THE EDITOR, Sir:KINDLY GRANT me some space in your very august newspaper to respond to the continued teacher-bashing which has become commonplace in our society today.
Let me hasten to say that I too am a teacher who works in the customer service front-line of our education sector where I get to interface daily with our clients. On any given day, we get to see, feel and experience first hand just how onerous a task it is to try and serve our clientele to the best of our ability. In the daily cut and thrust of carrying out our duties, we are faced with a myriad of problems that help to militate against us delivering quality service.
Some of the factors that work adversely against us include:
(a) The dirty, unkempt and dilapidated buildings in which and under which we have to work and ply our trade.
(b) The lack of certain basic infrastructural aids that are paramount in effecting true, wholesome and quality service in teaching and learning.
(c) The constant roadblocks that come in our way when we try to use initiative and enterprise to achieve goals which go against the beliefs and philosophies of the powers that be in our specific places of business.
(d) The lack of (in many instances) adequately trained superiors who can truly supervise and motivate us, the teacher practit-ioners, into the cutting edge and best practices involved in meeting the changing needs of our clients.
The teacher-practitioner today is, in my opinion, a much harder worker who (for the most part) has a larger client cohort to interface with. He or she has less prepared clients and, in general, share-holders whose agenda for social and economic mobility is not necessarily in concert with theirs.
I would like to implore the teacher-bashers, especially those in the media, to do a self-examination and see if their portrayal of the icons to be respected, admired and given 'big up', in any way clashes with the message that the teacher practitioner is mandated to deliver (to little avail) to his or her clients on a daily basis.
I would also ask that teacher-bashers take time out to offer their service to the schools with needs that are closest to them and work hand in hand with the overworked, overburdened and underpaid teacher-practitioners to make working on the front-line easier. Jamaica would indeed be grateful. Why curse the darkness while helping to hide the light under your bushels?
I am, etc.,
DAROLYN HENRY-CROSS
hdaro36@yahoo.com
