The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi
PEOPLE often make a popular belief that education warehouses the finest thinkers. The irony in this perception and belief is unbelievable. It can be quite a dangerous assumption to make.
Thoughtfully analyse some of the ideas, perceptions and beliefs that come out of this sector of national development from time to time. You will be knocked for six. The coming up with a new curriculum itself was realisation that transformation of mindsets and ideas is necessary for progressive thinkers.
This week, allow me to share with you one popular perception in schools which when you critically analyse is a serious abortion of the truth . . . and people are taking too long to look at differently and change.
How many times have you heard school heads, media reporters, parents even, saying, “Teacher so-and-so made 40, 50, 100 As in a particular subject nowadays fashionably called learning area, in a particular examination?” The super-man or woman is showered with praises and accolades, some clinching trophies or shields of achievement. Those that can afford it give their pedagogic saints prize-money equivalent to or more than their bonus salary.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with incentivising hard-workers . . . and rewarding outstanding performance. But is it fair, let alone correct, to give credit to one end-teacher for outstanding performance achieved after a team of teachers handed over a group of learners to the next? Can we celebrate a thought process that awards the final-lap runner in a relay race in which a team or group participated? Of course goal scorers enjoy the loudest part of the glory of winning a football game, but thinking critics know that if nobody gave the scorer no ball, he would have nothing to score. He shines because there is the sun somewhere that radiates . . . that conveys the light. All objects that shine would not shine if the sun refused with its light. Even the eyes we have are blind . . . they do not see anything until the sun supplies the light. Thinking commentators or analysts know that its teams that win games, not individuals. You need fellow players who defend your goal post . . . who work for the ball, get it and supply it to you to score. Its positions and roles that vary, but the game is one; and when victory comes, it is the team’s victory not the scorer’s alone.
A school or college staffed by educationists who are thinkers and masters of intellectual enquiry should be the last place to practice the one-teacher-makes-the-As joke. It is a grossly irregular assessment of achievement. No one teacher is accountable to the success . . . even failure of a group of learners. It simply does not make sense. Every teacher at each stage of a child’s learning, even as elementary as ECD and primary school, makes significant input in the development of a child’s Intelligence quotients and end result.
Even in the military, credit of triumph at war or a particular battle goes to the whole section or battalion. Soldiers celebrate the victory of the whole unit, not a single lieutenant, captain or commander.
Education best-practice analysts talk about ‘‘team work’’, ‘‘team-building’’. This is recognition of the efficacy of working together for a common goal. You hear this rhetoric in every big and small workshop . . . every staff development meeting. When you hear this you want to say, “Here we are now, in the hands of people who understand education and how the best out of it can be achieved!”
The next day what do you see or hear? The same team-work theorists or philosophers announce the best teachers who seemingly determined the school pass rate alone. They hand over merit awards to one teacher . . . even if he joined the school last term. Is it not interesting? You want to mellow down your language, do you not, if you are analysing unreasonable thinkers or what Charles Mungoshi would call ‘‘intellectuals without intelligence?’’ The one-teacher-makes-all-the-As joke is extremely interesting, is it not, if ridiculous, crazy, ludicrous and preposterous are too strong?
Merit awards for some teachers, namely the end-teachers, and not the rest who nurtured the same achievers in previous classes, is certainly a devastating disincentive. The good-will teacher will appreciate the recognition of the ‘‘best’’ teacher and be happy for his or her colleague, but develops a natural lump on the throat for establishment not recognising his or her own effort. Some openly hate the whole best-teacher celebrations and dismiss them as typical dog’s breakfast. And can you blame them?
How does it happen that Mr So and So produced 149 As in English Language this year!” How did he? Single-handed? Where did the efforts of the previous teachers go; some far better . . . more competent than he is?” This world is strange, is it not? Very strange! Some of these As are not even made in their schools, but far away in the private offices and private homes of private tutors.
If I had my way, and I know that way I do not have, I would completely change the one-man-gets-all-credit mentality in schools. I would sanctify the justice of collective achievement enshrined in the common education best-practice adage of ‘‘Nothing works better than team work,’’ and stick to it.
Teaching is not a solitary journey.
