groupism, lobbyism and favouritism — both at schools and in administrative circles.
Teaching never attains its noble goals if students are not willing to receive a subject matter. To motivate students for their efficient learning, certain steps are necessary: one, a teacher must know the subject matter well. Two, a teacher her/himself must be stress-free and well motivated to deliver the subject matter. Three, a teacher must be in know of students’ needs, the subject aims, the classroom situation and the attention span of students. Lastly, a teacher must know that learning by students is the primary goal of schooling, not subject/syllabus finishing.
To sum up, teaching must aim at the students’ learning rather than become a subject- finishing exercise. When students learn well, schools become a seat of discipline, producing responsible and faithful citizens. In contrast, simply teaching a subject, not students, invites darkness and hopelessness. Teachers can create an engaging environment in the classroom provided they themselves remain motivated. Rewarding effort and good behavior of student’s births motivation for learning.
(Author is a teacher and RK columnist. Feedback: [email protected])
