“Having
a contrary opinion to that of a teacher was treason or something close to that
not even a doctor could have a contrary opinion, what a teacher said was law
and it was adopted unanimously.”
When growing up most of my schoolmates apart from me
and a few other renegade elements who were sons and daughters of teachers
wanted anything to do with the teaching profession considering its nature. Teachers
used to go home with a library of books in the name of marking homework which
they had given the previous day .Straining their eyes reading poor hand
writings and sentences that don’t make sense in the name of marking. Their
clothes were always stained with chalk plus they had a persistent cough that
only ceased when schools were on recess due to constantly inhaling chalks. Most
of them arrived at home so tired after a very hectic day at school dealing with
all sorts of children from all sorts of background with all sorts of issues.
Their arrival home was not the end of their working hours as parents call after
banking hours to inquire about the progress of their children in school since
the teacher is the one who could give a clear picture of the academic and moral
situation.
During lessons teachers were always inspiring us to
work hard so as not to be teachers like them, reason being they wanted us to be
the ‘who is who’ in the professional
world so as to have improved standards of living. I remember They always encouraged us to be doctors and
nurses so that we could treat them when they fall ill, pilots so that we could
make them board a plane for even a minute since they have never boarded planes,
judges and lawyers so that we could not sort out their legal issues,
journalists so as to write and report about their working conditions and terms
of service more so when they strike and Ministers (Cabinet Secretaries) more so
for education so that we could improve their living standards and Members of
parliament so that we could air their grievances on their behalf. I vividly
remember my lower primary teacher retired Mrs.
Gitonga telling us that teaching involved a huge workload the size of an
elephant accompanied by remuneration the size of a rat “Kazi kama ndovu pesa kama panya”.She kept remind us of this
statement so that we would work harder so as not to go through the tribulations
she went through.
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| Teachers demonstrating during a strike |
Teachers were the most respected people of our time
as they were considered the brains of the society, nobody could have a parallel
opinion contrary to that of a teacher as a teacher was always right and
whatever they said was law. A teacher’s opinion was sought in any matter that had
impact on the society from giving political direction for the societal set up
to guiding career choices, teachers were the mentors of our time .Most of my
schoolmates knew teachers were the highest paid government officers since the
only homesteads that had lamps were either belonging to teachers or a
provincial administrator in this case a sub chief other homesteads had tin
lamps. A teacher was respected whenever a teacher passes somewhere you stop
whatever you are doing and stand still to greet him or her wait for him or her
to be out of sight for you to go back to what you were doing initially.Who would not want to be a teacher in such an environment.
Growing up as a son or daughter of a teacher was the
most challenging lifestyle as everyone expected you to be on the right, you
were supposed to be the holier than though character among your peers all positive
examples were supposed to be drawn from you. You were expected to always be at
the top end of the merit list, if your name is not called amongst the top ten,almost
forgot top three best performing students then doubts will arise on your
parentage people will often ask “is that
really the son or daughter of ‘Mr.
K’oluoch’ (let me just use his name because I still remember the Queen’s English he used to speak as if
he was born, breed and educated in the United Kingdom) of is he just a nephew
or niece.” When the child of a non-teacher performed better than the child
of a teacher that would be the trending topic for the whole term more so if it
was in the second term which had fourteen week. Everyone expected a son or a
daughter to be the genius as you were living in the same house with knowledge,
sleeping with knowledge, eating with knowledge and waking with knowledge thus
you were definitely supposed to be knowledgeable and have answers to all
questions. Personally have never had the slightest dream or ambition of being a
teacher the feeling is mutual amongst my siblings who are doing courses in
medicine alongside the fellow sons and daughters of teachers we grew up with we
had our reasons but our parents also never wanted us to be teachers, they
wanted us to be something more than a teacher.
Teaching is a demanding profession imagine an early
childhood education teacher who struggles with a child who does not know how to
even hold ‘catch’ a pen, they are supposed
to teach that child how to hold the pen and scribble some wordings in the name
of writing a name something that is not learnt overnight this can be manifested
by a doctors handwriting when issuing a prescription. Teachers are also
expected to be a parents at school as he is in charge of the general discipline
of children as they spend more time with a child than the parent take for
instance a child reports at school at 8am and leaves at 4pm that is exactly 8
hours a day if it is a day school and if it is a boarding school teachers spend
nine out of the twelve months with children with no parental allowance they do
so since they have the hearts of a parent and they would not like their
children to be treated.
Taking blame is something many of us don’t like but
to teachers this is an occupational hazard as they are often blamed for poor
performance of the children. Parents expect their children to perform well
failure to which teachers are the problem, their children aren’t thus teachers
are expected to be magicians; transform poor performing students into academic
competitors not participants .Cases of teachers being beaten by parents are a
common occurrence more so when an academic institution performs below the
expectations of the public yet teachers are not given risk allowance.
