The dilemma our educators face

IT is indeed true that if a learner is immersed in his/her learning environment and is cre­atively involved, then real learning occurs.

Today’s language educators in our primary and secondary classrooms are often faced with the dilemma to make or not to make noise in their classrooms.

It reminds one of Shakespeare’s philosophi­cal dilemma in Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be …”.

Like always, we have annually a round of Principals Annual Conference and Head Teachers Conference and speeches laced with quotes that support a student-centred learn­ing philosophy, delivering stronger youth leaders, an intelligent and creative youth workforce and better academic results .

The pressing question is, are these princi­pals and head teachers, administrative heads, speaking the same language as their teachers back in their schools?

What exactly is really happening in our classrooms?

OHS policy

Many education stakeholders are not aware or most are deliberately ignorant of what re­ally is going on in our classrooms today.

Firstly under the guise or fear of Occupa­tional Health and Safety (OHS), our children, Fiji’s children are not getting the education they rightly deserve.

Take a walk into any primary and second­ary school today and critically observe the school culture.

Classrooms which should be full of children eagerly learning, communicating, laughing, working in groups, learning or practising dra­ma and role-play under the trees, debating or taking part in impromptu oral skill based ac­tivities in the hall or in the fresh air outside are not the norm but an exception in Fiji’s classrooms today.

Now ask yourselves one pertinent question. Why do all these classrooms all look and feel the same?

Why the sad silence? This question begs to be answered.

Majority of the classrooms are now artifi­cial constructs with zombie like students and robotic teachers who adhere to the dictates of their principals and head teachers. Why do all these teachers not practise what they are trained for at university and in teacher train­ing colleges?

The OHS policy has to be followed at any cost. For every principal and head teacher, OHS is bigger and more powerful than our very own constitution.

What exactly is priority for majority of these academic school heads? It is only disci­pline and class control. This is the very man­tra that they all recite daily.

Discipline at any cost. Class control is es­sential to being a good teacher. No academic leader deems it important to question how this fear of compliance is affecting the emo­tional and psychological health of our chil­dren, our learners in this nation.

If a language teacher is teaching drama or poetry or teaching phonetics or reading skills, the law has to be followed. Absolutely no noise must come from that classroom.

If students burst out laughing or are discuss­ing and excited and involved in the learning process especially in English language or lit­erature classes, then immediately the teacher is deemed as a “weak”, “not good” teacher at all because this teacher has poor class control or poor class management.

One will often find that the head teacher or the principal or another head will quickly jump to douse the fire of learning taking place.

He/she will reprimand the teacher who is ac­tually doing what he/she was trained for in the first place.

The teacher will be warned not to create noise or disturbance or else.

The threat hangs over their heads and their careers. Is that what all classrooms are meant to be?

Is this what teachers are trained for at uni­versity? In reality, it is only in classrooms as such where real learning is taking place.

It is teachers like these who need to be com­mended for showing courage and implement­ing the lesson in a creative and life giving manner.

Instead of being punished and humiliated, we must rally behind such dynamic teach­ers and reward them because they teach from their conscience and not out of fear.

OHS Act: Not implemented correctly

Where in the OHS Act does it state that stu­dents are not allowed to communicate and dis­cuss their subject content with their peers and teachers who are subject specialists?

Does it not seem like some academic heads have misunderstood the very purpose of OHS policy.

Let us look at the definition of “noise”. This is the most commonly used word by academic heads of schools in Fiji today.

Noise according to the Oxford diction­ary means anything that causes an ob­stacle or disturbance.

A sound that emanates from the func­tioning of an apparatus, a factory or a plane flying overhead can be classified as noise.

Why then are students in the class­room who engage in the human commu­nication mode classified as noisy?

Why is human communication in a learning environment classified always as noise?

How else will they learn if they do not speak their minds with their peers and their teachers in the learning process?

This culture of silence, of obedience and total compliance has to be chal­lenged. Schools were meant to be places of learning.

Real learning only takes place when learners are given a free space to articu­late their doubts, their concerns, their joy and their skills.

Fiji’s schools have been transformed into military zones with classrooms looking and feeling more like graveyards and teachers doing graveyard shifts with content-heavy curriculums and jam-packed classrooms.

When you put many live chickens and ducks in small coops, like the many we see on our roadsides, aren’t they all screeching and looking shocked and scared in the hot sun.

We view this animal cruelty daily in our lives.

