What motivates teachers? A personal journey...

In my earlier avatar, before I became a teacher, I used to be a regular sales & marketing guy, always on the run...for the next big deal or the next big break. The transition from a marketing guy to a full-time teacher was rather sudden as I had  been scarred and disillusioned (fortuitously, I feel now) with the Corporate world and couldn't carry on with Life, keeping up appearances that everything was hunky-dory. The desire to 'sell' simply fell away...like a rotten fruit off a tree. 

But I was a 'driven' individual and had to do something with a whole life ahead, a family to support and this exasperating urge to find meaning and purpose. I was 31 and completely at sea. 

After a painful process of soul-searching, delving into past experiences, on a balmy summer day, walking barefoot on a beach in Madras, feeling the warm salty breeze on my skin,  I realised that I enjoyed teaching. It was my Eureka Moment! During my early sales & marketing days, I was called, 'The Teacher' (somewhat derisively, I remember) by colleagues because of my penchant for explaining the subtleties of the product. It struck me that I could make a living and still save my soul, as a teacher. I rushed home, almost ecstatic, to my wife proclaiming I'd decided to be a teacher. She was a worldly-wise woman, beginning to get rather weary of her husband's wayward ways and asked drily "soru poduma?" It was the Tamil equivalent of  "will it bring home the bacon?" This devastatingly simple, staid  question posed by the Woman-of-the-House who had her feet planted firmly on the ground was a challenge I was confronted with. But I had found purpose, taking an inspired leap into the unknown, and all I had to do was to find the means to realise it. 

I'm reminded of Paulo Coelho's words from his enchanting allegorical novel The Alchemist "...when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Soon, I came across a lady from an 'intentional' organisation looking for a committed teacher. I confessed that neither did I have the experience nor the relevant degree in Education. She thought I would make a good teacher because of my unconventional background and not necessarily in spite of it. She trusted me more than I trusted myself . Before I knew it, I was hooked for life teaching wide-eyed students. The Director of the school had warned me that teachers earned peanuts. I didn't heed it...I had found more than what money could possibly give...meaning and purpose (forgive the cliché) which eluded me all my life. 

I have been teaching for more than a decade and am still excited by the possibility of a student completely stumping me with a question  and I respond with an honest "Gee, I really don't know...could we learn about it together?" 

To be vulnerable seems to the best way to learn...every moment, every day.

Now, what motivated me to be a committed teacher and sustain my interest for more than a decade? It was definitely not the money...not the almost non-existent career growth prospects. I  was seeking answers for all these years till, I came across a pop-psych book tantalisingly titled Drive - The surprising truth about what motivates us. Authored by Dan Pink, a maverick and one-time speech writer for Al Gore, this book completely demolishes our notions of reward and punishment, incentives and rest of the Brazilian carnival.

The book comes highly recommended as it has interesting insights on what drives human beings to be motivated and excel in their chosen fields. 

I have uploaded the Royal Society of Arts animation production of Dan Pink's famous TED-2009 talk which crystallizes the essence of his book. Enthralling...

You could watch his talk on Motivation too at Dan Pink TED Talk

Dynamics of Power Distance and Teaching

Last week, just ahead of the start of the new academic session, I had the privilege of participating in a teacher's workshop. The workshop was conducted by an experienced teacher and consultant. Darlene was an expert on cross-cultural teaching practices and had worked in many parts of the globe, from the U.S. to Turkey. She had the unique opportunity to work in different cultural milieus which helped her have an insight into how schools in different nations in the West and the East approached the teaching-learning process.
What made the workshop stand apart from other workshops in the past was its honest attempt to explore cultural differences that exist despite the fact that education today in some of the best schools in the world is going 'global'. Darlene began by gently introducing the work of the influential Dutch social anthropologist, Geert Hofstede's seminal work on "assessing and differentiating national cultures and organisational cultures" (to unabashedly quote Wikipedia!). She skillfully weaved Hofstede's work around the teacher-learning process and helped us unravel the hidden assumptions (icebergs!) in our relationship and interactions with students. It was a fascinating experience to be exposed to our own assumptions (faulty, as it turned out...) and become uncomfortable, which was 'good'. Darlene's caveat "learn to become comfortable with being uncomfortable" had the ring of truth about it, paradox notwithstanding.
Darlene focused on one of the basic 'problem areas' representing cultural dimensions of the teaching-learning process in a school - Power Distance (PD). PD is a problem area and is defined by Hofstede as "the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally." Hofstede also measured the Power Distance Index (PDI) between the  less-powerful and the more-powerful members of an organisation in a country. 


