By Anu Dev
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” – Albert Camus
I’ve been in school for the past 15 years of my life and having been in school for so long, I have a fair idea of what different types of teachers could be like. Some go about their jobs like they truly love what they’re doing, others seem to go through the day like teaching is an obligation.
But no matter what their teaching attitudes or stance, we learn a lot from our teachers. Teachers teach more than just science and math and all the other “subjects” – they teach ethics as well. In addition to the weekly one hour of “Pastoral Care”, they do this generally through the most powerful medium – not through words but by their actions.
Their behaviour impacts their students strongly. And of course, it’s always best to lead by example, so we’re most likely to do as our teachers do, rather than as they say.
Quite a bit of my personal values and sense of ethics is a product of the influence of my school teachers. Of course, the major chunk consists of values directly instilled into me by my parents, but on some level, we’ve all been influenced by our teachers.
My current value system is a melange of what I’ve been taught at home and whatever modifications my experiences have forced me to make – with me spending a third of my time every day in school.
And I realised how damaging it could’ve been if I had teachers whose values and ethics standards were not that solid. What if I had teachers that throw things and scream at their students, calling them names, belittling them? If a student didn’t have a strong personal value system or positive role models, they could easily accept that sort of behaviour as being okay, or acceptable. And they might carry over that type of behaviour into adulthood in their professions and personal lives.
Our teachers as a consequence have great power; they have the most interaction with us, especially during our young, impressionable years, when we’re still forming our opinions of the things around us and deciding how we want to fit into society.
More emphasis should probably be placed, when training teachers, about their role in moulding the values of their students.
Values like the importance of confidentiality and the importance of privacy could be emphasised by the teachers so that when the students leave the school system, they’ll be able to function like adults that are capable of respecting the persons they interact with.
Others like the importance of accountability, punctuality should all be established as being important from a young age. Teachers that violate these tenets in their classes do damage beyond the details of the “subject” not being covered.
Our teachers can hold great sway over how we might turn out at the end of our tenure at school; they could be the difference between whether we become successful professionals, or whether we go about our jobs in a very unprofessional manner.
We need a solid foundation in professionalism, and our teachers can give us that, hopefully by their actions and not just their words.