It was early morning, I reached the venue of the training program. I along with two other facilitators sat in the office. Principal queried that what the training is about? The gentleman sitting beside me replied “ Madam, the writing quality of the teacher on the blackboard has declined and we would teach them to improve the writing quality. The teacher needs to have good writing on the board.” It was the venue for the training for early literacy. Some 250 teachers were expected to come, hardly 50 teachers turned to attend it. Two facilitators were retained to deliver a lecture to the teachers on early literacy as the venue has no facility for the use audio-video aids. The gentleman and one of his friend left the venue in few hours after signing few documents. I believe, he might have received the cheque for his appearance at the venue.Everybody involved with this training program have one question in common, what this training is about?
This was the state of affairs of teachers training programme in the CAPITAL of India.
The government school run by the government of Delhi is experiencing a lot of change these days. The implementation of the programme of learning manager is the one which is going to set a new milestone in the field of teacher professional development.
The Background
The department has the input that the In-service teacher training programmes are not satisfactory and so they want to address the need of the training at the grass root level.They are enabling a teacher( Learning manager) from within the school to address the training need of the teachers. The LMs would also assess the specific need of a teacher or a group of teachers for training and if it could not be addressed at the school level the LM can place the request before the SCERT to address the training need. So, in brief, the training of the teachers would be now demand based not the one imposed from the above.
In the continuation of this idea, the department has appointed a mentor teacher for every five schools The Mentor teachers would go through intensive training and they would be exposed to the best practices in education here in India and in abroad. The LMs along with the Mentor teachers would address most of the training needs of the teachers.
What is the work of LM?
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- Teacher assessment – for development
- Learning needs assessments
- Organizing specific facilitator led experiential learning programs based on learning needs assessed
- Enable teachers to learn from other teachers
- Curating learning material – supporting videos, readings
The Work and Findings
The Challenge Of Finding Time
The biggest challenge I faced as an LM to find the time for the work related to teacher development programme. The school has a very complex time schedule. Different organisations and different subjects are in a contest to find its place in the school curriculum. School always tries to accommodate the diverse knowledge facilitated by a different organisation and different discipline. The idea of time and space for teachers professional development is alien in the school. We tried to do it in the free period of the teachers. We faced two kind challenge. One; all the teachers of a particular subject group doesn’t have a common free period. Two; teachers could find it as an encroachment to a bit time available to them for taking a deep breath. Our school timing is 7;45a.m to 2.15p.m. We modified it a bit and called a particular group at 7;30a.m to attend the session. We conduct the session from 7;30a.m to 8;30a.m. the morning assembly is held from 8 to 8;20 and students returns to their respective classes by 8;30. We finish the session and teachers go to the classes.
What do we do in the sessions with the teachers?
Basically, it is a sharing session. We sit together and share our experience and challenges. The sharing is guided through certain questions. Some of the questions we ponder about are.
- Challenges we face
- The idea of a dream school
- Why our school is not as effective?
- How do we learn?
- Anything that we have learned recently?
- Anything that we couldn’t learn and what went wrong in our learning?
- Who is my inspiration? What is his/her quality
- Favourite teacher? Why is a particular teacher, my favourite teacher?
A sample of how we do it
We discussed ‘Reframing our roles’ and the discussion began with the challenges teachers face. Each teacher was asked to think of a challenge and share it. They shared the challenges they face. Some of the challenges they observed are the following
1) Students don’t know how to read and write even in higher classes. How to deal with such children?
2) The challenge of irregularities; students often remain absent from the school and this makes our work less effective.
3) Backgrounds of the children are very disturbing.
4) Parents don’t support us
5) Compulsion of syllabus completion
6) We are judged by the results of the students, etc.
Who is responsible for it?
A range of answer came which includes the no detention policy, no punishment, so on and so forth. I was surprised to see that in the last the consensus was that teacher is responsible for most of the challenges.
What can you do?
The amazing scene was there. Everybody was finding the solutions and citing their examples. They agreed in the last that love for the children is the solution to most of the problems. This was really phenomenal we were not instructing rather they came with this finding. In the last when we came to reframe the challenge, the frame was changed; now the new frame has many solutions rather than the challenges.
Conclusion
The study would reveal the hidden potentiality of school as a resource hub for teachers. The empowered teacher would empower the students. The study would add a new chapter in the field of teacher professional development. Finding out a formal space for the teacher’s professional development is a unique initiative in the government school of Delhi. The space of discussion provides an opportunity to the teachers to speak without the fear of being judged by higher authority. In one of the sessions, an economics PGT (Post-Graduate Teacher) shared that she has been promoted after two decades of her Masters in Economics. She has forgotten most of the concepts now she needs training. Training like a child where one can start from the beginning. She also shared that she cannot share the same thing in a large group. She would not like an outsider to know that she doesn’t know the basics of Economics. However, she has no hesitation in accepting the same in a small group inside her own school where the facilitator is her colleague. This anecdote narrates the importance of this programme.
Note- This is the ongoing work, many more stories to come from different LMs working in their respective schools.
http://reflectivediary.com/the-dilemma-of-being-a-teacher/
http://reflectivediary.com/no-detention-policy-ndp-a-wider-perspective/
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