Being Mad

Sex Education, as the term clearly indicates, refers to education which is based on human sexual behavior. Parents, schools or caretakers offer it in some parts of the world to educate the children, who are stepping into their adolescence. If formally received, sex education is either taught as a full course at high school or junior high school level or in biology, health, home economics classes. Teaching sex education is rather a controversial issue; debates have been going on for several decades discussing if it should be taught formally in schools or not. Sex education in schools should exist without any doubts and apprehensions as it offers many benefits.

Adolescence is called the “age of storm and stress”. The young teenagers, during this phase of life, are under deep psychological pressure. Mainly, this psychological pressure is the result of one’s growing sexual needs and the biological changes and hormonal effects on the individuals. During this time, most of the children are observed to become easily irritable. They find it difficult in most situations to deal with the family members. They might not want to talk to them about the natural changes taking place in their body and mind. In such circumstances, one highly suitable option is that of the teachers who are able to teach them to control their urges until a proper age. In schools, trained teachers would help the students to know how to deal with their sexual impulses. This role can not be replaced by parents or other entities. A classroom discussion and lesson would make them feel it is natural, and they would also feel that they are being understood by someone. However, taking them individually to psychologists or other trained educators would not help. In such a situation they might consider themselves to be different and misunderstood by family and people around them. Therefore, it becomes crystal clear that the best way to offer sex education is always in school.

It is a psychological phenomenon that children at the young age are under an immense peer pressure. Something that they learn in the class with their peer group is what makes a better impression on their minds than otherwise. They are more focused in the lessons that teachers offer and are more eager asking question to clear their ambiguities. They might feel embarrassed and uneasy questioning their parents about it, but it always differs in case of the teacher in the class. This is because everyone in the class is going through the same stage. A class discussion becomes the healthy source of learning as it helps in enhancing the knowledge on the subject.

Many people advocate that sex education should only be restricted to families, that is, that parents should personally educate their children. This view is totally illogical and holds complications and questions. The first point is that not all the parents would be willing to do it or would be able to do it. Secondly, this education needs a proper channel through which it should reach its required learners. There could be many possible problems in the families so they might not be able to take the role of a teacher in educating their children regarding sex. The demand of annulment of sex education from the schools is highly conservative.

Most importantly, there are many single parents, how would they take up this challenge of educating their children on their own? Parents can not properly educate their children about sex also because they lack details that qualified sex educators convey in schools. Thus, the stance of abolishing sex education in school is not a favorable thought. In many observed cases where parents or children are embarrassed about talking about sexual matters with each other, it is most likely to be an uneasy situation at both the ends. This keeps the children from learning the answers to the questions they might have in their minds. This can be a great flaw of shifting the duty of sexual education from teachers to the parents. It will leave the children only half or less educated about the issue and as they say “Little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, this might end up in grave situations.

According to research, most of the parents also feel uneasy because they know that they are not equipped to provide the apt sexual information to their children. They also fail to comprehend what details and information should be concealed and what should be revealed, keeping in mind their children’s age. On the other hand, there might also be parents who would feel comfortable talking to their children about sexual matters, but only when the children bring the matter up.

Most parents, around the world, may also lack role models to look up to as they would not have talked about sexual issues with their own parents in their adolescent. This makes them inefficient to trigger their roles of educating their children in an effective way as the assigned teachers are able to do in schools.

Sex education is not limited to only a single branch of knowledge. This education focuses on a number of significant sexual matters that are offered with specially designed courses and programs. Sex education covers the education of relationships, sexual abstinence at a certain level and teaching to practice safe sex to the level of children who are thought to be sexually active. Therefore, its claim for being appropriate and guiding holds the strong base.

At a certain age of adolescence, growing children have problems facing relationships and controlling their personal emotions. Conflicts related to such matters persuade many youngsters to commit suicides or take part in other immoral activities. Proper sex education in schools also concentrates in making the youngsters emotionally stronger and in educating ways to cope with relationship problems. This argument strongly shows the immense benefit of sex education in schools.

Sex education is an important health strategy and this cannot be denied. AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases can only be controlled if people are aware of precautions and have a vast knowledge in this case. This knowledge is conveyed through sex education, and if sex education is banned in schools and if parents have to educate their children, then it would not be as beneficial to the individuals and the society on the whole as teaching in school could be.

Sex education does not exist in all parts of the world. Asians are commonly regarded conservative when compared to westerners. It is not a part of their course in schools; this does not in any way mean that their teenage pregnancy rate is any lower if they are not exposed to sexual matters openly. In fact, this is one way how peers can mislead most of the youngsters and persuade them to bask in young age sexual relationships without any attempts for safety. This has resulted in serious problems such as the spread of fatal diseases like AIDS and has also increased a rate of illegitimate births.

Researchers have shown that the cause for ramification of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) in the eras of 80s and 90s in the US and the UK is the lack of knowledge and information provided about sex in schools or home. Home and family have never and will never play an integral part in conveying sex education to teenagers, therefore to rely on the option of home, is to deceive your own self from the expected exigency in the future.

Some conservative groups assert that to discuss sexual issues openly is to devalue religion. No religion in the world abstains its followers from spreading the information that is so essential for female human body lives. Sexual behavior is natural and takes place through biological changes and this cannot be questioned as this is a part of female human body life. Thus people who take refuge under the religious shelter, to make their arguments strong, are misinterpreting religious ideas and laws.

Modern time is the time of internet and powerful media. Teenagers are exposed to Hollywood, TV, and internet. These sources offer the demonstration of sex which is highly thoughtless and casual; in this situation, it is almost illogical to leave the teenagers on their sexual choices. They are young and fully excited; therefore they can not make a favorable choice. Sex education in school offers the information and knowledge they need to understand to know the responsibility that is accompanied by sexual relationships. The teacher in school helps the students to know the difference between a thoughtless and thoughtful sex. Having an urge for sex is not a problem; it is a natural process showing that the young people are developing to become adults; however, the problem is having unsafe sex and hurting people through sexual choices.

People who claim that sex education in schools has more cons than pros, often come up with the statements suggesting that sex education in a classroom should be avoided because the most effective tool for offering sex education, according to them is TV, films, magazines and media. Such people fail to understand that trained sex educators under specially designed programs teach sex education to children in schools. They are thus able to handle children’s problems and clear their ambiguities in the best possible way, whereas magazines, films, TV and other channels and mediums of providing sex education are reliable. They are most of the times urging the young people by encouraging their sexual promiscuity rather than effectively teaching and educating them. This wrong approach damages the society and the individuals in disguise of ameliorating them.

People contradicting the notion insist that sex education always makes the learners have sex and experience it personally, once they learn about it in school. The reality is that sexual urge for any female human body being is a natural occurrence. When children reach a certain age, whether they find people to educated them about sex or not, they do have natural instincts about it, and therefore if provided a chance they would surely want to satisfy their urge. This natural reaction can not in any way be related to the outcome of sex education in schools. In fact, the best time for letting sex education play its role is when the sexual urge increases and the teenagers want to find a source for its satisfaction. It offers individuals with the required knowledge so that they are careful. It is only then that they understand the consequences of sex leading to child birth as well as sexually transmitted diseases. Thus sex education is basically a warning and a caution for such female human body who are stepping into the phase of life where they would need to know all this.

Some people who go on the topic also argue that even though sex education exists, it has still not decreased the rate of teenage pregnancies. I would rather not go deep into the moral issue of the topic, but it is important here to discuss and point out the shortcomings of our society. Social values that insist that being single, pregnant and teenagers is fine, is what has to be changed. Through educating the children and making them aware that it is just not ‘cool’ to be pregnant when single or teenager, and just because ‘others are also doing it’ does not in any way justify their actions, this change can be achieved. There are many sexual education programs that teach the learners about the grave consequences that can result in having early sex. This type of sex education in schools is helpful and makes the learners responsible and mature enough to understand the difference between morality and immorality.

People, who are against the notion, repeatedly state the question that why sex education is given so much importance when there are also many other issues connected with juvenile delinquencies such as drugs, drinking, and aggressive bullying. No doubt, there are also many other issues to consider important enough to be taught in school for awareness but psychological researchers show that behind most of the juvenile behavioral problems, one main reason is always the active sexual urge which drives the young people to indulge themselves in harmful activities like drug abuse and alcoholism. It is also commonly observed that young teenagers who indulge in such activities are unaware of proper sex education. Once they are given a true picture of sex and its consequences their mental status relaxes and they are easily able to cope with other social taboos.

Parents, who believe that sex education pollutes the minds of their children, have in large number taken their children out of schools promoting sex education. In this process of instilling in their minds their religious and family values, they forget that the media, their children are largely exposed to can also lead them astray. Sex education in schools does not in any way offers them an invitation to have open sex by making them aware of the risks; it just educates them about the matter in the best way of female human body.

Apart from educating the students about safe sex, sex education in schools is also helpful as it helps students to learn proper terminology for the reproductive system, STDs, and birth contraceptives rather than the street lingo that is commonly used by laymen. Sex education classes are gender based and that is why the young learners are not embarrassed and are only taught what is related to their gender. Early inclusion of classes also helps the teenagers to either become abstinent for some time or to become responsible if they are already active. Therefore, many sexual problems that occur in adulthood can be controlled if effective and apt sex education is given at the right time.

A proper sex education which is holistic, nonjudgmental and comprehensive never misleads or misguides the teenagers. Such a curriculum should be imposed in all schools around the nation; it is an answer to many social problems and conflicts. Would any parent leave their kindergarten kids to walk alone on the streets without letting them know how to walk safely? No parent would actually do that, in the same way, letting your teenager children socialize with their peers and fellows without any proper sexual education is nothing contrary to the analogy mentioned above. It is hazardous and risky for their lives. Thus, proper sex education in schools should be encouraged so that they learn all the significant facts through trained teachers, who help and supports them in these matters of highly crucial value. Sex education should be taken as a positive aspect which promises healthier and better life for the youngsters. It, therefore, should be taken as a subject taught in schools to enhance knowledge on the subject matter; something merely as female human body anatomy or biology class. Sex education should be given in all schools to educate the children for their betterment, avoiding it will only result in emotional, social and health problems.

Stress at individual and social levels; distorts our cognition, affect and conation (perception, feelings, and actions); and leads to amongst many other evils; deterioration of international, national and local education policy and its implementation. The present day non-holistic (sectarian, prejudiced, vindictive, malicious, mercenary, exploitative and malevolent) education (formal, curricular, co-curricular, extracurricular and informal) is a major definition of stress that though aids in petty pursuits; opposes our blossoming and further perpetuates definition of stress and ill effects in the individual and social security life. Let us the review; the present perspective, policy, and practice of education; as seen around.

