Heed to me you traditional teachers. This time round I promise I will not be gentle with you because there are certain elements about you that agitate me. I want to jog your mind that a teacher is a parent to all students you handle. As you ponder on my argument, get the reminder of being a parent into your perception whether you have a child or not. Teachers are not police officers to an extend of being rough and acting mercilessly on their own students. Personally, I do respect teachers because they are a strong pillar in any state. That is why every teacher deserves a applause.
It torments me when teachers cannot have a friendly relationship with their students. The parents at home don’t yell at their children day in day out. There are days when a parent will sit down and listen to his/her children and they also correct with love. That creates bonding between the parents and the children.
Esteemed teachers, that is what students expect from you. How hell on earth can you be too harsh to your students and anticipate them to pass in their examination? Maybe you will not want to agree with me, but trust me for once, too much of it instills fear in your very own students. A genuine smile from a teacher creates a warm atmosphere for learners. Howling at the top of your voice at students cannot help anything, this in return makes students not to be at ease with you.
When a student has a warm relationship with the teacher, outstanding performance in academics is guaranteed. Maybe you will not agree because you are that traditional teacher who walks in class with a no nonsense looks. When the students see you they feel like vanishing in the thin air. You never see any substantial thing in that particular student. And oh! You have been calling him/her names. Sluggish and empty debe girl who doesn’t know why she is in school. Don’t be astonished those are words from a qualified teacher.
Just to pause a question to you dear mwalimu, who is to blame when a student fails in examination? Certainly you. You the teacher. But you call the student names when he/she fails forgetting that it is you who failed as a teacher. Accept your incapacity because a teacher is supposed to try all he/she can for a student to capture what you teach. If you realize there is a problem it is your duty to make a recommendation, maybe you could be dealing with a special child. And oh! Yes, you cannot run away from it. Anha, that is why mwalimu you went to college. And am exceedingly convinced that your lecturer did not tell you it is only the cane which does magic.
It is important to make your own assessment to ensure that the content was well delivered and stop blaming your students. You cannot police your learners in return instilling fear and the same time you are expecting them to perform well. Teachers it is high time that you stopped giving students negative reinforcement. How can you tell your student for instance, you are a good for nothing? Do ever ask yourself what you inculcate in the mind of that child?
Just ask yourself, why would a student run away from you when he/she meets you on the corridors? Probably your looks frighten. I thought a student should always want to be near his/her teacher. Imagine a situation where a teacher enters a class and in the process of teaching a student answers a question in a low voice. Then that traditional teacher asks, “Why the hell do you speak as if you did not take breakfast?” Suppose that student was Mike and in reality he did not take breakfast because his dad or mum is not able to put bread on the table. Now just ask yourself, what humiliation would you have caused that student?
Teachers you are supposed to be parents to students and treat them just as you would treat your own children. Stop seeing the worthless side of your students because some of them come from nasty families where family values have been eroded. They want somebody who can believe in them and that person is you the teacher. There are students who come to school wounded in their hearts because of sorrowful conditions at home. To worsen the situation, teachers cause these children more depression and you keep on wondering why that student cannot perform well. I read an article written by my associate about Butere Girls which runs without rules and prefects. The girls in that school don’t need a teacher to monitor them because of the discipline that has been instilled in them. I have once heard that a school is as good as the head teacher, today I am saying, a class is as good as the class teacher.
I am of the intuition that, if a student has a good relationship with the teacher she will work hard to perform well the subject that teacher teaches. In school I loved my Geography teacher and every time I wanted to do self-study, I would find myself studying that subject. She was a lovable teacher who corrected us with love and whenever I read Geography notes, her voice could echo in my mind.
In developed countries parents and teachers do not cane children. Children are deprived of their privileges like being denied a chance to play. If a child is denied something that he/she loves she will not have any other option but to listen.
Teachers should adopt other ways of pushing and relating with their students. Example, a student making noise in class would be asked not go to for breaks and instead stay in classroom during that time and write a composition. Traditional teachers, you need to style up.
Tag Archives: eximination
HOW FREE IS FREE?
Hold on! It is in uncountable setting that I have had this uncertainty. And I would like someone to cloudless expound to me the real meaning of a word in Oxford Dictionary which is not vivid enough to me in terms of its denotation. My scrutiny lie heavily in the word ‘free’ as used in Free Primary Education, commonly referred to as FPE. The ‘free’ in that version bring a lot of contradictions to many parents who have children in Public Primary Schools. These children in public primary schools are required to access education freely as stipulated in FPE policy. Children are considered to be anybody less than eighteen years of age, children (Act 2001).
Just to recollect the history of FPE it goes back to 1974 and later in 1979 when the Kenya Government launched the initiative.
That initiative was a new dawn for both parents and children.
The FPE initiative had innumerable challenges and collapsed only to be revived by NARK government in 2002 which was their campaign pledge for voters. In that case therefore, in January 2003 President Mwai Kibaki reintroduced the Free Primary Education.
The mystery still lingers, how free is free? It has been in many occasions when the parents have received their children back in their houses. It is for a fact that children have been taken back home asserting they have been sent to collect activity fee. The parents are required to pay the activity fee yearly pausing a question whether the government has exempted it? It is also comic that parents are required to pay other funds which amounts to a lot of money yearly. The schools which are understaffed employ teachers who are paid by the PTA that leading to emergence of PTA money. I also actualized that, a student who is a new comer is required to pay desk fee and admission fee. The same student is also required to pay money for interview which gives a hint the academic level of the learner.
In addition, there are schools where parents are required to pay other school bills like electricity which administrators allege it caters for cost of pumping water. Schools which are fortunate to have computers parents are required to pay computer fee and in other situations parents expected to buy photocopier papers. In most of Public Schools there are days where children are supposed to put on P.E kits uniform which is sold in the school store. These uniforms are overpriced. As that is not enough parents also pay report book money so as to access their children’s examination results.
And it will be imprecise to overlook the monthly examination fee. The examination is done monthly and in other occasions after a fortnight. If a child fails to pay that money he/she is not allowed in school premises leave alone the classroom. The parents are also asked to contribute money to pay the school watchman or the cook if there is a feeding program. Now the tuition issue that makes the Education Cabinet Secretary want to spit up. His directives have always fallen on deaf ears because children still pay money for remedial class.
Apart from wanting to really know what ‘free’ means in free Primary Education Policy, the initiative in question has faced many challenges. The increased enrollment in schools is demanding increment of physical facilities. The classes are crowded and the classroom teachers have to handle more than one hundred children in one classroom. The government should not leave the school administrators to go to bed having a disturbing migraine wondering where to place the children.
I wish ‘free’ would be free or alternatively have the word attached to another connotation altogether. Children from badly off families are not getting full access to their rights of education. If the government claims to be committed to providing Free Primary Education to Public Primary Schools, then it should be unconditionally free. The Cabinet Secretary of Education Jacob Kaimenyi put it incontrovertible that the government will be paying the National Examination fee for children in Public Schools. With that said, I reckon the government should take possession of full responsibility to pay all the examination money for children from lower primary to secondary school.
Let the parents be spared from the pressure of paying fees having in mind that many children in Public Schools come from poverty-stricken families. My esteemed government, it is a heyday for Kenyan children.
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