On Sun­day, T&T joined the rest of the world in cel­e­brat­ing World Teacher’s Day. Con­grat­u­la­tions to every­one who en­tered the teach­ing pro­fes­sion be­cause they re­al­ly want­ed to make a dif­fer­ence to guide, in­spire and shape young minds.

There was a time when teach­ing was a no­ble pro­fes­sion—when teach­ers were re­spect­ed, trust­ed and ad­mired for their ded­i­ca­tion.

A very long time ago, teach­ers were seen as lead­ers, ad­vis­ing stu­dents and their fam­i­lies, as­sist­ing en­tire com­mu­ni­ties in which they taught. They were the ones par­ents would ap­proach to help com­plete of­fi­cial doc­u­ments and sign pass­port forms. In rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, they were held in high es­teem. It meant some­thing to be a teacher.

Times have changed and to­day, teach­ing has be­come one of the most de­mand­ing pro­fes­sions and some­times even dan­ger­ous. The rise in school vi­o­lence has turned teach­ing in­to a high-risk pro­fes­sion. There have been too many cas­es where teach­ers are ver­bal­ly and even phys­i­cal­ly at­tacked by stu­dents and some­times by par­ents. There have been cas­es where teach­ers’ ve­hi­cles are van­dalised, where they feel threat­ened and un­com­fort­able around stu­dents. They have to deal with ag­gres­sive stu­dents, with stu­dents who are men­tal­ly un­sta­ble, who bring weapons to school, amongst oth­er things.

There is no sup­port sys­tem to check in on them when they feel anx­ious and un­pro­tect­ed in class­rooms—no, they are told that it is their job and that is what they are get­ting paid to do.

Yet, every day, the teach­ers who are tru­ly com­mit­ted go out and try to im­prove their stu­dents’ lives in a way that goes be­yond the class­room.

Many qui­et­ly buy lunch and snacks for stu­dents who come to school hun­gry; some pur­chase school sup­plies for stu­dents from dis­ad­van­taged homes and com­mu­ni­ties, know­ing that they will not be re­im­bursed.

Many spend their free time su­per­vis­ing ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, coach­ing sports, prepar­ing stu­dents for de­bates and mu­sic fes­ti­vals, etc. They are ex­pect­ed to be coun­sel­lors, men­tors and some­times even parental fig­ures.

For the lit­tle boy whose fa­ther is in jail and moth­er works long hours, his teacher is the one who guides him along and keeps him ground­ed. The teenag­er who dreams of a bet­ter life de­pends on his teacher for en­cour­age­ment and di­rec­tion be­cause his par­ents are ab­sent from his life, and his el­der­ly grand­par­ents sim­ply don’t know how to help him. These are the teach­ers who keep our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem alive, who turn class­rooms in­to dream rooms, where they are re­mind­ed that they can rise above their sit­u­a­tion.

While many teach­ers are com­mit­ted to their stu­dents, there are al­so those who have lost their sense of pur­pose or nev­er had it in the first place.

Some wan­dered in­to teach­ing be­cause it was a se­cure job that pays the bills, not be­cause they felt called to ed­u­cate or in­spire. There are many teach­ers who ‘work the sys­tem,’ do­ing bare­ly enough to get by and those who go to school to “sign and leave.”

In some cas­es, de­pend­ing on the school en­vi­ron­ment, teach­ers have giv­en up en­tire­ly, con­vinced that “those chil­dren not go­ing to pass any­way”.

We can­not de­ny that there are ed­u­ca­tors who take out their own emo­tion­al frus­tra­tions on stu­dents, who show favouritism, dis­crim­i­nate or are just too in­dif­fer­ent or lazy to do their jobs. Too of­ten, teach­ers turn stu­dents off from learn­ing al­to­geth­er be­cause they don’t put the ef­fort in­to mak­ing their class­es in­ter­est­ing or ac­com­mo­dat­ing.

While we cel­e­brate our teach­ers, we al­so need to ask what can be done to make teach­ing a no­ble ca­reer once again. If we tru­ly want to raise the stan­dard of teach­ing in T&T, we need to start by re­vis­it­ing the cri­te­ria for teach­ing. It has to be more than just aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions. All po­ten­tial can­di­dates for all schools should be re­quired to have a cer­tifi­cate of good char­ac­ter. The in­ter­view process should in­clude prac­ti­cal teach­ing demon­stra­tions.

In T&T, too many teach­ers were hired be­cause of ‘who they know,’ across de­nom­i­na­tion­al and gov­ern­ment schools. We have to stop this thing where “if you know the right peo­ple” you can be­come a teacher.

Can­di­dates need to prove that they can func­tion in a class­room. This is es­pe­cial­ly nec­es­sary for those who teach chil­dren with spe­cial needs—a de­gree doesn’t mean you can teach.

Fur­ther­more, there should be on­go­ing train­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion of all teach­ers, across the board. It can­not be where once some­one en­ters the teach­ing ser­vice, they re­main there for life re­gard­less of their per­for­mance or com­mit­ment. Pro­fes­sion­al growth must be con­tin­u­ous, through peer teach­ing, skills de­vel­op­ment and men­tor­ships, so that teach­ers re­main in­spired and ef­fec­tive in a world where younger gen­er­a­tions think and learn dif­fer­ent­ly.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, im­prov­ing the teach­ing ser­vice re­quires a cul­tur­al shift where teach­ers have op­por­tu­ni­ties to gain ex­pe­ri­ence and de­vel­op, just as they ex­pect their chil­dren to do

Stu­dents need to look up to their teach­ers. That be­comes im­pos­si­ble when “sir” is caught with mar­i­jua­na in school or when “miss” walks in­to the class­room an­gry be­cause she has re­la­tion­ship prob­lems and takes her frus­tra­tion out on the class. As Hen­ry Adams said, “A teacher af­fects eter­ni­ty; he can nev­er tell where his in­flu­ence stops.”

We must en­sure that that in­flu­ence is al­ways a pos­i­tive on.