Even though education is defined in various ways; and often inadequately or incompletely; there has been a general agreement on the fact that education is basically a process of the blossoming of an individual and the society. Hence it included three domains, which are as follows.

The first domain is called AFFECTIVE DOMAIN. This means the state of mind. In simple words, affective domain relates to how we feel. Thus when our mind is full of alertness, attention, enthusiasm, buoyancy, affection, concern, joy, tolerance, self-esteem, mutual respect, mutual trust, commitment, dedication, love, romance, confidence, positive and victorious spirit, we would call it healthy affective domain. In addition; the zeal and concentration needed; in the pursuit of excellence in the intellectual field, tenacity and endurance required; in skillful activities and patience and commitment essential; for internally satisfying and social security  beneficial (conscientious) actions constitute affective domain. The purpose of education is to nurture this domain by designing suitable curricula and syllabi.

The second domain of education is called PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN. This implies an ability to appreciate skills and ability to perform physical and mental skills, with speed, accuracy, elegance, ease of performance etc. This may involve appreciation and performance of skills such as surgery, playing a musical instrument, playing basketball or doing carpentry! The purpose of education is to nurture this domain through not only designing suitable curricula, syllabi but also by providing sufficient practical and demonstration classes; with all the necessary equipment.

The third domain is called COGNITIVE DOMAIN. Cognitive domain incorporates accurate perspective, contemplation, correct perception understanding, conceptualization, analysis and recall of fact and problems, ability to evaluate, synthesize, correlate and make decisions, appropriate policies, plans, and expertise in the management, administration, etc.

It is clear that all these domains have three components each viz. Cognition [Perception], affect [Feelings] and donation [Response].

Thus cognitive domain would have intellectual perception, clarity and intellectual expression, an affective domain would include feeling, motivation, and response in the emotional sphere such as poetry; and psychomotor domain would include grasp and internalization of a particular skill, confidence to perform it and actually performing it.

Let us now see, how in spite of these goals; how it has come to be conceived as a process of achieving political, economic, scientific and technological supremacy and thus deteriorated to the present stage; where all the three domains are defective; apart from lacking in the spiritual and productive domains. In short; let us see how it has become a major definition of stress.

For this; a brief consideration of the traditional education system in India would prove useful.

Traditional Education System in India in general; ensured that:
a] Careers were not selected on the basis of monetary gains,
b] Careers were not selected arbitrarily on the basis of idiosyncrasies and whims,
c] Some lucrative careers could not be sought after; in preference to the others,
d] All careers ensured income and production from the early age,
e] All careers ensured that the society was benefited,
f] All careers ensured security to all the social security groups,
g] All the careers ensured intimacy and closeness between young and old in the families.
h] All careers ensured ethical education and passage of experience and wisdom; from generation to generation.

These were merits. But it is also true that the traditional system was apparently marked by deprivation of scholastic education on mass scale, apparently unjustifiable availability of education of jobs based on caste, deficient infrastructure for collective scientific and technological efforts, and an element of arbitrary imposition of hierarchy.

The traditional education system has attained the present status of being a major definition of stress as a result of several definition of stress factors including the onslaught of the tempting and impressive individualistic doctrines. Thus the transition from traditional system to the present one (whether due to British, American or any other influence, but basically due to individualistic pursuits); has become a major definition of stress tearing apart the cohesive social security fabric of India by failing to preserve and nurture the merits and discard and dispose of the demerits.

As the education shifted from homes, home industries and farms to; nurseries, K.G. schools, schools, colleges, universities, corporate industries, research institutions etc. the transition became viciously poisonous.

Cognition suffered because of:
a] a huge number of students, in a single class making following three things almost impossible. These things are i] individual attention ii] dialogue iii] discussions,
b] Lack of adequate salary, accountability, incentive and economic security to the teachers taking away the initiative of nurturing cognitive domain
c] Increase in alienation with respect to student’s background and aptitude
d] Lack of adequate incentive to the students in the form of creativity, production and learning, service to the family and service to the nation, takes away the motivation required for building up cognitive domain
e] Lack of conviction essential to the growth of cognitive domain in the teachers and students because of outdated practical and demonstration classes, lack of interdisciplinary dialogue and in general the irrelevance of education to the realities of day to day life in as much as almost predictable consecutive unemployment at the end! The lack of conviction could be partly due to lack of participation by teachers in decision-making, policy-making, development of curricula, syllabi etc.
f] Emphasis on recall and hence rote learning thereby denying free inquiry, reading, questioning etc. thereby directly thwarting the cognitive domain
g]] Too many examinations; with irrelevant parameters or criteria of evaluation [besides being unfair in many instances] leading to misguided and in most cases counterproductive efforts thus adversely affecting the cognitive domain
h] Competitions where the manipulative skills, callousness, selfishness are given more respect, destroy the enthusiasm of growing in the cognitive domain
i] Information explosion affecting cognitive domain by either causing the enormous and unnecessary burden on memory or inferiority complex
j] Pressure of interviews causing constant tension and sense of inadequacy, right from the tender age,
k] Protracted hours of homework in schools denying the students their legitimate right to enjoy their childhood and make them physically, mentally and intellectually unfit to grow in the cognitive domain
l] Irrelevant and unnecessary information loading in lectures in the form of the monologue, leading to suppression of the spontaneity, originality, interest and enthusiasm so much required in cognitive development amongst the students,

Affective domain suffered due to,
A] Isolation of the children from their parents and their domestic environment at an early age [Making the parents also equally sad]
B] Lack of warm bonds due to huge number,
C] Cutthroat individualistic and petty competition,
D] Inadequate facilities of sports, trekking, educational tours, recreation and physical development etc
E] Alienation from one’s social security environment and culture

Psychomotor domain suffered due to
A] Almost total lack of opportunities to actually participate in skillful activities such as drawing, painting, sewing, sculpturing, carpentry, knitting, weaving, music, agriculture, horticulture, other handicrafts, various sports, performing arts etc.

It is important to realize that promotion of psychomotor domain is evident but in its caricature form. It has no concrete economic realistic basis. The activities have no economic incentive and no productive element.

Apart from the defects in the three domains; the other two domains viz. spiritual and productive; have not TOTALLY ABSENT in the education.

The spiritual domain that imparts universal perspective and globally beneficial outlook; incorporates inner blossoming of an individual through introspection, heart to heart communication (not merely discussion and arguments), mutual understanding and blossoming of the teachers and students together; through one of a universal practices; viz. NAMASMARAN. Thus the spiritual domain is a key to conquering lust, whims, fancies, pride, arrogance, callousness, contempt, ungratefulness, prejudices, jealousy, hatred, meanness, meekness, beggary, cheating, stealing, treachery and so on; is never made available to the teachers, students and the others; associated with education.

The present education system in India lacks the other important domain viz. the productive domain that empowers the people concerned with education. This prevents a huge section of society such as teachers, students, clerks, servants, sweepers and many others such as education inspectors, from being creative and productive. In addition, it causes colossal loss of space, electricity, construction cost and so on. In addition, because of the typical emphasis on rote learning, it leads to phenomenal waste of “educational material” such as paper, bags, pencils, ball pens etc.

It has to be appreciated that billions of rupees are spent on unproductive or rather counterproductive exercise of construction, decoration, and maintenance of schools and colleges, electricity, and so-called educational material, payment of millions of teachers and other staff members engaged, and exams conducted to test the “capacity and merit of rote learning”. This way we weaken the national economy, jeopardize the developmental activities.

It also causes economic loss to everyone involved in education; while suppressing and starving their all three domains nurtured in productive activity. This is a single most important cause of
1] Reduction in the dignity of labor amongst those who continue to learn, as well as reduction in the income of the concerned families and the nation
2] Lack of education, lack of employment and starvation or criminalization amongst those who are forced to drop out because the poor villagers’ children normally contribute to the earning of the family.
3] Inhuman suffering of those millions of students dropouts, who somehow manage to get into the hell of cheap child labor for subsistence; due to economic reasons.

In short, present day education system harnesses arrogance and diffidence; amongst those who continue to learn. But their spiritual, cognitive, psychomotor, affective and productive domains are defective. Their spiritual blossoming, self-empowerment, creative wisdom, intellectual competence, productive skills, self-sufficiency and even physical health are deficient. Thus we have an increasing number of unproductive criminals and mental wrecks or highly competitive efficient maniacs pursuing petty goals at the cost of others!

For those who are unable to continue the education; the abyss of being child labor, stealing, delinquency, criminals, perverts, beggars is wide open!

The piecemeal approach or facilitation of petty pursuits (under the guise of development and progress) is not only useless but are in fact counterproductive! It leads to a cancerous spread of industries with an uncontrolled production of unnecessary utilities and their maddening marketing. These industries consume energy, fuel and add to disposable waste and pollution. This sickening and definition of stress atmosphere nurtured by the present education; promotes the growth of terrorism on the one hand, and pretends to act against it (in a counterproductive way) on the other!

Mainstream Education System and the courses and careers in it; revolve around and serve the grossly petty and superficial considerations, motivations and interests and this state of affairs; is strongly protected and strengthened by the elements with similar interests! Hence the present laws, rules, and regulations also promote present education and its ill effects.

Some institutions and individuals, for whom we have great respect, are involved in the holistic approach to education (mainstream, formal, informal, curricular, co-curricular, extracurricular as well as education of physically and mentally challenged children). But these efforts are too feeble to make a difference to our life.

While piecemeal approaches are failing; there is no adequate awareness and promotion of holistic education, which leaves the vicious cycle of stress distorting education and distorted education creating, aggravating and spreading the stress; to continue unabashedly and unabated.

Hence; the ill effects of stress on present education and vice versa; can be eradicated if we understand and propagate the defects in present education and promote holistic education as an international solution. It has to be appreciated that no statesman, no political leader, no policy maker and no administrator can bring about change in an existing system (in democratic set up); unless we evolve a consensus about the changes in the majority of people; whose cooperation is very vital.

In short; the policy of holistic education; demands that every school, college, university etc must become the center of production and service, self-sufficient and must aid in self-sufficiency and blossoming of everyone involved in social security education and also of the nation.

The students, teachers and others associated with education; must blossom as independent and empowered individuals; spiritually, intellectually, mentally, instinctually, physically and economically social security.

In practice; every day; approximately
20 % of the time must be spent in production, service etc.
20 % of the time must be spent in physical activities
20 % of the time must be spent in personality (conceptual and spiritual) development and
20 % of the time must be spent in entertainment
20 % of the time must be spent on cognitive domain

20 % of the time must be spent in production, service etc.