The below animation, produced by Interfacet, an online workplace training company, beautifully illustrates how Power Distance works - 

This rather intriguing take on the teaching-learning process had an electric effect on the teachers in the workshop because most of us had worked all our adult lives in 'organisations' which believed in and sustained high PD between teachers & administrators and between students & teachers. When a question was posed whether it is possible to reduce the PD in a top-heavy, hierarchical system, a teacher, obviously defending the system he was comfortable with, shot back in alarm  with a clear, unambiguous message "...low PD, no teaching happens, high PD, teaching happens". 
The implications of working in a low PD culture was frightening for some of us, to say the least. The reactions ranged from, "what about the authority of the teacher?" to "there will be a breakdown of order in the system". The reaction which encapsulated the hidden fears was "There will be chaos!" Interestingly, one also sensed an ideological divide (!?) between the 'conservative' and the 'liberal' teachers. One group favored the high PD system whilst the other wanted to explore the possibility a low PD culture. The liberal teachers felt that a classroom set-up with a low PD between students and teachers could (my italics) engender creativity. 
To be sure, the workshop made most of us sit up, think and question our assumptions. A day after the workshop, a  fellow teacher and a dear colleague who was 'senior' by many years, asked me a question, revealing in its simplicity "Rajesh, is our relationship a high PD or a low PD?" To me, this was a glowing testimonial of the impact of Darlene's workshop.


Talking about 'Power' and our vexatious relationship with it, maybe there is a simpler, although less practiced, solution...

The Liberal Arts Education - A perspective

I was invited to a wedding reception last week where I had the opportunity to interact with a father whose son I taught some years ago. He was an affectionate and enlightened father who cared deeply about his son. The son had difficulty in the straight-jacketed approach to learning in school and was faring miserably in the standardized tests. On inquiring, the father proudly announced that his son had discovered the joy of learning at a School of Liberal Studies. The father's eyes said it all!

Do standardized tests do more harm than good?

I came back home happy and excited, lapping up almost everything there was on Liberal Arts education. The person whose work left an impact on me was Ken Robinson. A British-born Educator, based in the U.S., Ken has some very deep, incisive points to make on why modern education is a mess today. 

I have attached a video of the animated version of his famous TED-2006 talk on Education - Changing Paradigms.

 Absolutely riveting stuff! A must watch...

Ken Robinson

Emotional Connectedness - The Holy Grail of Teaching

I have this habit...whenever an old student meets me after a prolonged hiatus, I pose a standard question, "what do you miss the most of school?" . The responses usually hover around friends, the fun they had, the mischiefs they hatched together, the 'rules' they broke regularly, the teachers they 'outwitted' and, more often than not, the adult (and, not necessarily teachers alone!) who left a deep impact in their lives. 

On probing deeper, one comes to know that the adult, who held his/her hand during a vulnerable period, the teacher who listened and understood without judging, the teacher who used to have friendly banters with them after class hours, was the one they missed the most. Even the subjects they cherished learning, were of teachers they loved and respected. The rest of the subjects, and its practitioners, however important, were, at best a confusing blur, relegated to some deep recesses of their memories of school.

I'm of the strong conviction (albeit, open to be contradicted and debated upon) that good teaching is not simply a matter of 'good technique' but springs from the heart of the teacher who takes the 'risk' to reach out to his students and make authentic connections with them.

In the words of the Parker J. Palmer, an American Educator, "If we want to develop and deepen the capacity for connectedness at the heart of good teaching, we must understand—and resist—the perverse but powerful draw of the 'disconnected life'" 

We are all familiar with the cynical teacher,  living the disconnected life who simply attempts to to connect with a dead memory of his subject and lamely expects his students to make sense of it. 


Something to ponder over...