It is not easy to find a reason to honor the teaching profession with a special day — Teachers’ Day is celebrated in the Chinese cultural world on Sept. 28, the assumed birthday of Confucius — just as there is little reason to honor, for instance, shopkeepers or shoemakers in such a way.
Most professions are equally important in a modern, differentiated society which relies on the division of labor.
However, while people might think that teachers will always be needed, it is easier to imagine a world without shoemakers and shopkeepers in the future, because of advanced means of production and distribution.
Pedagogues have the irreplaceable task of inspiring young people and guiding them to become better in whatever they do, thereby helping to enrich society — although this can be said about other professions as well.
However, there are several recent trends in education which might cast some doubts on the future demand of pedagogues, especially in Taiwan.
For example, teaching based solely on textbooks — a common practice in Taiwan — does not really require pedagogical skills. Nearly any advanced student from the relevant field could teach on the basis of a textbook that provides an all-inclusive teaching menu waiting to be applied.
Online teaching is another candidate contributing to the marginalization of the teaching profession; minimal contact between teacher and student is the raison d’etre of such a teaching method.
Yet the greatest danger regarding the disempowerment of the teaching profession comes from a very different source, at least in Taiwan. It comes from a gradual shift of responsibility from teacher to student for content and quality of teaching, resulting from changing demographic realities.
The next few years will be crucial for the survival of educational institutions in the nation, because the country is running out of students who would fill both classrooms and the bank accounts of local schools.
The financial situation is particularly difficult for private colleges. Most of them wish to survive without having to resort to painful layoffs of their personnel due to shrinking numbers of students.
However, to realize such a goal, they are reorienting their educational policies in line with business considerations designed to attract an adequate share of the diminishing supply.
An unavoidable consequence of such policy is that financial concerns suffocate educational domains.
Simple economics holds that if goods become scarce their value rises. This is the case with the scarce “commodity” of students: Across the nation, teachers are openly told by their employers to treat students like customers.
Apparently, they hope that rumors of teachers being nice to the “customers” might attract more students; academic qualifications appear to be less of a concern.
It is obvious that, for a growing number of students, an academic environment is not a natural habitat. Such students should be told to leave school, and teachers who take their job seriously should do exactly that.
However, then they are reminded by their administrations that students secure their salaries — an undeniable fact.
The result is a conflict of interests between teachers and administrations, and professional pedagogy becomes an even scarcer commodity.
Yet administrations always win and teachers are asked to act accordingly. People know the game that often follows: If students are customers, and customers are kings, then such kings demand appropriate treatment.
Would a king — or queen — like to be told what to do? Certainly not. Students are often aware of their new, more superior role within academic institutions and some of them — usually the less talented — are playing this exact game.
They expect to be entertained by their teacher, or at least to be confronted only with academic tasks that can be accomplished with minimum intellectual effort.
They seem to think that what they are paying for is the right to get a sheet of paper with a stamp on it from the school — called a diploma — at the end of their studies. Sadly, such attitudes are slowly dominating the intellectual climate in classes, at least in many private colleges across the nation.
It is contagious — even many of the more academic students are drawn into this educational downward spiral.
Things get worse.
An additional bonus for students to emphasize their superiority are the biannual teacher evaluations. Whereas teacher evaluations in respectable schools can be insightful, it is merely problematic to utilize them in institutions with students of a low academic profile; evaluations in such schools often serve to pervert academic values.
“Good” teaching has a different meaning for ambitious students compared with that of lazy students. For example, students who expect to be entertained and treated nicely award teachers who do so. Subsequently, those teachers are then considered “good” teachers, because they please those students.
Are being nice or entertaining relevant academic criteria?
Teachers are aware of this game. However, they are also aware that the students’ evaluation might affect not only their current employment, but even their careers. Many teachers are confronted with a dilemma: If they play the nice guy, they betray their profession; if they insist on academic standards, they risk their job.
Some colleagues try to square the circle by attempting to satisfy both sides. However, this strategy does not work under conditions whereby a majority of unwilling students dominate the class; in the end, they have to make grave concessions.
There are indications that the number of teachers choosing the nice guy option is growing. Can people blame them?
Such a constellation provides a fertile ground for corrupting teachers and, as a consequence, corrupting the whole national educational system. The practice can be summed up like this: Students know that teachers know that students know what their employers want.
Things run smoothly if all concerned parties behave accordingly: Teachers please students; students in turn please teachers; and, finally, the school is pleased if everybody else is pleased, too. Education, adieu.
National culture prioritizes harmony, at all costs. However, the cost here is considerable. So, who pays the price?
First, serious students who need and deserve more academic challenges, which they do not receive because in class they are in the minority; second, challenging teachers who are discouraged from being challenging; third, the schools who side with students, in the case of conflicts with challenging teachers, for short-sighted business reasons; and finally, the national workforce who might have to encounter such former students who obviously value neither knowledge nor a professional attitude.
There is a simple measure — not an overall solution — which would reduce the detrimental effects of “businessified” education: Let only the top students evaluate teachers. The results would be very different. Also, teachers and students alike would no longer have excuses for neglecting their academic duties; it would return the now fading pedagogical power to qualified teachers.
Herbert Hanreich is an assistant professor at I-Shou University in Greater Kaohsiung.
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