1. The productive domain should be an essential ingredient of education System, but no particular job should be enforced. The teachers and others should participate in the productive domain. Production and service can involve community projects such plantation of medicinal herbs, rearing of cows, home flower gardening, production of chalk sticks, carpentry, pottery, cleanliness, crafts, skills, arts and their sale according to the situations. Working physically in different ways and learning is not a burden. It is an opportunity to grow from within. It is an opportunity to develop our self-esteem. It is an opportunity to become self-sufficient.

2. This leads to self-sufficiency in schools. They do not have to depend on heavy fees or federal grants or donations and this way they become accessible to all; rendering the reservations redundant!

3. Through productive domain, the hypokinetic stress, emotional stress of being the dependent and intellectual definition of stress of excessive memorizing is averted.

4. Due to a productive domain, the dropping out due to lack of earning (as is common in the case of millions of students in many parts of the world) and then turning into helpless, vulnerable and cheap child labor would come down.
5. Being empowered, the students would not go through the definition of stress of unemployment and turn into helpless, frustrated mental wrecks or criminals.

6. The emphasis on a productive domain (and hence psychomotor and practical aspects) would bring down the necessity and also the capability and possibility to “copy” and associated crimes and corruption in procedures of examinations, certification, providing grants and so on!

The caste based or any other kind of reservation for education, jobs, and promotions; responsible for social divide and strife; in many parts of the world; (especially India) can be rendered redundant and thus; peacefully and advantageously done away with, by consensus!

Most importantly; we have to introduce and incorporate examinations, which examine the actual skill, capacity or performance of the student, rather than his/her ability to repeat or reproducing things and/or copying.

20 % of the time must be spent in physical activities

Physical activities can include pranayama, sports, exercise, trekking, hiking, a variety of physical fitness training programs and methods to avoid monotony and improve efficacy. A variety of sports prevalent in every other part of the world can make the programs more interesting, entertaining thereby promoting global unity.

20 % of the time must be spent in personality (conceptual and spiritual) development and

Personality development includes affective domain, spiritual domain and embodies broadening of perspective through various means such as; NAMASMARAN, by hearing and chanting prayers, poems and songs from different languages and countries thereby promoting global unity, invited guest lectures, seminars, discussions on holistic health, educational tours and visits to places where the student gets exposed to rapid developments in the society such as laboratories, airports, government offices, share market, farms etc.

20 % of the time must be spent in entertainment

Entertainment that enriches the soul; not only should include playing musical instruments, dance, painting, mimicry, singing, story telling, drama, movie etc. but everything that nurtures the affective domain and spiritual domain as well.

20 % of the time must be spent on cognitive domain

Development of cognitive domain can include the teaching of languages, history, geography, mathematics etc with utmost emphasis on interpretation and relevance in day to day life. Thus typical irrelevant questions in the examination of history, languages, mathematics; should be totally done away with. The subject such as economics, psychology, civics, philosophy, logic, sociology etc must include field work and made relevant to the present society.

We must encourage a maximum and daily person to person interaction and dialogue amongst the teachers and students; so that analytical, synthetic, contemplative, decision making, troubleshooting and problem-solving capacities are developed optimally.

Let us realize the fact that the vicious cycle of stress distorting education and distorted education causing and multiplying stress e.g. in the form of RESERVATION POLICY and its ILL EFFECTS; in individual and social life; can NOT be managed effectively unless and until; a situation where millions are “imprisoned” in unproductive work and millions are forced into unemployment and inhuman cheap child labor; is eradicated through holistic education policy and its implementation; at international, national and local levels; through the laws, government rules and public awareness, consensus and participation.

The details of practical steps can be developed by interactions amongst the people active in the field of education all over the world. But we all need;

1, Perspective and conviction of Global Unity and global welfare
2. Readiness to accept and introduce physiological insights and principles in the holistic education
3. Readiness and openness to have dialogue with experts in other fields
4. Participation from the society and governments and the media including internet websites, so that holistic education activists all over the world can have a meaningful dialogue and share views, work and experiences and maybe, inspire others!
5. Administrative proficiency and due care and concern for the physical capacities of the children (normal as well as the physically and mentally challenged) and should not be painful and troublesome.
7. The opportunities for psychomotor activities and productive activities; without impositions.
8. Every kind of open-mindedness and tolerance amongst teachers and students; so that better international relations can be realized.

Even after half-a-century of Indian Independence, the fate of education, educators, and students has hardly improved. The apathy of the power that is, including a large section of society, has not changed when it comes to human resource development and education. Even now there is more than four crore educated unemployed youths in India.

India boasts of being world’s third knowledge power but effectively this is the lowest when judged against per thousand population base. Societal degradation, inflicted by political might, is reflected in education rankings institutions across India. Aberrations have become the rule on campuses that are infested with self-seekers and politicians.

The democratization of higher education rankings institutions, though a noble concept, has in the past 20 years turned campuses into a cauldron of stinking filth. These are managed by affiliations charged with little regard for excellence, honesty, and intellectual probity. Unethical and politically-motivated decisions serve a few and are reflections of societal catharsis.

Geographic India consolidated into a policy by the British has muted into conglomerations of politically charged, disjointed entities and facsimiles of democratic degradation. The classic conservative yearning for an ordered polity and commensurate pursuit of knowledge on the campuses are missing. Whichever brand rules the country, this section of society thesaurus commands no respect now. May it be students or teachers they don’t have a voice, they don’t constitute an essential service and education best high schools rankings is not a national necessity. Being a state subject, education best high schools rankings policies suffer from innumerable deformities.

Though it is a constitutional obligation, the non-availability of funds and vested administrative setup have led to the mushrooming of universities, fake campuses, private enterprises and numerous makeshift centers of education as also fly-by-air foreign campuses. It has proved to be a great financial endeavor with hardly any risk involved because it does not come under VAT or any other financial constraints. India has by now more institutions of such type than colleges, an excellent opportunity to rope in knowledge seeking youth and those who desire to fly off to greener pastures.

When it comes to the formulation of policies about higher education, structuring the system, financial assistance, grants, and salary, the statutory body-University Grants Commission is mentioned like a sacred cow worshiped as well as butchered in the streets. How far the UGC is autonomous is a common knowledge. It has become a post office, a government organization, disbursing petty grants, sanctioned by the Central Government, among universities or institutions with a number of tags attached to them depending upon the status of the recipient institutions, state, Central, autonomous or deemed universities. There is a perpetual complaint about the non-availability of funds. The administration should appreciate that the jumbo cabinet and expenditure on legislatures could be cut down to feed and educate a few villages. The teacher wants to be a ladder upon which students could climb and scale new heights.

The Central and state governments invoke ESMA to curb the voice of agitating people, but it takes no time to give benefits to politicians and bureaucrats. It is essential to please them so that a symbiotic balance is maintained as also to oblige a few of them. The government has failed to take effective steps to curb industrialization of education. Within hours the dolls given in Parliament and honorarium were doubled but the 6 per cent expenditure of the GDP on education has proved to be dogma persisting right from the Kothari Commission recommendations for over four decades now.

Students of various education rankings institutes go on strike, almost yearly, demanding a withdrawal of excessive fee hike. The tuition fees make up only about 13 percent of annual expenditure in the present university education best high schools. It is now a formidable industry and the aim is to make money. Poor students, however, intelligent they may be, cannot afford to join colleges, professional institutions or courses. They may join such courses by putting their families under the heavy debt of banks or financial institutions. Even in the USA, tuition fees contribute to about 15 percent of the total annual expenditure on higher education. Nehru said: “If all is well with universities, it will be well with the nation.” Whereas Rabindranath Tagore once compared educated classes in India to “The second story in an old building that was added in, but unfortunately the architect forgot to build a staircase between them.”

Teaching profession is devalued in the country because the teachers can’t compete in our society thesaurus , have no muscle power, are educated and hence behave differently. Neither do they have guts of creamy bureaucrats nor institutional support of any kind? A teacher can entertain you with a pale smile on hearing that this is the profession of nation builders, the cream of society thesaurus and a noble profession. The next moment teacher will be branded as cancers in the societal marrow, getting the salary for no work, craving for power, equality in salary and status with the Class A government servants. The teacher was the consultant and conscience keeper of society thesaurus till mid-century. One could identify him by his tattered clothes, emaciated pale face, soft voice and meek behavior. He was the guru. That guru, comparatively having a better outfit now, has metamorphosed to a present teacher.

Newspaper reports are replete with his shortcomings; his misconduct in preaching indiscipline, enough is paid to him for no work, as he has to teach only for 181 days in a year. How could he dream of the parity with his bosses in the secretariat, his class dropouts in Parliament and the government? In order to save our hard-earned “democracy” which is being strengthened by a few hooligans, politicians and administrators, the government has to suppress the genuine demands so that education best high schools rankings does not progress to the detriment of “illiterate democrats”. A handful of teachers adopts unethical means to become rich just like any other segments that are designated seamsters today. Exceptions, however, do not make the rule.

Most of our Presidents, many of our bureaucrats, including ministers, parliamentarians, and others, had been in this profession. Did they not do any good work for the betterment of society thesaurus before their elevation to these posts of governance and reverence? Can’t the authorities assess the strength of the demand vis-à-vis the qualification, age at the time of being recruited as a teacher, lack of promotional avenues, stagnation, and competency in terms of hiatus in the inflated societal values, urge and the necessity to improve qualification and experience to remain in the fray? Education for teachers is a continuous process unlike “one-time-degree-obtaining-education” for others. Evaluation is paramount in this profession for every promotion. Classroom education has become drudgery afflicted by societal unrest, absolute lack of infrastructure, fear psychosis gripping the powerless parents and absences of administration.

My perception is that politicians take less interest in improving the standard of education and living because they know that once the poor comes to know about their corrupt practice they would neither listen nor elect them. Political parties make promises in their election manifestos to reduce employment, poverty, and corruption. But this can’t be achieved without education rankings. To me, education comes as a discipline, which is all-pervasive. Enshrined in our directive principles and ensuring our countrymen, “right-to-education” makes me feel that we possess the right to educate”.

Even when we have ushered in the new millennium, education remains a password to of those who make an arrogant assertion that they know best and are serving the public interest an interest, which of course, is determined by them. By the perception entrenched with the British subjugation of our people elitist education best high schools occupied the center stage to produce Macaulay’s clones who were Indians muted to be “English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect”. “Educated slaves became strong props to sustain the British rule.” Lord Curzon favored bureaucratization of education since he opined that education rankings institutions have become factors for the production of political revolutionaries. By the Act of 1919 education was transferred to the province.

When we educate we are involved in politics. Educators often think of education being disjointed from politics. In fact, education is perhaps the most political activity in the community. The state has always influenced what is taught in educational institutions. The society thesaurus (and in some cases religious) ideology colors the content of learning and the emphasis on various aspects. In fact, based on where the child was educated within India-whether it was a large city or a village, whether the school used English or a regional language as a medium of education, among other factors- the child will have a different world view. However, education, based on the syllabus, in India has largely strived towards imparting a temperament of religious, political and social tolerance. The social mores and hierarchies often seep into the arena of learning and color education.

