Action research, the way to go!

Today, all primary school teachers, who are diploma holders and below the age of 45, are given a chance to become degree holders. By the droves, they register at the various institutions that offer 'recognised' degree courses. With their friends, they attend classes and do assignments. Of course, there is a lot of plagiarism. They are expected to know better, being teachers, but what happens is that they are in the company of friends. They have to excel, they have deadlines to meet, they have stressful and time-consuming jobs at school and they need to graduate with their peers when the time comes. So the easiest and fastest way to get their work done is to 'plagiarise' in one form or another.

In the first place, most of these teachers do not have the calibre to be graduates. They may have the years of teaching experience but when they were accepted for the diploma courses in education, it was because they were not eligible for degree courses. How is it that now, after a few years, they are eligible? Does teaching experience alone qualify one to be more eligible to become a graduate?

Instead of generalising and making all teachers graduates, it would be more beneficial for the teachers (and their students) if they were sent for training to improve their individual basic skills, to improve their teaching methodology, to change their mindset, to make them more creative so that these skills could be passed down to their students over the years. With all their existing pressures as teachers, simply undertaking an academic course and making them graduates will not benefit the children that they are teaching.

What would be more practical would be to get existing teachers to carry out action research in the classroom so that their concept of education, their attitude of service and their sense of creativity will be developed and nurtured. A teacher working under the guise of a degree-holder will not change the world. His personal sense of self-improvement needs to be revamped so that he will be able to move mountains!

Action-research would help the teachers to reflect on their own teaching methods with the group of students that they have. Through continuous reflection, supervision and discussion with others teaching a similar subject or the same calibre of students, the time the teacher spends in the classroom can be of greater quality.

This is what the Ministry of Education in the Malaysian government should be advocating. At present, it envisions that by merely allowing all teachers in the profession to become graduates it will improve the image of the teaching profession. However, the teachers are wearing themselves out by trying to fulfil the demands of the course they are undertaking and carrying out their teaching tasks while the stakeholders, namely the students, will continue to be the victims of the education system. In the long run, no one will benefit!

Time Spent Wisely

Teachers should have the time to read up on what research has to say about their teaching methodology after they have had all the facts of their teaching lessons at their finger tips.

Action research should be encouraged among teachers so that they can improve their methodology of teaching.

Personally, as a freelance tutor, and no more working for the government, I find that I have improved my methods of teaching over the years. From merely resorting to filling the time by doing workbook exercises, today I challenge myself to prepare lessons where the students challenge themselves.

Today, for example, I got my Upper Primary students to write a one-paragraph book report.