Awarding and Rewarding Teachers... Should it be Done?

I like to believe that people are kind-hearted, good-willed and sincere in nature. And most people are. We do things with good intentions. We want to help, because we can. We want to recognise because it seems selfish to not recognise. 

And teachers. One of the most unappreciated, underpaid and undervalued 'professionals'. Mind you, most people don't even see teaching as a profession.... I digress. 

Thoughts on Giving teachers public recognition

So one of the ways in which we (as a population, person, body, whatever you call it) can show that we value teachers and appreciate their work is to recognise them publicly. And how does one go about choosing who to recognise publicly? Since, surely, all teachers cannot be the same - some must be better than others. And announcing the entire school faculty would just take too long. Well, who better to provide feedback then the recipients of knowledge themselves, the students?! It is a fair and more importantly, more meaningful when students show appreciation to their teachers. 

Let me paint you a picture: Students are given a few weeks to write nominations and write about the good that their teachers have done. A few weeks later, the teachers with the most nominations (or more than 1 nomination) are announced publicly and presented with a certificate to thank them and publicly acknowledge their hard work. Honestly, I think this scenario is wonderful. We ought to do this more often, thanking people. Being gracious, grateful. We have been conditioned to take things for granted, because unfortunately, a person's brave and selfless act just becomes the accepted norm. 

So, what is wrong with publicly recognising teachers then? I actually don't think there is anything wrong with that per se, apart from the fact that in our haste to want to make up for our lack of appreciation, we also did not realise the implications that this recognition brings. Whenever there is a winner, there is a loser. And if a situation is pitted as such, people will perceive the outcomes to be as such. A friendly is a friendly and there is no winner or loser, because no one is recognised for winning. Similarly, and very sadly, since some people are recognised as caring, nurturing and inspiring teachers (winners), those who are not recognised feel the pinch. 

I think the worst thing is the emotional and psychological impact that the action leaves. You can present an award to say, 5 teachers in a faculty of 50, and tell all 50 teachers that whether they receive an award or not, they are all appreciated, and the words mean nothing, because the action has been done. Besides leaving those without awards emotionally fraught and fearing that they have not done enough, it also affects those who receive the awards too. How so you might ask? Teachers who publicly receive awards are not expected to be 'nurturing', 'caring' and 'inspiring' or whatever the title signifies. They are expected to behave in such a manner at all times. That in itself can be an extra burden. And what of subsequent years? What if they don't receive an award the following year? Does that mean they these teachers are no longer nurturing, caring and inspiring? I have heard that there are even political reasons that can be associated with such awards, but I dare not go into that. I don't wish to be so cynical about mankind...

Humans are complex beings, and while we cannot accommodate everyone, the least we can do is to consider the possible impacts that our actions have - especially when we charge ahead, wanting to do good things. We might want to take a step back and think about other implications that our good deed will lead to. In no way am I saying that because of this, we should not recognise people for their efforts and hard work - we should. But perhaps there is another way of showing that 'we value you' other than public recognition. 

We are teachers. And we need to remind ourselves that we do not work for recognition. We do not work (or we shouldn't be anyway) for someone to praise us. Maybe quiet recognition is another way to go about it? Honestly, I really don't know. I have not been able to think of a better way to go about this. I suppose we can just be status quo. We know that we are giving. Do we really need someone else to come and thank us for it? I think most of us teaches, would still continue to do that we do even if not a person in the world thanked us for it. That is why we are who we are. That's the beauty of it. Perhaps this bid to recognise the under-appreciated taints the true meaning behind giving. Now, that is something to muse about. 

Thoughts of Giving Teachers Monetary Rewards

Since we are on the topic of awards and rewards, I might as well write about a topic that I have a very strong personal opinion about: receiving monetary funds and performance bonuses as a teacher. They are somewhat two separate issues so I will discuss them separately. 

Firstly, the concept of giving every officer of the education faculty performance bonuses is an idea that completely befuddles me. How does anyone justify whether a teacher deserves a bonus or not? The teaching profession is not the same as medicine, law, finance. We cannot calculate our gains through hard figures, and even if we do, is it fair to attribute an increase or a decrease in 'performance' (i.e. the number of As achieved on national exams) to a teacher's ability? I personally believe that there are so many factors and variables that influence and confound the grades that students attain. Yes, it is undeniable that the teacher has some influence, but there can be other factors as well: extra lessons for other sources outside of school, peers, having a bad day, being sick on an exam day, having a poor attitude, having a good attitude and the list goes on and on and on. But to correlate a teacher's 'performance' directly to your students results, I think, is a grave mistake. 

There are so many other things that this leads to. Perhaps this is why in institutions where teachers are given performance bonuses based on their performance, things get a bit complicated... and for better or worse, teachers do not just focus on teaching, but a lot of other things. And they do this to justify how they have 'added-value' and have earned their keep. I could go on and on, but this also leads to the second issue that I mentioned: receiving monetary rewards, or awards in general. In an institute where this is the case, receiving an award, and reward can definitely be something that shows how you 'add-value'. And with this possible motive in mind, it changes the value and taints the beauty of the awards altogether... 

Your thoughts? 

Seeing How Our Blind See.

My title is ironic, you may say - the blind cannot see, so how on earth can we see what they see, when they see nothing, unless we see nothing? So if there is nothing to see... then my title just... doesn't make any sense?

If irony is something that crossed your mind while you read my title, thank you for putting thought into it. I experienced something profound today. So profound that I want to share it with you.