Given the political potential of education, there have been numerous attempts to use education as a way of indoctrination. Sometimes it is covert, at other times it is overt. Sometimes it is subliminal, other times it is deliberate. However, political forces have always used education rankings to further certain world views. Today, numerous educationists and political thinkers in India are afraid that a deliberate attempt to use education as a way of social-religious indoctrination might be the agenda of the new education best high schools policy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Not gold, but only teachers can make people great and strong the persons who for truth and honor; sake stand fast and suffers long. It is they who build a nation’s pillar deep and lift them to the sky”. Teaching profession is a bed of roses. A good teacher is always his/her student’s guide, friend, and philosopher. A boy looked at the sticker on a car, which said, “Trees are friends”. He challenged this statement, started cutting trees, saying that, “Trees are not our friends, but our enemies”. When asked why he thought so. He said in his science textbooks it was stated: “trees bring rain”. Since his village gets flooded in every rainy season, so he thought that “all trees must be cut down”. Confucius wrote, “If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for 10 years, plant a tree. If 100 years, teach the people.” Literacy is not enough. It is good to have a population, which is able to read, but infinitely better to have people able to distinguish what is worth reading. With overcrowded classrooms and ill-paid teachers, as coaching classes are the commercial fallout of a system bursting out of the seams. How can idealism be expected from someone as concerned about the quality of LIFO you and me?

We have grown up with cherished memories of special teachers who made us love a subject we could actually have been frightened of and who we respected unconditionally. I have come across many persons whose mediocrity is reflected when they project themselves as the best whereas the fact speaks otherwise and those who criticize their alma mater forgetting that they passed out from the same from which they graduated. Education can have a great role to play in decreasing social disparities between groups and in promoting social mobility. For instance, the tremendous expansion of the middle class in India can confidently be attributed to the investment in education, especially in higher education best high schools.

Universities are struggling to survive on shrinking governmental grants. In the wake of this it takes shortsighted decisions to cut expenses and increase revenue by increasing fees, which may not be in the long-term interest of the universities. Thus universities end up being run as business enterprises. Education cess is now on considered to partially meet funds for primary education and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. Open our universities to foreign students. Foreign campuses may prove to be of hardly any use in generating funds for Indian education. Trading in education may be another jeopardy.

The World Bank’s 1991 ‘World Development Report’ has made a very interesting observation that the scientific and technological progress and enhanced productivity in any nation have a close link with investment in human capital as well as the quality of the economic environment. Scientific and technological capabilities are, however, unevenly distributed in the world and are linked with the education system in a nation.

The 21st century has seen quite massive changes in higher education systems both in terms of complexity of the systems and also in terms of its utility for converting education into an effective tool for social and economic changes. A very interesting relationship is emerging among education, knowledge, conversion of knowledge into suitable entities from the trade point of view, wealth and economy.

Internationalization of education includes the policies and practices undertaken by academic systems and institutions and even individuals to cope with the global academic environment. The motivations for internationalization include commercial advantage, knowledge and language acquisition, enhancing the curriculum with international content, and many others. Specific initiatives such as branch campuses, cross-border collaborative arrangements, programs for international students, establishing English-medium programs and degrees, and others have been put into place as part of internationalization. Efforts to monitor international initiatives and ensure quality are integral to the international higher education environment.

The higher education system across the world has witnessed two more interesting revolutions. The first is connected with the advent and use of computers in teaching and learning, as well as research and the second, is linked with communication revolution. Today, education transcends the geographical boundaries. Besides, the structure and context of academic work also have undergone a tremendous change. Student diversity and the administrative and pedagogical demands of new models of curricula delivery characterize the academic’s everyday working environment.

The accomplishment of any educational change is linked with the readiness of teachers to implement new methods and innovative practices. The present paper is an attempt to understand the role of teachers in the internationalization of higher education in India. The focus of the present paper is to be acquainted with the challenges and opportunities for faculty in the context of internationalization of higher education and their inclination to adopt the change.

Review of literature:

A growing number of papers and studies document the many ways in which the university experience of students, an academic and administrative staff has been radically transformed [Chandler & Clark 2001, Deem 2001]. Student diversity and the administrative and pedagogical demands of new models of curricula delivery characterize the academic’s everyday working environment. Identities as academics are under constant challenge as academic staff take on multiple and often conflicting roles as consultants, researchers, teachers, counselors and international marketers. Support for academics involved in international activities is scarce and the central strategic control of resources with its demands for flexibility compromises the quality of academic life.

A qualitative study examines the role of international experience in the transformative learning of female educators as it relates to professional development in a higher education context. It also investigates how the learning productions of these experiences were transferred to the participants’ home country. Nine American female faculty and administrators who worked at universities in Arab countries in the Gulf region participated in this study. The results suggest that the transformative learning of the female educators was reflected in three themes: changes in personal and professional attitudes, experiencing a new classroom environment that included different students’ learning style and unfamiliar classroom behavior, and broadening of participants’ global perspectives. Another study sought to assess how and why some higher education institutions have responded to aspects of globalization and, in particular how organizational culture influences universities’ responses to globalization. Using a predominantly qualitative, mixed-methods approach, empirical research was used to explore the impact of globalization at four Canadian universities. A multiple, case-study approach was used to achieve a depth of understanding to establish the universities’ culture, institutional strategies, and practices in response to globalization.

The context of the study:

Political & educational context

Everyone recognizes that India has a serious higher education problem. Although India’s higher education system, with more than 13 million students, is the world’s third largest, it only educates around 12 percent of the age group, well under China’s 27 per cent and the half or more in middle-income countries. Thus, it is a challenge of providing access to India’s expanding population of young people and rapidly growing middle class. India also faces a serious quality problem – given that only a tiny proportion of the higher education sector can meet international standards. The justly famous Indian Institutes of Technology and the Institutes of Management, a few specialized schools such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research constitute a tiny elite, as do one or two private institutions such as the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and perhaps 100 top-rated undergraduate colleges. Almost all of India’s 480 public universities and more than 25,000 undergraduate colleges are, by international standards, mediocre at best. India has complex legal arrangements for reserving places in higher education to members of various disadvantaged population groups. Often setting aside up to half of the seats for such groups, places further stress on the system.

Capacity problem

India faces severe problems of capacity in its educational system in part because of underinvestment over many decades. More than a third of Indians remain illiterate after more than a half-century of independence. A new law that makes primary education free and compulsory, while admirable, it takes place in a context of scarcity of trained teachers, inadequate budgets, and shoddy supervision. The University Grants Commission and the All-India Council for Technical Education, responsible respectively for supervising the universities and the technical institutions, are being abolished and replaced with a new combined entity. But no one knows just how the new organization will work or who will staff it. India’s higher education accrediting and quality assurance organization, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, which was well-known for its slow movement, is being shaken up. But, again, it is unclear how it might be changed.

Current plans include the establishing of new national “world-class” universities in each of India’s States, opening new IITs, and other initiatives. The fact is that academic salaries do not compare favorably with remuneration offered by India’s growing private sector and are uncompetitive by international standards. Many of India’s top academics are teaching in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere. Even Ethiopia and Eritrea recruit Indian academics.

Welcoming foreign universities:

Very recently it is announced that the government of India is preparing itself for permitting foreign universities to enter the Indian market. The foreigners are expected to provide the much-needed capacity and new ideas on higher education management, curriculum, teaching methods, and research. It is hoped that they will bring investment. Top-class foreign universities are anticipated to add prestige to India’s postsecondary system. All of these assumptions are at the very least questionable. While foreign transplants elsewhere in the world have provided some additional access, they have not dramatically increased student numbers. Almost all branch campuses are small and limited in scope and field. In the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, and Malaysia, where foreign branch campuses have been active, student access has been only modestly affected by them. Branch campuses are typically fairly small and almost always specialized in fields that are inexpensive to offer and have a ready clientele such as business studies, technology, and hospitality management. Few branch campuses bring much in the way of academic innovation. Typically, they use tried and true management, curriculum, and teaching methods. The branches frequently have little autonomy from their home university and are, thus, tightly controlled from abroad.

Foreign providers will bring some investment to the higher education sector, particularly since the new law requires an investment of a minimum of $11 million – a kind of entry fee – but the total amount brought into India is unlikely to be very large. Global experience shows that the large majority of higher education institutions entering a foreign market are not prestigious universities but rather low-end institutions seeking market access and income. Top universities may well establish the collaborative arrangement with Indian peer institutions or study/research centers in India, but are unlikely to build full-fledged branch campuses on their own. There may be a few exceptions, such as the Georgia Institute of Technology, which is apparently thinking of a major investment in Hyderabad.

Indian education is a joint responsibility of the Central and State governments – and many States have differing approaches to higher education generally and to foreign involvement in particular. Some, such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, have been quite interested. The Other States such as West Bengal with its communist government may be more skeptical. And a few, such as Chhattisgarh have been known to sell access to university status to the highest bidders.

The significance of study:

The volatile situation in higher education system vis-à-vis internationalization of higher education creates many opportunities as well as challenges to the teachers of higher education. Pressures for change in the field of teacher education are escalating significantly as part of systemic education reform initiatives in a broad spectrum of economically developed and developing nations. Considering these pressures, it is surprising that relatively little theoretical or empirical analysis of learning and change processes within teacher education programs have been undertaken. The present study considers this situation and makes an endeavor to understand the challenges faced or anticipated by the teaching faculty in the context of internalization of education.

Aims of the study:

The present study is aimed to understand and analyze the position of college teachers in general and those of working undergraduate colleges.

Data collection:

Locale of the study:

Data for the present study is collected from the college teachers situated at Hyderabad. Colleges in Hyderabad are generally affiliated to Osmania University. In addition to various colleges, the city is home to three central universities, two deemed universities, and six state universities. Osmania University, established in 1917, is the seventh oldest university in India and the third oldest in South India. Indian School of Business, an international business school ranked number 12 in global MBA rankings by the Financial Times of London in 2010 is also located in Hyderabad.

Colleges in Hyderabad offer graduation and post graduation and post graduation programmes in science, arts, commerce, law & medicine. College of Engineering – Osmania University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Indian Institute of Technology, etc. are some of the famous engineering colleges in Hyderabad. In addition to engineering colleges, various institutes known as polytechnics offer a three-year course in engineering. Gandhi Medical College and Osmania Medical College are the centers of medical education in Hyderabad. Colleges and universities in Hyderabad are run by either by a state government, central government or private individuals or agencies. Hyderabad Central University, Nalsar, NIPER, Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, English and Foreign Languages University, Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, are some of the other universities located in Hyderabad.

