Do teachers in Guyana matter?

Oct 04, 2008 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
If the theme of this year’s World Teachers’ Day celebrations was true in any way, then the teachers of our world and more particularly Guyana would be very happy people today.

Only two words—two very heavy words—formulate this year’s theme: ‘Teachers Matter!’ with a loud exclamation point at the end.

It seems to me that whoever coined the theme wanted to get a simple message across—that our teachers matter! Sunday, October 5 is World Teachers’ Day.

The overall theme that reoccurs each year since 2006 has been ‘Quality Teachers for Quality Education’ with changing sub- themes each year.

I want each of you to ask yourself the question: do teachers really matter? Of course, we do. I am writing this letter not only as a citizen of Guyana but as a teacher and I am very disappointed to say that the way our government treats teachers just goes to show how much we matter in this country.

I am further disappointed and shocked in the way parents treat the teachers of their children. Society has not been good to the group of people who hold true to this noble profession.

Teachers are not safe anymore where they work. The school grounds have become dangerous grounds for working teachers.

Cases where strangers invade the teacher’s sanctum, even the classroom, have been rampant in our society over the past years. Do teachers matter?

Teachers are burdened with cumbersome loads of paperwork especially at the end of the school term. Paperwork that will send someone crazy bombards teachers every single working day. All this and then they still have to teach the nation’s children. Do teachers matter?

Six thousand dollars each year to buy working clothes: for the males, a shirt, a pants, a pair of decent shoes; for the females: a blouse, a skirt or pants- suit and a pair of decent working shoes.

Have teachers become magicians—that we have to now work magic to stretch six thousand dollars each January to purchase these items, plus VAT?

What a gross insult to the intellect of our teachers? Do teachers still matter? Teachers work in some of the most challenging conditions in our public schools—from shaky school buildings to no running water. Do we matter?

The cost of living is murdering teachers in Guyana yet we are some of the poorest paid employees in the public sector.

As some of my colleagues say, “The salary ain’t even pay yet and it done already”. The salaries vanish as quickly as they are paid in the hands of our teachers. And yet the theme states that we matter?

The authorities are constantly on teachers’ backs to get this and get that done. Demands are being made on teachers: getting to work on time, going to time- tabled classes on time, being regular, teaching effectively in the classroom, conducting regular assessments of students, and completing the bundle loads of paperwork during the term and at the end of the term.

And woe, be unto them if they don’t! Why is there so much paperwork? Why is our education system so overloaded with the tons upon tons of paperwork?

Why is there so much emphasis on the paperwork and record keeping, when in fact, the real focus should be on the actual teaching of the children?

Yet, as we say in Guyana, what thanks do we get as teachers— parents coming into the schools to curse down teachers, parents waiting for teachers on the roads with sticks and cutlasses to beat them up. Even our own students are beating us up. How shameful.

With all those duties to be carried out by the teacher, we have now been assigned the tasks of being judge, jury and executioner.

As I’ve mentioned sometime back in these columns, parents seem to have handed all responsibilities of their children to the teachers. The school has been proverbially described as a day care centre.

Teachers, every single day, have to deal with students’ matters, disciplinary problems and issues relating to their well- being—matters and issues parents should’ve been involved in.

The other day, I telephoned a parent informing her that her child was involved in fondling Grade Seven girls.
That same parent, having already visited the school that same week, shouted atop of her voice, “Ayo try see wha ayo go do wid he, me na able na more.” I rested the receiver down in shock. I’ve heard parents giving up on their children before, but here I was witnessing it firsthand.

That parent, obviously confused and distraught at the behaviours of her recalcitrant son, had given up and shirked her responsibilities.  What she expected me as a teacher to do, that she couldn’t, boggled my mind that entire day.

What parents expect us teachers to do when they themselves have given up on their children? How our parents have lost faith in their children! Our parents do not even attend PTA meetings nowadays.

We had thirty parents the other day at a General PTA Meeting in a school of over five- hundred parents. And they were mostly Grade Seven (First Form) parents. Where were the rest? Do they even consider the welfare of their children? What a shame. And they’re telling us that teachers matter?!

One working day of a teacher can indeed be taxing and a pain in the derrière. I have stated all the work involved in one working day in this letter including the actual teaching that is done.

Teachers must not be treated like donkeys—this must stop! The parents aren’t making things easier.
Even those in authority are not making things easier. We must remunerate teachers commensurately to the average workload that they carry each day.

Reward us for every working minute we spend beyond working hours. It all comes back to money—the salaries that are paid. It’s not practical especially to the current economic crises we face in Guyana and in the world.

Treat teachers better and then you will see them perform. Prove to them that they really matter. Let mere words be turned into action. After all, without teachers, there’d be no other group of workers.

There’d be no working population without teachers—no nurses, doctors, judges, magistrates, managers, computer geniuses, media moguls, politicians, 100K- earning businessmen. The cycle of life as we know it would come to an abrupt halt without teachers.

This government is blatantly putting the cart before the horse. They are building new schools, yes, and making text books and computers available.

But they are not looking after teachers’ interests. Invest the right way! Invest in our teachers! Then invest in the school buildings and give text books and computers.

The theme of this year’s World Teachers’ Day seems to apply to teachers everywhere except in Guyana. If we had mattered, then life for teachers would’ve been completely different.
Leon Jameson Suseran

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