The new context requires redefining the teacher, or in other words, redefining the role and mission of the teaching profession.
Students of Hung Vuong High School, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City presented flowers to congratulate their teachers on Vietnamese Teachers' Day on the morning of November 19 - Photo: NHU HUNG
Furthermore, two very important issues need to be clarified: No matter what profession one has, one must have professional ethics. So what is the ethics of the teaching profession? And what needs to be done to maintain the dignity of the teaching profession?
When talking about the role and mission of teachers, we cannot help but mention the "product" of the educational process: the learner. For a long time, we have been talking about "taking the learner as the center", recently when discussing policies for teachers, some people have asserted that we must "take the teacher as the center". Who is the center after all?
The answer seems complicated but turns out to be simple: Put people at the center, regardless of whether they are teachers, learners or education administrators. Because that is the essence of liberal education.
Nowadays, saying "learner-centered" can be misunderstood, because it makes us think of "learner-centered" (like "customer-centered").
Students cannot be gods, because if so, then ability and virtue can be bought with money, and teachers will be salesmen?!
Rather, it is to take the learner's learning as the center, more specifically, to take the learner's enlightenment and opening of mind as the center, to take independence and freedom, to take success and happiness, to take honor and dignity, to take the learner's potential and aspirations as the center.
It is not until now that people are concerned with the question of what is the goal of education. Nearly 100 years ago, the philosopher Albert Einstein affirmed: "Teaching people a profession is not enough.
Because in that way, he may become a useful machine but cannot become a human being with full dignity.
It is important that he be taught to have a lively sense of what is worth striving for in life. He must be taught to have a lively sense of what is beautiful and what is good"...
That means the goal of education is not to create purely specialized people or soulless machines but to aim at free, humane and harmoniously developed people.
To do so, first of all, teachers must also have independence, freedom and happiness. Society also needs to look at teachers in a humane and humane way.
And in turn, the teacher is also humane and humane with himself, and then humane and humane with his students as a matter of course.
Teaching also needs to change. In liberal pedagogy, teaching is helping others learn, teaching is making learning happen. As Einstein said, "I do not teach students. I only try to create the conditions in which they can learn." This is also the profession of teachers.
With that understanding, the teacher is not a superior and the student is not an object to be molded, but the teacher will accompany and support the student on the journey of self-liberation to find himself, create himself and live with himself.
In fact, depending on the "teaching" of each teacher, society will have different views on their portrait. From a certain perspective, teachers can be temporarily divided into five groups.
The first is the normal teacher, who always tries to impart knowledge to students, sharing what he knows, sharing as much as he knows.
Second , a good teacher is someone who not only imparts knowledge but also helps students learn and explore on their own. Simply put, a good teacher will "give them a fishing rod, not just a fish."
The third group is the great teachers, who not only give their students knowledge or learning methods, but also instill in them the motivation to learn and a love of knowledge.
These are the enlightened teachers, they not only help students know a lot but also help students know themselves. That is, they not only give students fish or fishing rods but more importantly, give them the motivation to go fishing.
The fourth group is the great teacher, who is similar to the "great teacher" in his ability to light and transmit the fire of thirst for knowledge to his students. However, if the great teacher does it within the scope of a classroom, the great teacher can do it within the scope of society, awakening society.
And finally, there are teaching machines, who teach like machines, only knowing how to automatically repeat the lesson as if it were pre-programmed without caring whether it is beneficial to the students or not, nor caring whether the students are learning, understanding, or opening their minds or not.
The ethics, dignity of teachers and the teaching profession ultimately come from choosing and practicing which of the five models above.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-thay-khai-phong-20241120082308096.htm
Comment (0)