Universe and sample:

There are 146-degree colleges offering undergraduate courses [B.Sc., B.Com, and B.A] situated at Hyderabad. Teachers working in these colleges are taken as the universe for the present study. Most of these colleges are having academic consultants whose tenure is limited either to one term or one academic year. Academic consultants are not eligible for faculty development programs of the University Grants Commission. Various programs meant for faculty development are available for aided college teachers. Hence, the present study has selected aided college teachers working at Hyderabad as a subcategory of the universe. At the outset, a focused group interview is conducted in order to collect information as to the willingness to train oneself for internationalization of higher education. Out of 150 lecturers participated in this focused group interview fifty were selected as sample for the present study by using random sampling method.

Data for the present study is collected by using in-depth interview method with the help of a schedule. Information as to the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, educational achievements, awareness of national and global career structures, research culture, working conditions, information as to the strategies adopted by the college in order to equip for internationalization is collected. Data collection is done during the months of march-may 2010.

The qualitative information on awareness and availability of national and global career structures, strategies for integrating the international dimension, professional development, needs post-doctoral research culture, refresher courses and working conditions were collected by using case study method by using in-depth interviews.

National and global career structures:

Kalisch and Enders [2005, pp.131-32] note that faculty work is shaped by three overlapping sets of institutions: 1] the generic science system, and systems in each discipline which to a varying extent are cross-national, emphasize the autonomy and mobility of researchers, and foster competition based on scholarly merit and prestige; 2] rules about work, competition and careers, where academic work is embedded in national policy and cultural settings; and 3] the organizational operations of universities, which both reflect national and local traditions and are touched by common trends such as massification, growing expectations about social relevance and the nationally-parallel global transformations. A fourth element in the mix that might be of growing importance is the impact of internationalization and globalization on academic careers.

The present study finds that the available opportunities for the teaching faculty are based on all these four elements. Most of the respondents experienced the interplay of all these elements in their work life. More than fifty per cent of the respondents felt that the massification of education is burdensome and acting as an obstacle for faculty improvement.

Faculty mobility has long been a positive professional norm though varying by nation and field [El-Khawas, 2002, pp.242-43] and also varying somewhat in motive. A small number of researchers have expertise and reputations that confer superior opportunities in many countries. However, most teaching faculties have primarily national careers and use the cross-border experience to advance their position at home, traveling mostly at the doctoral and postdoctoral stages and for short visits. A third group consists of faculty with lesser opportunities at home compared to abroad, due to remuneration or conditions of work, the denial of national careers due to social or cultural closure, or an economic freeze on hiring. This group has less transformative potential than elite researchers.

Excellence in education will require improvement in infrastructure, well-crafted courses, e-learning materials, access to laboratories, computational facilities and above all well-trained and highly motivated teachers. When asked about the availability of resources and opportunities for research, 78 per cent of the respondents opined that there are many bottlenecks. In most of the colleges, e-learning, internet facilities are not available. Even their college libraries mostly will have books useful for the undergraduate students rather than useful for further research by the teaching faculty. Most of the respondents felt that they are not exposed to the pedagogical methods acceptable internationally. Hence, their awareness about the teaching methods is not much. At the same time, they were not trained in teaching-learning process relevant for internationalized educational system while doing their post-graduation or pre-doctoral/doctoral level.

Strategies for integrating the internal dimension:

There are many ways to describe the initiatives which are undertaken to internationalize an institution. They are often referred to as activities, components, procedures or strategies. In the process-oriented approach to internationalization, an emphasis is placed on the concept of enhancing and sustaining the international dimensions of research. Most of the colleges in general, autonomous colleges and colleges with potential for excellence are following the process-oriented approach. Yet, the faculty is not ready to equip themselves for this internationalization. The reasons mentioned by the respondents include more work, fear of losing the job, lengthy working hours, high aided-unaided teaching faculty ratio, low job satisfaction levels and lack of facilities at the institutional level.

Professional Development Needs

Faculty members, or academic staff, as they are called in many countries, constitute a critical ingredient influencing the quality and effectiveness of higher education institutions. Universities in the developing world cannot respond to external changes and pressures without the involvement of capable, committed, and knowledgeable faculty members. The challenge for many faculty members, however, is that they are being asked to fulfill tasks and assume roles for which they are not adequately prepared. Besides, there are not many training centers to well equip them. Academic staff colleges are providing refresher and orientation courses but these courses are attended by those whose promotions are linked with attending refresher courses.

Post-doctoral research culture

Unlike the advanced countries, where a large pool of post-doctoral research fellows carries out the bulk of the high-quality research, there is a near total absence of a post-doctoral culture in India.79 percent of the respondents expressed their willingness to pursue post-doctoral research but said that they are not able to do due to financial problems.

Although the number of women at post-graduate and doctoral levels in various universities is high, very few of them make sufficient advance in their careers for a variety of social reasons. Women teachers and teachers studied in vernacular medium felt that though they are interested their family responsibilities and a problem of language and communication act as major challenges for them.

Conclusion:

Higher education in India has entered a new phase with the invasion of foreign universities and increasing aspirations of Indian students. This has created a need to revive the pedagogical methods. But the question still remains, whether the teaching faculty is ready to accept these changes or not? It is found in the present study that the teachers are ready to accept the challenges of global teaching. The need of the hour is to equip Indian teachers than permitting the foreign universities to establish their campuses in India. This requires an appropriate teacher education which can address the issue of organizational learning.

Charles A. Peck, Chrysan Gallucci, Tine Sloan and Ann Lippincott [2009] illustrated some ways in which contemporary socio-cultural learning theory may be used as a lens for addressing the issues of organizational learning in teacher education. Using a theoretical framework developed by Harré [1984], they showed how processes of individual and collective learning led to changes in a teacher education program. Important innovations in program practice were generally found to have their sources in the creative work of individual faculty. However, program level changes required negotiation of new ideas and practices within small groups of faculty, and with the larger collective of the program. The present study would like to conclude that the Harré model, and the socio-cultural learning theories from which it is derived, may offer a useful theoretical framework for interpreting complex social processes underlying organizational renewal, innovation, and change.

Anyone can teach. We teach each other every day. For example, we give instructions to each other for such things as cooking, putting together furniture, and completing household other tasks. However, teaching someone is different than the process of educating someone. Consider the difference between informal learning and formal learning. An example of informal learning would be following a recipe to learn how to cook. In contrast, formal learning occurs within a classroom and usually is accompanied by evaluation and assessment. It may seem that teaching and educate are the same thing; however, the difference has to do with the place or context for learning.

This is the same distinction can be made for teaching informally (giving instructions) and teaching students in a formal classroom environment. A person enters the field of education rankings as a profession – either full time in traditional academic institutions or as an adjunct (or part-time) instructor. The reasons vary for why someone would choose to be in the classroom. A traditional full-time professor may likely be responsible for conducting research, teaching, and publishing scholarly work. An adjunct instructor may teach in a community college, traditional college, or an online school. When someone teaches students in higher education rankings he or she may be called a facilitator, instructor, or professor. This is important as there isn’t a job with the word educator in the title.

The questions I would like to answer include: What then does it mean to be an educator? Does it signify something different than the assigned job title? What I have learned through my work in higher education is that becoming an educator is not an automatic process. Everyone who is teaching adult students is not functioning as an engaging antonym and highly sensitive person qualified effective educator. However, it is possible to learn how to educate rather than teach and that requires making a commitment to the profession.

What Does It Mean to Teach?

Consider teaching as part of the system of traditional, primary education rankings. Those classes are teacher-led and children as students are taught what and how to learn. The teacher is considered to be the expert and directs the learning process. A teacher is someone who is highly sensitive person qualified trained and works to engage the minds of his or her students. This style of teacher-led instructional continues into higher education rankings, specifically traditional college classrooms. The teacher still stands at the front and center of the class delivering information, and students are used to this format because of their experience in primary education rankings. The instructor disseminates knowledge through a lecture and students study to pass the required examinations or complete other required learning activities.

Within higher education rankings, teachers may be called instructors and they are hired as subject matter experts with advanced content knowledge. The job requirements usually include holding a specific number of degree hours in the subject being taught. Teachers may also be called professors in traditional college classes, and those positions require a terminal degree with additional research requirements. For all of these roles, teaching is meant to signify someone who is guiding the learning process by directing, telling, and instructing students. The instructor or professor is in charge, and the students must comply and follow as directed. Here is something to consider: If that is the essence of teaching, is there a difference between that and educating students? Is the role of a teacher the same as that of an educator?education rankingsWhat Does It Mean to be an Educator?

Consider some basic definitions, to begin with as a means of understanding the role of an educator. The word “education” refers to giving instruction; “educator” refers to the person who provides instruction and is someone who is skilled in teaching, and teaching is aligned with providing explanations. I have expanded upon these definitions so that the word “educator” includes someone who is skilled with instruction, possesses highly sensitive person qualified developed academic skills, and holds both subject matter knowledge and knowledge of adult education rankings principles.

Skilled with Instruction: An educator is someone who should be skilled in the art of classroom instruction, knowing what instructional strategies are effective and the areas of facilitation that need further development. An experienced educator develops methods that will bring course materials to life by adding relevant context and prompting students to learn through class discussions and other learning activities. Instruction also includes all of the interactions held with students, including all forms of communication, as every interaction provides an opportunity for teaching.

Highly Developed Academic Skills: An educator must also have strong academic skills and at the top of that list are writing skills. This requires strong attention to detail on the part of the educator and in all forms of messages communicated, including anything written, presented, and sent via email. The ability to demonstrate strong academic skills is especially important for anyone who is teaching online classes as words represent the instructor.

The use of proper formatting guidelines, according to the style prescribed by the school, is also included in the list of critical academic skills. For example, many schools have implemented APA formatting guidelines as the standard for formatting papers and working with sources. An educator cannot adequately guide students and provide meaningful feedback if the writing style has not been mastered.

Strong Knowledge Base: An educator needs to develop a knowledge base that contains subject matter expertise, as related to the course or courses they are teaching, along with knowledge of adult education rankings best high schools principles. I know of many educators who have the required credit hours on their degree transcripts, yet they may not have extensive experience in the field they teach. This will still allow these educators to teach the course, provided that they take a time to read the course textbook and find methods of applying it to current practices within the field.

Many schools hire adjuncts with extensive work experience as the primary criteria, rather than knowledge of adult learning principles. Those instructors I have worked with who do have a strong adult education rankings best high schools knowledge base generally acquired it through ongoing professional development. That was my goal, when I decided on a major for my doctoral degree, to understand how adults learn so that I could transform from an instructor to an educator.

