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By Nabil Es Shaimi
Rabat – These teachers were also unhappy with a student body that is increasingly disillusioned and unwilling to study. A teacher’s attitude toward his or her job is a very complicated matter and must be taken seriously. Many teachers consider their jobs a burden as opposed to duty, and over the years, they grow quite bored. The question we should ask ourselves is: how to prevent teachers from becoming bored?
While this question should be posed to experts in pedagogy or educational psychology specialists, in the Moroccan context, teacher development seems to be the perfect tool to fight boredom in classes. A teacher should develop the habit of looking for new methods of teaching across topics. Creativity and imagination should be pre-requisite when hiring teachers. As Sir Ken Robinson stated, “Creativity is as important in education as literacy” And although Sir Robinson’s quote was in reference to kids, teachers should let creativity guide them in designing lesson plans and activities. There are many online articles and videos about teacher development, including lesson plans and ideas for activities. Regrettably, only a few can be adapted to the Moroccan school system.
Our mission, as Moroccan teachers, should be to get more creative and write articles that propose solutions on the way to teach crowded classrooms effectively, on how to control excessively disturbing students and how to teach with limited resources. When we find a method of resolving contentious issues, we should share our experience with our peers through social media, seminars, workshops or online newsletters. We should not be selfish and imprison our ideas in our classrooms or even worse, in our minds. There are many young novice teachers that are desperate for new ideas and constantly seeking to improve their teaching so that they could inspire intelligent students who are simply tired of archaic means of teaching.
As we move forward as a nation, one of our key priorities should be finding a long term solution for making teaching a more pleasant profession. As the late Steve Jobs said, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.” The teachers I mentioned, in the beginning, feel disappointed because they want to discharge their professional responsibilities but lack the tools to do so.
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For many, they simply do not have adequate training to deal with a young generation that is increasingly unlearned and stubborn. They complain about their respective students’ low competence in Math, Physics, Arabic and French and tend to blame primary school teachers for not preparing a student for the next level. While some of their arguments have merit, these same teachers do nothing but complain as opposed to coming up with ways to overcome the sad state of Morocco’s public education.
While teachers are sometimes guilty of being completely jaded, I must state that they are not the main cause of Morocco’s troubled educational sector. Teachers are forced to work in overcrowded classrooms, making it hard for them to have any control or monitor the necessary activities to keep the class interesting. One solution, based on my humble experience, is to reduce the number of students in a class in order to ensure more interactive lessons and a quality education, which is the ministry of education’s main concern.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy.
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