Process of Teaching Has Changed in Times of Covid-19, But the Role of Teacher Remains Same

A teacher is a symbol – a symbol of good, of truth, of purity, and of lifelong learning. Ancient India has revered teachers (Guru), heralding their status as that above the Almighty. The teacher is the ‘Param Brahma’ – beyond the Divine, the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer. A teacher creates ideas and ideals, preserves a sense of truth, justice and fairness, and destroys evil in both ‘mis’-intention and ‘mis’-deed.

The world in which we live is in a state of flux. It was impossible to have imagined, even a year ago, that over 1 billion children globally would be pushed out of schools in 2020.

The knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic closures was for schools to redesign their classrooms, allowing for children to learn from their homes. The most sought-after choice for this attempt at continued education being – digital.

Covid-19 has triggered an unprecedented use of technology in the teaching and learning process. While the teachers learned the technical and grappled with the logistics needs for delivering virtual learning, these online classrooms also opened a world of opportunities to re-imagine what learning could look like in the years to come. We are living through what we had anticipated was a distant future.

Though, with the passage of time, the process of teaching has changed, the role of the teacher has essentially remained the same – the facilitator of learning in the minds of the taught and a catalyst for the chemistry of knowledge in the cauldrons of intellect. Sir Ken Robinson, a visionary educator, had compared teachers to gardeners.

He had remarked, “Nobody else can make anybody else learn anything. You cannot make them. Any more than if you are a gardener you can make flowers grow – you don’t make the flowers grow. You don’t sit there and stick the petals on and put the leaves on and paint it. You don’t so that the flower grows itself. Your job if you are any good at it, is to provide the optimum conditions for it to do that, to allow it to grow itself.”

A wonderful analogy that rightly champions educators as facilitators of learning. A teacher stimulates the development of values, attitudes and beliefs in body and spirit. They are architects of the individual, the society, the nation and of humanity.

The UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st century has identified four pillars of learning:

1. Learning to know (acquisition of relevant knowledge)

2. Learning to do (prepare to contribute to economic development)

3. Learning to be (development of individual for self-reliance)

4. Learning to live together (to minimise social frictions)

The teacher in today’s world has to sow all these, and more, for future generations to reap excellence in tomorrow’s world. The role of the teacher can thus be thought of to be twofold. That of facilitating the discovery of knowledge – including acquiring knowledge and using it to contribute effectively to the community. And of transforming personality – including learning ways to care for one’s own self and self-reliance, whilst inclusive and empathetic.

Knowledge as a commodity is one that is expanding at an exponential rate. To be abreast with the latest and in know of the changing is therefore crucial as we forge on through this decade. Knowledge can be attained through books, periodicals, and journals, and nowadays most popularly on the information web accessible in our pocket phones.

To keep up, a teacher of this age must read and study constantly. They should be able not only to answer the numerous queries of inquisitive minds but also guide them to various resources available in each topic and help them validate the source of information for authenticity and credibility. Essentially, teachers of this age must teach to differentiate the essential from the necessary, the necessary from the useful and the useful from that worth disposal.

This sense of prioritisation of knowledge must be the backbone of today’s teaching philosophy, to truly utilise the abundance of information available at everyone’s fingertips. Teachers’ preparations thus need to be updated to include strategies that promote dialogical interaction and creative thinking.

While knowledge may be thought of as bricks with which the building of education is constructed, the building itself must have a structure and plan. This architectural plan is developed on the blueprint of peace, truth, non-conformity, and inclusion. The necessity of values education is more relevant today when the social frictions are at the highest. The society is fragmented in lines of caste, creed, nationality, religion, colours of skin, language, political affiliation, etc. The ability to respect another’s point of view and expand on one’s own, to think from multiple perspectives, and put oneself in different shoes are key areas which all teachers must emphasise.

The Covid-19 disruption, whilst tragic, may in the long run bring about a pending upheaval of the education sector. One that was much needed to get us all to rethink and reassess teaching and learning. We need to understand the skill sets that are taught by teachers and to what extent they empower the students for changing scenarios, adaptability, and lifelong learning.

A pertinent question raised today is around the appropriateness of the virtual mode of transaction. Especially at the primary school level where face-to-face interaction and the human-element to discovery is non-negotiable. Believably, hooking the child onto cartoons, at young ages does more harm than good. Educators and administrators must come together to work out important facets of imparting knowledge like accessibility, engagement, interaction, and play.

For more evolved learners, who may not have had a classroom as refuge for a long, long time, today is also a day to recognise the teachers in ourselves. As lifelong learners in an ever-changing world, it is critical that we empower ourselves to critically vet the information we consume and the ones we spread. We must pledge to educate ourselves to be our best learners and keep updated as we continue to evolve in ways to know, to do, to be, and to live together.

Today, let us celebrate the teachers around us.

This omnipresent, omniscient teacher must, to quote Tagore, “Keep the windows of the mind open” so as to ensure that all students “hold their head high with a mind without fear”.

The task, though difficult, is surely not impossible.

Dr Indrani Bhaduri is Professor of Education at NCERT, New Delhi. Dr Sreyoshi Bhaduri is Manager, Global People Research & Analytics, McGraw Hill, New York. Views expressed are personal.