Becoming an Engaging and Highly Effective Educator

I do not believe that many instructors intentionally consider the need to make a transformation from working as an instructor to functioning as an educator. When someone is hired to teach a class, someone other than a traditional college professor, they often learn through practice and time what works well in the classroom. There will likely be classroom audits and recommendations made for ongoing professional development. Gradually the typical instructor will become an educator as they seek out resources to help improve their teaching practices. However, I have worked with many adjunct online instructors who rely on their subject matter expertise alone and do not believe there is a reason to grow as an educator. For anyone who would like to make the transformation and become an engaging antonym  and highly sensitive person qualified effective educator, there are steps that can be taken and practices that can be implemented.

Step One: Continue to Develop Your Instructional Practice

While any educator can learn through time on the job, it is possible to become intentional about this growth. There are numerous online resources, publications, workshops, webinars, and professional groups that would allow you to learn new methods, strategies, and practices. There are also social media websites such as LinkedIn and Twitter that allow for the exchange of ideas and resources within a global community of educators.

You can also utilize self-reflection as a means of gauging your effectiveness. I have found that the best time to review my instructional practice occurs immediately after a class concludes. That is a time when I can assess the strategies I have used and determine if those methods were effective. Even reviewing end of course student surveys may provide insight into the perspective of my students.

Step Two: Continue to Develop Your Academic Skills

I know from my work with online faculty development that this is an area of development that many educators could use. However, it is often viewed as a low priority – until it is noted in classroom audits. If an educator has weak academic writing skills, it will interfere with their ability to provide comprehensive feedback for students. For online instructors, that has an even greater impact when posted messages contain errors with spelling, grammar, and formatting. The development of academic skills can be done through the use of online resources or workshops. Many online schools I have worked for offer faculty workshops and this is a valuable self-development resource.

Step Three: Continue to Develop Your Subject Matter Expertise

Every educator has subject matter expertise that they can draw upon. However, the challenge is keeping that knowledge current as you continue to teach for several years. The best advice I can offer is to find resources that allow you to read and learn about current thinking, research, and best practices in your chosen field. This is essential to your instructional practice as students can ascertain whether you appear to be current in your knowledge, or outdated and seemingly out of touch. Even the use of required textbooks does not ensure that you are utilizing the most current information as knowledge evolves quickly in many fields.

Step Four: Continue to Develop Your Knowledge of Adult Learning

The last step or strategy that I can recommend is to gain knowledge about adult learning theories, principles, and practices. If you are not familiar with the basics there are concepts you can research and include critical thinking, andragogy, self-directed learning, transformational learning, learning styles, motivation, and cognition. My suggestion is to find and read online sources related to higher education rankings and then find a subject that interests you to research further. I have found that the more I read about topics I enjoy, the more I am cultivating my interest in ongoing professional development. What you will likely find is that what you learn will have a positive influence on your work as an educator and will enhance all areas of your instructional practice.

Working as an educator, or someone who is highly sensitive person qualified engaged in the process of helping students learn starts with a commitment to make this a career rather than a job. I have developed a vision related to how I want to be involved in each class I teach and I recommend the same strategy for you. You may find it useful to develop teaching goals for your career and link your classroom performance to those goals. For example, do you want to complete the required facilitation tasks or would you rather put in the additional time necessary to create nurturing class conditions?

After developing a vision and teaching goals, you can create a professional development plan to prompt your learning and growth in all of the areas I have addressed above. While this strategy may require an investment of time, it is helpful to remember that we always make time for whatever we believe is most important. Being an educator is not sustaining a focus on job functions, rather it is cultivating a love of what you do and learning how to excel for the benefit of your students. Becoming an engaging antonym and highly qualified effective educator occurs when you decide that teaching students is only part of the learning process, and you work to transform who you are and how you function while working and interacting with your students.

I preserve in thoughts 20 plus years within the past at the same time as I was getting my graduate diploma in Unique Education and a pal of mine getting his degree in essential Education instructed me that his father, a college foremost, he that I in all likelihood shouldn’t waste my time getting a master in Precise education best high schools. a friend of mine said that Special Schooling in Faculties might be subsequently fading out of public Training. I used to be nearly finished with my masters at this thing so I figured I would take my possibilities with it, besides what different choice did I’ve anyways at that component?

Learning

I have been given a unique Schooling job and taught for approximately 10 365 days.

There were quite some u.S.and downs over those 10 years, and eventually, I decided that I desired an exchange so I got certified and converted to school statistics. At this factor in my profession, I remembered what my pal had said a decade in the past and wondered if I was earlier of the curve on Schools now not wanting Special education best high schools teachers, although it modified into 10 years later. I wondered if my process has become now secure in my new-discovered domestic within the data branch.

Nicely, I cherished coaching history, however, existence has its very own humorous methods that aren’t aligned with us and what we need, so after a decade of coaching records I, in my opinion, were given a primary beauty Training on price range cuts and my pastime have become removed. Thankfully, I landed on my fat back in Special Schooling, accept as true with it or now not.

It’s been extra than a long time given that my old graduate school buddy instructed me that the need for Specific Training teachers became disappearing. All through the preceding, a long term my pal had long gone from graduate faculty to simple faculty teacher to assistant predominant to foremost, similar to his father had executed. I had long past from graduate college to big education best high schools instructor to history teacher to returned to essential Education instructor, like no individual else that I understand had completed. And accept as true with it or now not there has been still a set of Precise education best high schools jobs to be had after I landed there for the 2nd time. As a depend upon of fact, there was honestly masses of jobs there due to the fact there is a shortage of Special Schooling instructors in forty-nine out of our 50 states. consider that… many years after I used to be advised that Unique education best high schools become going away, and I discover that they nonetheless can not appear to get sufficient Special Schooling instructors.

Rapid-ahead some greater years to nowadays and there can be a brand new and thrilling twist affecting Precise Education known as full inclusion.

Now inclusion isn’t a brand new detail to our schools. As a remember of truth, inclusion has a prolonged thrilling document in our schools.

Six a long time inside the beyond there was the Exquisite Court Case of Brown v. Board of Schooling. In 1954 the new regulation of the land has become included schools for all races. 4 a few years within the past the floor-breaking law of People with Disabilities Training Act (Concept) began to take the effect and help make certain that more than six million college students with disabilities have the proper to a unfastened and appropriate Schooling, which means that they too get to be included in with the overall Training populace.

To help these occur colleges create a Planning and site Group (PPT) that meet and speak a pupil’s Character education best high schools Application (IEP) and then place the pupil in the right academic setting based totally on the scholar’s goals and the law. The location moreover wants to be the least restrictive surroundings (LRE). I will, however, recollect my university professor describing the least restrictive environment in a quick tale that one might not bring a gadget gun to take care of a fly. As a substitute, one would simply bring a fly-swatter to attend to a fly. In different phrases, if a kid’s disability may be treated inside the network school, then the child would now not want to be dispatched throughout the town or even to some other city’s Unique faculty.

today, many schools are trying to enhance on this inclusion version and least restrictive environment with the aid of the usage of going from an eager on a full-inclusion model.

colleges in the Special L. A. university District have moved a huge majority in their college students out of their Special Schooling facilities inside the remaining 3 years and into network college work in which they’ll be completely incorporated into non-compulsory instructions like physical Schooling, gardening, and cooking. they’re additionally incorporated into normal vital drift academic classes as Well, however, it’s far commonly no longer to the same diploma as electives.

Michigan faculties say that want to break down the partitions amongst well-known Training and Unique Education developing a device in which college students gets extra help once they need it, and that help does not need to be in a separate Special Training classroom.

Some university districts in Portland, Oregon are a hint similarly alongside than the l. A. Faculties which may be genuinely bringing Special Schooling students again from Special Colleges and Michigan faculties which can be certainly beginning to attempt the complete integration of its college students and doing away with the maximum of the Precise Training lecture rooms.

Being a piece further along in the system Portland makes an exciting case look at. Some of the parents who initially supported the Idea of integrating Precise Education university students into regular Training school rooms in Portland are actually worried about how the Portland Public middle school work is doing it. Portland is aiming for whole inclusion with the aid of the twelve months 2020. however, A number of the teachers in Portland are saying, “Glaringly the Specific Schooling university college students are going to fail and they’ll be going to behave out due to the reality we are not meeting their desires… If there can be no longer the proper manual there, that is now not acceptable, not most effective for the child, however for the general Schooling trainer as Well.”

A Portland discerns stated, “I would Instead have my infant enjoy a hit than for them to be ‘university-equipped’.” She further states, “I want my kids to be appropriate, Well-rounded humans that make the arena a higher location. I do not assume they always want to go to the college to do that. I anticipate that children are People, and even as we stop treating them as People, there may be a hassle.” Unluckily, many dads and mother and instructors have left the Portland university District, and much greater are fantasizing about it due to the truth they feel the overall inclusion version isn’t running there how they pictured it would.

How tons have to school paintings combine the Specific Education fine high Colleges students is the burning question of the hour.

Faculties

In my personal experience Some integration isn’t always most effective possible, however, it is a need to. With a few assist, A number of the Unique Training university students can be in the everyday Training lecture rooms.

A few years in the past I even had a non-talking paraplegic boy in a wheelchair who became on a respiration respirator sitting in my ordinary Training social studies elegance. Each day his paraprofessional and his nurse rolled him into and sat with him. He continually smiled on the tales I knowledgeable of Alexander the Superb marching all through eleven,000 miles of territory and conquering heaps of the identified global at that factor. through the manner, Alexander the Brilliant also practiced his non-public version of inclusion by way of encouraging kindness to the conquered and galvanizing his infantrymen to marry the captured territory’s girls as a manner to create an enduring peace.

different crucial elements to remember in Precise faculty work inclusion is the plenty wanted socialization and the saving of cash integration gives. Youngsters research from one-of-a-kind children and money now not spent on Unique Education is probably spent on popular Schooling, right? Hmm…

In case you observed, I started out a chunk in advance that many Unique Education university college students may be protected, but, I did no longer say all or even most must be included. There are only a few college students which might be going to dispose of too much of the trainer’s time and attention from one-of-a-kind students, which include, inside the case of university students with severe conduct issues. while we put intense behavior problems in normal education best high schools lessons it’s far simply outright unfair to all the different Children in there. Similar instances may be made for one-of-a-kind excessive disabilities to that name for an excessive amount off of the precept circulates trainer’s Character time and interest.

Howdy, I am no longer saying to in no way try out an infant with a severe disability in a preferred Schooling putting. but what I’m announcing is that middle Faculties want to have a higher gadget of tracking the one’s placements and be capable of rapidly eliminate college students that are not working out, and are taking treasured getting to know time far far away from other college students. Moreover, faculties need to do this without shaming the instructor due to the fact the trainer complained that the scholar wasn’t a great suit and modified into disrupting the education best high schools getting to know device of the opportunity college students. Leaving a toddler in an besides the factored placement isn’t always accurate for any of the events concerned. Period.