I had the fortune to visit Dialogue in the Dark in the dark with my colleagues today, and am forever grateful for the experience. Dialogue in the Dark (DiD) is an organisation set up at a local Polytechnic where people of the world get to experience what it is like to be a blind person for 1 hour. Participants are briefed on how to use a guide walking-stick, and are taken through a journey with a visually impaired guide. The experience really is beyond words. At the same that I feel that not writing about this would really serve as an injustice, writing about my experience will also not do the experience justice. You will really need to go there and live it for yourself.

I've learned about blind people and how they may perceive things differently from sight-seeing people through my university psychology courses, where I learned how blind people perceive things differently cognitively. What my university education could not show (or teach) me was what the experience really is like.

The room was dark. Really dark. No matter where we are in our living environment - in the deepest forest, far away from the city - our eyes will adjust to the darkness, because there is some light. That does not happen in DiD. Your eyes do not adjust. You will not be able to see a thing, no matter how close you hold your hand to your face, you just cannot see it. It was, incredible. For one whole hour, I couldn't see a thing. If I hadn't gone to DiD, I wouldn't have experienced this, because no one will purposely put themselves in a pitch-black environment. Your other senses are heightened - your sense of sound, touch, taste, smell - to a point where you feel overwhelmed. We were on a boat, and the boat motor was so persistent and I was so aware of it that I couldn't tune it out! It was really... irritating because I had such difficulty isolating the noise, I couldn't hear other sounds: the voice of my guide.

Speaking of guide - that was the other thing that was extremely ironic. We were in the dark, and we were guided and led by a visually impaired individual. I had another revelation. A deeply troubling, and disturbing revelation about mankind. About humans, people, us - myself. Bear with me while I set the context: We were led into the 'exploration room' (for lack of better words) by a sight-seeing guide from the 'light' (as they referred to it) and were introduced to our visually impaired guide in the dark. During the short 1 hour, we had come to rely on our guide immensely. She would tell us "come toward my voice" and reassure us by putting our hand on the wall throughout the tour. Without her instruction, we were at a standstill. Now that I think about it, none of us dared wander anywhere without explicit instruction to do so.

In the dark, our visually impaired guide was our light. Without her, we were lost, scared, vulnerable. Then, she led us into the light - and we saw her (the way sight-seeing people perceive things) for the first time in an hour. Who she really is. And it struck me. The uglyness. the pain. the deep, dark troubling truth of how humans really are. I hate to say this, but I judged her, based on how she looked. Her eyes were sealed shut (from when she was born), her arms were not placed exactly the same way that ours are. When it was dark, I'd never thought of how she looked. I just thought of her as our guide. Someone who led the way. Now that we were in the light, I saw her as different. Worse, differently disabled. And, I hated that I had that perception. We sight-seeing people are so judgmental of other people based purely on how they look. We are so superficial. One of my colleagues mentioned that in the dark, our guide had all the power - she took the reins, she led us. But with just the introduction of something so tiny, light, our perception of her changed instantaneously.

I took the tour more than 5 hours ago, and I still can't get over how the change - the fact that I could see - affected how I viewed her SO DRASTICALLY. It is unbelievable. Strikingly unbelievable. I really think that this knowledge is profound. Is prejudice something that comes so naturally for us? That we judge on sight? Would the world be a better place if we all could not see, and cannot judge based on our sight? Sigh. My cynical id is telling me that even if we were all blind, we would still judge based on other things we can 'judge' people by. Maybe being prejudicial and judgmental is just human. Can I live with that? Maybe I will have to.

I think for me, this experience was so profound because I learned something about myself. About how I judge. Instantaneously. Unconsciously. Ruthlessly.

I don't want to end on such a negative tone, because I also did gain other things from this experience. Besides learning about the ugly side to being human, I also learned how heavily they rely on their other senses, and just because they cannot see does not make them any less capable than us sight-seeing people. I have mad respect (mind the slang) for my tour guide, Lily. I was always amazed at how she  knew where we were, prompted us when to turn at the right moments. Our first sight-seeing guide prompted us to keep close and follow the wall and turn this way and that... but we soon learned that she was wearing night-vison goggles. It never occurred to me how my guide did that... Later, during our dialogue in the dark (yes, we actually sat down for tea/cookies in the dark cafe and had a chat with our guide in the darkness!) we found that Lily was close to blind when she was born. She had a retinal disease and when her doctors put her under the incubator without protecting her eyes, they literally burned her retina off! She takes this is such good stride that she told us with a chuckle! Even if she wore night-vison goggles, she still wouldn't be able to see...

So how did she manage to know where we were spatially? She would say "Close the gap, Madeleine" and "Close the gap, Charis". She would remember who was leading the group (we walked around single-file most of the time - because we were to scared to venture out on our own?) and would prompt the person to keep moving along or stop. The most stunning feat was that she was able to tell who needed help, and would approach the person and physically lead their hand to what we were looking for. I was curious, so I asked her how she did it. And she told us, from our voice, our footsteps... and that she could just 'sense' us. It's incredible.

I feel terrible that we sight-seeing people judge other people we consider 'disabled' so harshly... whether we intend to or not. Because if we are in their place, we would struggle.

So next time you see a blind person, don't be shy or turned off by what you see. Remind yourself that it's natural that you judge because we are sight-seeing people. Put on a smile, approach them and ask them if they need any help. And if they would, put their left hand on your right elbow, and lead them away!

Thank you Lily for this enriching, enlightening and life-changing experience. It's going to be a battle to not judge, but I will fight with my neurons and try.

And if you're read til this line - you definitely deserve to go to Dialogue in the Dark. Treat yourself to a life-changing experience.