What about the torture our children and young adults go through each day in cramped, hot, crowded classrooms.

They are not even allowed to go outside in the field with their teachers to learn, are not allowed to run and feel free during their breaks, are not allowed to even talk, communicate in groups or make any kind of “noise” in the classroom or else the teacher will be reprimanded by the Aca­demic heads.

Primary school students are not al­lowed to run and play during any break. What kind of physical development are we giving them?

All that they do whole day is write co­pious notes and some don’t even go out for P.E. regularly since majority of the teachers are busy trying to complete the heavy curriculum and do not take physi­cal exercise seriously at all.

Is there any wonder why there has been a rise in bullying and violence in our schools?

Why are we witnessing a surge in suicides?

When schools become more like prisons, alienating and superficial with trained teachers becoming passive and parroting discipline instead of content knowledge, then no wonder our children are finding solace in social media and their phones.

At least here they have space to be them­selves, to be heard, to be respected for their ideas.

Is it the fault of these children and young adults who are not allowed to exer­cise their limbs and bodies naturally?

Where will our children vent out all their excitement and energy if not in the grounds outside since classrooms have be­come places of taboo and silence. Even this they are denied.

Why are our teachers and their heads so enslaved to the OHS Act and policy that they dare not question its validity and weaknesses in the overall development of our children and young adults?

No teacher or their head is willing to risk being caught breaking the OHS policy.

As a result, today’s trained graduates, out of university do not go to schools and their classrooms to teach.

They go to police and maintain class control and discipline.

Coming down to secondary schools, these are no different from the scenario given in primary classrooms.

Language teachers find it very challeng­ing to teach the different genres of litera­ture; drama, poetry, novel and short sto­ries as well as varieties of English.

They are not allowed to take forms three-seven students outside of the classroom when they want to use creative teaching methodologies.

This is because of the compliance factor in relation to OHS.

They have to be accompanied by an as­sistant teacher to do so.

Was the OHS policy made for the stu­dents welfare or is it a rigid dead docu­ment that people keep whipping into life for their own purposes?

So what kind of learning is really taking place in these classrooms?

What kind of teachers are being promot­ed in the school system?

Those that toe the line and have learnt parroting skills and maintain silence and discipline in their classes always?

Where are the educators who were once creative, dynamic, energetic, full of life and humour and took an oath to teach with passion, love and care and impart a real, life giving curriculum which gave meaning and happiness to each child?

At university, language educators are trained in many philosophical approaches.

Some of these include ESL teach­ing strategies, communicative language teaching approach and affective-humanis­tic approach.

CLT is based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through hav­ing to communicate real meaning.

When learners are involved in real com­munication (should not be classified as noise) their natural strategies for lan­guage acquisition will be used and this will allow them to use the language effectively at all levels.

Lessons should be learner-centred and focussed on skill development.

The OHS policy actually stops the teachers from teaching as they are trained in their language undergraduate courses.

The affective-humanistic approach en­courages teaching methodologies based on the principle that the whole being, emo­tional and social needs to be engaged in the learning process, not just the mind.

It emphasises the personal worth of the individual and the importance of creative and dynamic teaching methods to increase the critical awareness of human values in learners.

When we put all our students in straight jackets and expect them to maintain si­lence at all times, we are creating a soci­ety, a nation full of young belligerents who will lack dynamism, creativity and criti­cal thinking skills.

They will reflect in decades to come the rigid education they have received now.

As we sow in our classrooms, so shall we reap in our communities and nation later.

Let us give back to our children their much deserved rights to learn in open, free, creative spaces where schools will be full of the chatter of our future leaders.

They won’t look and feel like hospi­tal wards, courtrooms or graveyards any more.

Let us take back our classrooms and transform them today for this is all that our children ask of us.

Academic leaders who cannot transform themselves and accept that their main mission is to build their learners through the best teaching practices which involve the learner and not a retarded OHS policy document, ought to be given the “boot”.

Like the queen in Alice in Wonderland used to say – “Off with the Head”!’

Teachers have to get creative and find ways to pique their students’ interest.

* Regina Naidu is a senior lecturer in the Department of Literature and Language in SCLL, CHE, Fiji National University. Her research interests include vernacu­lar education, language education, ESL teaching contexts, gender education, diasporic literature and studies and cor­pus linguistics. The views expressed in this article do not represent that of her employer or this newspaper.