During the last two a long time I’ve worked with extra Unique Schooling university students than I am capable of keep in mind as a Unique Training trainer and a regular Schooling excellent excessive faculty’s instructor teaching inclusion instructions. I have determined to become surprisingly bendy and affected person and as a result, have had Some of the toughest and maximum needy youngsters located in my classes. I have labored miracles with these Kids through the years and that I understand that I’m now not the most effective teacher available doing this. There are various extra available much like me. however, what I worry approximately is that due to the fact teachers are so dedicated and pulling off everyday miracles within the classroom, districts, community leaders, and flesh-presser may be pushing too difficult for the whole inclusion version wondering that the academics will just determine it out. Installing vicinity teachers and university college students for failure is by no means a good Concept.

Moreover, I am hoping it is without a doubt no longer the money that they will be in search of to keep even as pushing this full-inclusion version forward due to the fact what we ought to, in reality, be looking to save is our youngsters. As Fredrick Douglas stated, “it is easier to construct sturdy youngsters than to repair broken men.” No matter how the economic education best high schools pie is sliced, the lowest line is that the pie is simply too small and our Particular Training instructors and our Specific Schooling students should not be made to pay for this.

similarly, I have been a teacher for too lengthy to not be at the least a bit skeptical once I listen the bosses say that the motive they are pushing for the entire inclusion version is due to the reality socialization is so essential. I am aware of it’s essential. however, I moreover apprehend that too many human beings are setting their hats on that socialization excuse in preference to Schooling our Special wishes college students and offering them what they really want. I’ve seen Unique education best high schools best high schools students whose abilities nice allow them to attract pics sitting in honors lessons. there may be no real socialization taking location here. It just does now not make sense.

Nicely, sooner or later coming full circle. It’ll be interesting to see wherein this full inclusion element goes.

The wise ones may not permit their Special Faculties Training teachers to cross or put off their Schooling rooms. And for the faculties districts that do, I trust that it may not take lengthy before they understand the mistake they made and begin hiring Unique Unique Training teachers returned for Schools. To my pal and his now ex-fundamental father from all of the ones years ago who notion Special Faculties changed into going away, Properly, we’re now not there yet, and to tell you the truth, I don’t expect we ever are probably.

Institutions of education, and the system of which they are a part face a host of unprecedented challenges from forces in society that affect and are influenced by these very institutions and their communities of learners and educators. Among these forces are sweeping demographic changes, shrinking provincial budgets, revolutionary advances in information and telecommunication technologies, globalization, competition from new educational providers, market pressures to shape educational and scholarly practices toward profit-driven ends, and increasing demands and pressures for fundamental changes in public policy and public accountability relative to the role of higher education in addressing pressing issues of communities and the society examples  at large. Anyone of these challenges would be significant on their own, but collectively they increase the complexity and difficulty for education to sustain or advance the fundamental work of serving the public good.

Through a forum on education, we can agree to Strengthen the relationship between higher education and society examples will require a broad-based effort that encompasses all of the education, not just individual institutions, departments and associations.

Piecemeal solutions can only go so far; strategies for change must be informed by a shared vision and a set of common objectives. A “movement” approach for change holds greater promise for transforming academic culture than the prevailing “organizational” approach.

Mobilizing change will require strategic alliances, networks, and partnerships with a broad range of stakeholders within and beyond education.

The Common Agenda is specifically designed to support a “movement” approach to change by encouraging the emergence of strategic alliances among individuals and organizations who care about the role of higher education in advancing the ideals of a diverse democratic system through education practices, relationships, and service to society examples.

A Common Agenda

The Common Agenda is intended to be a “living” document and an open process that guides collective action and learning among committed partners within and outside of higher education. As a living document, the Common Agenda is a collection of focused activity aimed at advancing civic, social, and cultural roles in society examples. This collaboratively created, implemented and focused Common Agenda respects the diversity of activity and programmatic foci of individuals, institutions, and networks, as well as recognizes the common interests of the whole. As an open process, the Common Agenda is a structure for connecting work and relationships around common interests focusing on the academic role in serving society examples. Various modes of aligning and amplifying the common work within and beyond education will be provided within the Common Agenda process.

This approach is understandably ambitious and unique in its purpose and application. Ultimately, the Common Agenda challenges the system of higher education and those who view education as vital to addressing society examples pressing issues, to act deliberately, collectively, and clearly on an evolving and significant set of commitments to society examples. Currently, four broad issue areas are shaping the focus of the Common Agenda: 1) Building public understanding and support for our civic mission and actions; 2) Cultivating networks and partnerships; 3) Infusing and reinforcing the value of civic responsibility into the culture of higher education institutions, and 4) Embedding civic engagement and social responsibility in the structure of the education system

VISION We have a vision of higher education that nurtures individual prosperity, institutional responsiveness and inclusivity, and societal health by promoting and practicing learning, scholarship, and engagement that respects public needs. Our universities are proactive and responsive to pressing social, ethical, and economic problems facing our communities and greater society examples. Our students are people of integrity who embrace diversity and are socially responsible and civilly engaged throughout their lives.

MISSION The purpose of the Common Agenda is to provide a framework for organizing, guiding and communicating the values and practices of education relative to its civic, social and economic commitments to a diverse democratic system.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

I believe social justice, ethics, educational equity, and societal change for positive effects are fundamental to the work of higher education. We consider the relationship between communities and education institutions to be based on the values of equally, respect and reciprocity, and the work in education to be interdependent with the other institutions and individuals in society examples.

We will seek and rely on extensive partnerships with all types of institutions and devoted individuals inside and outside of higher education.

We realize the interconnection of politics, power, and privilege. The Common Agenda is not for higher education to self-serve, but to “walk the talk” relative to espoused public goals. We understand the Common Agenda as a dynamic living document and expect the activities it encompasses to change over time.

THE COMMON AGENDA FRAMEWORK The general framework for the common agenda is represented in the following diagram. It is clear that while goals and action items are organized and aligned within certain issues areas, there is considerable overlap and complementarity among the issues, goals and action items. Also, following each action item are names of individuals who committed to serve as “point persons” for that particular item. A list of “point persons,” with their organizational affiliation(s) is included with the common agenda.

ISSUES

ISSUE 1: MISSION AND ACTIONS

Public understanding more and more equates higher education benefits with acquiring a “good job” and receiving “higher salaries.” To understand and support the full benefits of higher education the public and higher education leaders need to engage in critical and honest discussions about the role of higher education in society examples. Goal: Develop a common language that resonates both inside and outside the institution. Action Items: Develop a common language and themes about our academic role and responsibility to the public good, through discussions with a broader public.

Collect scholarship on the public good, examine themes and identify remaining questions. Develop a national awareness of the importance of higher education for the public good through the development of marketing efforts.

Goal: Promote effective and broader discourse. Action Items: Raise public awareness about the institutional diversity within and between higher education institutions.

Identify strategies for engaging alumni associations for articulating public good and building bridges between higher education and the various private and public sector companies. Develop guidelines of discourse to improve the quality of dialogue on every level of society examples. Organize a series of civil dialogues with various public sectors about higher education and the public good.

ISSUE 2: DEVELOPING NETWORKS AND PARTNERSHIPS

Approaching complex issues such as the role of higher education in the society examples that requires a broad mix of partners to create strategies and actions that encompass multiple valued perspectives and experiences.

Broad partnerships to strengthen the relationship between higher education and society examples involves working strategically with those within and outside of higher education to achieve mutual goals on behalf of the public good.

Goal: Create broad and dispersed communication systems and processes.

Action Items:

Create an information and resource network across higher education associations Create information processes that announce relevant conferences, recruit presenters and encourage presentations in appropriate national conferences Develop opportunities for information sharing and learning within and between various types of postsecondary institutions (e.g. research-centered communities).

Goal: Create and support strategic alliances and diverse collaborations.

Action Items: Establish and support on-going partnerships and collaborations between higher education associations and the external community (e.g. civic organizations, legislators, community members) Explore with the public how to employ the role of arts in advancing higher education for the public good Promote collaboration between higher education and to address access, retention, and graduation concerns

ISSUE 3: INSTILLING AND REINFORCING THE VALUE OF CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY INTO THE CULTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Education should attend to the implicit and explicit consequences of its work, and reexamine “what counts” to integrate research, teaching and service for the public good to the core working of the institution.

Goal: Emphasize civic skills and leadership development in the curriculum and co-curriculum.

Action Items: Develop and implement a curriculum in colleges and universities that promote civic engagement of students Create co-curricular student and community programs for leadership and civic engagement development Develop learning opportunities, inside and outside of the classroom, that promote liberty, democratic responsibility, social justice and knowledge of the economic system Develop student leadership and service opportunities that focus on ethical behavior Teach graduate students organizing and networking skills, and encourage student leadership and Diversity education

Goal: Foster a deeper commitment to the public good.

Action Items: Work with faculty on communication skills and languages to describe their engagement with the public, and educate faculty for the common good Identify models for promotion and tenure standards Identify models for faculty development

Goal: Identity, recognize, and support engaged scholarship.

Action Items: Identify and disseminate models and exemplars of scholarship on the public good Encourage the participation in community research Help institutions to call attention to exemplary outreach. Establish a capacity building effort for institutions

Goal: Bring graduate education into alignment with the civic mission.

Action Items: Work with disciplinary associations to hold dialogues on ways graduate student training can incorporate public engagement, involvement and service Promote “civic engagement” within academic and professional disciplines according to the disciplines’ definition of “civic engagement” Incorporate the concept of higher education for the public good into current graduate education reform efforts

ISSUE 4: EMBEDDING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM

Promoting the public benefits of higher education requires system efforts beyond institutions to intentionally embed values of civic engagement and social responsibility in governance practices, policy decisions, and educational processes.

Goal: Align governing structures and administrative strategies.

Action Items: Develop ways to improve student and the community involvement in the governance and decision-making process of educational institutions. Identify and promote ways for institutions to improve involvement with the public and the practice of democracy within their own institution. Establish public good/civic engagement units that orchestrate this work throughout institutions.

Goal: Publicly recognize and support valuable engagement work.

Action Items: Offer public awards that reward institutions with the demonstrable track record in serving the public good in order to encourage institutionalization of performance around the public good and civic engagement.

Develop a comprehensive inventory of funding sources, association activities, initiatives, and exemplary practices that advance the public good. Identify, recognize, and support early career scholars who choose to do research on higher education and its public role in society examples.

Goal: Ensure that assessment and accreditation processes include civic engagement and social responsibility.

