Many teachers come into the profession with great ideals about what it means to be a teacher. While many find great satisfaction being in the line, many emerge from the trenches of teaching in schools, shell shocked or even mortally wounded.

Teaching in schools has all too often been reduced largely to getting students to jump over academic hoops which get higher each year. In addition to these academic hoops, teachers are expected to meet the commercialized expectations of principals and parents. Many teachers soon find that much of the ideals of the teaching profession have become subordinated to the commercial KPIs set by school principals and parents who have been fed the idea that education is mainly about getting stellar academic results.

The mad chase after these KPIs have resulted in stressed out teachers, students and parents. In Singapore, there is a rising number of students who have been diagnosed with mental problems with the emphasis in doing well in high stakes school examinations being the number one cause of these problems. Many still have chosen to opt out by their “unconscious yet voluntary’ non-participation in these academic activities through missing school or being simply “disruptive” or “not putting in the effort”. Yet, we all believe that education should make us better.

If education is truly to be a better experience for all of us, then perhaps education should be repositioned as being part of the wellness movement where all who are connected with it, will be in the best of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health. The teacher’s position is redefined as someone who makes everyone he or she comes into contact with, healthy. The teachers nourishes all “the sick”, back to health and grows the already “well” to become even healthier in mind, body and spirit. In doing so, the teacher, stays well too rather than become broken or maimed. This is simply because what is done will be more consistent with the ideals of being a teacher rather than just being the producer of economic units that the teacher is generally regarded as today.

With the arrival of Windows 7, there is a rush to buy the new operating system from Bill Gates’ Microsoft. I know, I know. It is supposed to be pretty good this time round as compared to Windows Vista. But I still won’t jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon as I still have my trusty, and very safe if I may add, Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Switching to Ubuntu has meant that I have saved a lot of money. I save money not just from not having to pay for an operating system but also for all the applications that I need to get any work done. I don’t have to cough up a bundle or use illegal software to penny-pinch. I still get my usual Office suite for the usual computer-related office tasks. I still get to surf the Net, email, chat and tweet. I also get to do serious photo editing without having to buy Photoshop. I get to do all these legally without paying a cent and a lot less fear of virus attacks!

Today, schools should seriously consider going this route. I have written about this before but with the rise of cloud computing schools should even more seriously go the free route in their quest for ICT use in education. There are lots of free apps available to the teacher.

Schools that face serious budget constraints can go the Open Source route that I have done and turn to cloud computing and other web-based apps for teaching and learning. Even if you use a proprietary system like Windows or Apple’s Macintosh, free apps can be found to not only allow you to do the usual word processing and spreadsheet work but also more sophisticated learning platforms, the latest of which and much on people’s minds (mine too) is Google Wave. All you need is Web connectivity and that shouldn’t be a problem for you or you wouldn’t be reading this.

Cloud computing also means that schools will not have to purchase Office suites too. Sophisticated learning platforms can be had for free. All you need is just server space which is not very expensive. Give it a shot and if you really have no idea where to begin to get your free apps fixes, I recommend that you visit ZaidLearn. Zaid‘s crazy about free software and he has been most helpful in compiling them all on his blog. Take a look at it and you will find yourself all the happier from it.

Most young children are naturally curious and highly imaginative… after children have attended school for a while, they become more cautious and less innovative….Unfortunately it is necessary to conclude from the investigations of many scholars that our schools are the major culprits. Teachers, peers, and the educational system as a whole all diminish children’s urge to express their creative possibilities.

~Dacey & Lennon, 1998

It seems from the quote above, schools dull the minds of our children. To be sure, the demand for control is necessary in schools. Teachers cannot teach if the class is out of control. But then again I believe it is a problem only if we define control as conformity and obedience, which unfortunately, is all too often what is demanded in the classrooms.

Today, we prefer to call it “classroom management” or “class management”. It is not impossible to manage a class in a way that allows for students to show independence. I think one underutilized tool is to use reasoning. All too often that conformity and obedience is seen by students as just a disciplinary issue. Making an effort to reason with the students and coming to a common understanding with the students helps students to take responsibility for what happens in the class.

Taking responsibility implies a choice of options.  It involves decision-making practice. When students are given time and opportunities to make good decisions about their environment, there is less of a that feeling of having to always conform and be obedient to a higher authority, no matter how irrational the latter may seem to be. Besides getting them to discuss and come to a mutually agreeable decision, especially in a non-threatening environment, almost surely will bring about better compliance to whatever that has been agreed upon.

Teachers must be willing to engage their students in a dialog. A dialog would involve questions and answers. Such engagement will encourage students to speak and ask questions. It will not stifle their natural curiosity to question, probe, even test boundaries.

Another important reason why schools dull the minds of the young is the manner that teaching and learning is done. We know of studies which show that most of the questions asked in the classroom is asked by the teachers themselves. The teachers also answer most of their questions. This too depends on whether the teachers give students enough time to think about asking questions. The demands of high stakes testing or examinations usually mean that the “coverage” of the syllabus is foremost on the teachers minds.This usually mean traditional teacher talk (and question).

Furthermore, in such systems the only things that are worth teaching are what will be asked in the tests or examinations. How intellectually exciting and stimulating can this be? How do we fire up the neurons in the students brains so that they go whizzing at high speed if all they ever learn is what will appear in the examinations. Nothing explodes in their head. No “Aha! moment” except maybe “so that’s how you answer this question”. Exploration, experimenting, going off track are not encouraged. There is simply no time for all that. No time for meaningful questions. They are not measured anyway as required KPIs of schools. If they are not measured, then they are also deemed unimportant. Therefore, a move away from examinations or test oriented teaching will go a long way towards removing the clouds of dullness from the classrooms. Let curiosity be an important reason for learning again.