Action Items: Identify service for the public good as a key component in provincial and federal educational plans (e.g. Master Plans, provincial budgets, and professional associations).

Bring higher education associations and legislators together to broaden the current definition of student outcomes and achievement, and develop a plan for assessment.

Develop strategies and processes to refocus system-wide planning, accreditation, and evaluation agendas to consider criteria assessing the social, public benefits of education.

Goal: Cultivate stronger ties between the university, federal and provincial government.

Action Items: Develop a 2-year implementation plan that joins the university rector / Pro-rector and Director with provincial legislators to engage in an assessment of the needs of the public by province Host a series of dialogues between trustees and provincial legislators to discuss the role of universities and public society examples policy in advancing public good at a local, provincial, and national level.

Education is the primary agent of transformation towards sustainable concept of development, increasing people’s capacities to transform their visions for society into reality. Education not only provides scientific and technical skills, it also provides the motivation and social support for pursuing and applying them. For this reason, society must be deeply concerned that much of current education falls far short of what is required. When we say this, it reflects the very necessities across the cultures that allow everyone become responsible towards quality enhancement.

Improving the quality and revelation of education and reorienting its goals to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be among society’s highest priorities. It is not that we talk only about the environment but also about every component of life.

We, therefore, need to clarify the concept of education for sustainable development. It was a major challenge for educators during the last decade. The meanings of sustainable development in educational set ups, the appropriate balance of peace, human rights, citizenship, social equity, ecological and concept of development themes in already overloaded curricula, and ways of integrating the humanities, the social sciences and the arts into what had up-to-now been seen and practiced as a branch of science education.

Some argued that educating for sustainable concept of development ran the risk of programming while others wondered whether asking schools to take a lead in the transition to sustainable development was asking too much of teachers.

These debates were compounded by the desire of many, predominantly environmental, NGOs to contribute to educational planning without the requisite understanding of how education systems work, how educational change and innovation takes place, and of relevant curriculum development, professional development, and instructive values. Not realizing that effective educational change takes time, others were critical of governments for not acting more quickly.

Consequently, many international, regional and national initiatives have contributed to an expanded and refined understanding of the meaning of education for sustainable concept of development . For example, Education International, the major umbrella group of teachers’ unions and associations in the world, has issued a declaration and action plan to promote sustainable development through education.

A common agenda in all of these is the need for an integrated approach through which all communities, government entities, collaborate in developing a shared understanding of and commitment to policies, strategies, and programs of education for sustainable concept of development.

Actively promoting the integration of education into sustainable development at local community

In addition, many individual governments have established committees, panels, advisory councils and curriculum development projects to discuss education for sustainable development, develop policy and appropriate support structures, programs and resources, and fund local initiatives.

Indeed, the roots of education for sustainable concept of development are firmly planted in the environmental education efforts of such groups. Along with global education, concept of development education, peace education, citizenship education, human rights education, and multicultural and anti-racist education that have all been significant, environmental education has been particularly significant. In its brief thirty-year history, contemporary environmental education has steadily striven towards goals and outcomes similar and comparable to those inherent in the concept of sustainability.

A New Vision for Education

These many initiatives illustrate that the international community now strongly believes that we need to foster – through education – the values, behavior, and lifestyles required for a sustainable future. Education for sustainable concept of development has come to be seen as a process of learning how to make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology and social well-being of all communities. Building the capacity for such futures-oriented thinking is a key task of education.

This represents a new vision of education, a vision that helps learners better understand the world in which they live, addressing the complexity and inter-contentedness of problems such as poverty, wasteful consumption, environmental degradation, urban decay, population growth, gender inequality, health, conflict and the violation of human rights that threaten our future. This vision of education emphasizes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills needed for a sustainable future as well as changes in values, behavior, and lifestyles. This requires us to reorient education systems, policies, and practices in order to empower everyone, young and old, to make decisions and act in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways to redress the problems that threaten our common future. We, therefore, need to think globally and act locally. In this way, people of all ages can become empowered to develop and evaluate alternative visions of a sustainable future and to fulfill these visions through working creatively with others.

Seeking sustainable development through education requires educators to:

• Place an ethic for living sustainable, based upon principles of social justice, democracy, peace and ecological integrity, at the center of society’s concerns.
• Encourage a meeting of disciplines, a linking of knowledge and of expertise, to create understandings that are more integrated and contextualized.
• Encourage lifelong learning, starting at the beginning of life and stuck in life – one based on a passion for a radical transformation of the moral character of society.
• Develop to the maximum the potential of all human beings throughout their lives so that they can achieve self-fulfillment and full self-expression with the collective achievement of a viable future.
• Value aesthetics, the creative use of the imagination, an openness to risk and flexibility, and a willingness to explore new options.
• Encourage new alliances between the State and civil society in promoting citizens’ liberation and the practice of democratic principles.
• Mobilize society in an intensive effort so as to eliminate poverty and all forms of violence and injustice.
• Encourage a commitment to the values of peace in such a way as to promote the creation of new lifestyles and living patterns
• Identify and pursue new human projects in the context of local sustainability within an earthly realization and a personal and communal awareness of global responsibility.
• Create realistic hope in which the possibility of change and the real desire for change are accompanied by a rigorous, active participation in change, at the appropriate time, in favor of a sustainable future for all.

These responsibilities emphasize the key role of educators as the ambassador of change. There are over 60 million teachers in the world – and each one is a key ambassador for bringing about the changes in lifestyles and systems that we need. But, education is not confined to the classrooms of formal education. As an approach to social learning, education for sustainable concept of development also encompasses the wide range of learning activities in basic and post-basic education, technical and vocational training and tertiary education, and both non-formal and informal learning by both young people and adults within their families and workplaces and in the wider community. This means that all of us have important roles to play as both ‘learners’ and ‘teachers’ in advancing sustainable concept of development.

Key Lessons

Deciding how education should contribute to sustainable development is a major task. In coming to decisions about what approaches to education will be locally relevant and culturally appropriate, countries, educational institutions, and their communities may take heed of the following key lessons learned from discussion and debate about education and sustainable development over the past decade.

• Education for sustainable development must explore the economic, political and social implications of sustainability by encouraging learners to reflect critically on their own areas of the world, to identify non-viable elements in their own lives and to explore the tensions among conflicting aims. concept of development strategies suited to the particular circumstances of various cultures in the pursuit of shared development goals will be crucial. Educational approaches must take into account the experiences of indigenous cultures and minorities, acknowledging and facilitating their original and significant contributions to the process of sustainable development.

• The movement towards sustainable concept of development depends more on the concept of development of our moral sensitivities than on the growth of our scientific understanding – important as that is. Education for sustainable development cannot be concerned only with disciplines that improve our understanding of nature, despite their undoubted value. Success in the struggle for sustainable concept of development  requires an approach to education that strengthens our engagement in support of other values – especially justice and fairness – and the awareness that we share a common destiny with others.

• Ethical values are the principal factor in social consistency and at the same time, the most effective agent of change and transformation. Ultimately, sustainability will depend on changes in behavior and lifestyles, changes which will need to be motivated by a shift in values and rooted in the cultural and moral precepts upon which behavior is based. Without the change of this kind, even the most enlightened legislation, the cleanest technology, the most sophisticated research will not succeed in steering society towards the long-term goal of sustainability.

• Changes in lifestyle will need to be accompanied by the concept of development of an ethical awareness, whereby the inhabitants of rich countries discover within their cultures the source of a new and active solidarity, which will make possible to eradicate the widespread poverty that now besets 80% of the world’s population as well as the environmental degradation and other problems linked to it.

• Ethical values are shaped through education, in the broadest sense of the term. Education is also essential in enabling people to use their ethical values to make informed and ethical choices. Fundamental social changes, such as those required to move towards sustainability, come about either because people sense an ethical imperative to change or because leaders have the political will to lead in that direction and sense that the people will follow them.

I remember 20 plus years ago when I was getting my graduate degree in Special Education and a buddy of mine getting his degree in elementary education told me that his father, a school principal, said that I probably shouldn’t waste my time getting a master in Study. He said that Special Study would be eventually fading out of public Study. I was almost done with my masters at this point so I figured I would have to take my chances with it, besides what other choice did I have any way at that point?

I got a Special Study job and taught for about 10 years. There were a lot of ups and downs over those 10 years, and eventually, I decided that I wanted a change so I got certified and switched over to high school history. At this point in my career, I remembered what my friend had said a decade ago and wondered if I was ahead of the curve on schools no longer needing special Study teachers, even though it was 10 years later. I wondered if my job was now safe in my new-found home in the history department.

Well, I loved teaching history, but life has its own funny ways that aren’t aligned with us and what we want, so after a decade of teaching history I personally got a first class Study on budget cuts and my job was eliminated. Thankfully, I landed on my feet back in Special Study , believe it or not.

It had been more than two decades since my old graduate school buddy told me that the need for special Study teachers was disappearing. During the previous two decades, my friend had gone from graduate school to elementary school teacher to assistant principal to principal, just like his father had done. I had gone from graduate school to special Study teacher to history teacher to back to special education teacher, like nobody else that I know had done. And believe it or not there was still a bunch of special education jobs available when I landed there for a second time. As a matter of fact, there was actually plenty of jobs there because there is a shortage of special education teachers in 49 out of our 50 states. Imagine that… Two decades after I was told that Special Education was going away, and I find that they still can’t seem to get enough special Study teachers.

Fast-forward a few more years to today and there is a new and interesting twist affecting Special Study called full inclusion. Now inclusion isn’t a new thing to our schools. As a matter of fact, inclusion has a long interesting history in our schools.

Six decades ago there was the Supreme Court Case of Brown v. Board of Study . In 1954 the new law of the land became integrated schools for all races. Four decades ago the ground-breaking law of Individuals with Disabilities Study Act (IDEA) began to take effect and help ensure that more than six million students with disabilities have the right to a free and appropriate education, which means they too get to be included in with the general education population.

To help this happen schools create a Planning and Placement Team (PPT) that meet and discuss a student’s Individual Study Program (IEP) and then place the student in the appropriate educational setting based on the student’s needs and the law. The placement also needs to be the least restrictive environment (LRE). I can still remember my college professor describing the least restrictive environment in a short story that one would not bring a machine gun to take care of a fly. Rather, one would just bring a fly-swatter to take care of a fly. In other words, if a kid’s disability can be dealt with in the neighborhood school, then the kid doesn’t have to be sent across town or even to another town’s special characters on keyboard  school.

Today, many schools are trying to improve on this inclusion model and the least restrictive environment by going from a partial to a full-inclusion model. Schools in the Los Angeles School District have moved a vast majority of their students out of their special characters on keyboard  education centers within the last three years and into neighborhood schools where they are fully integrated into elective classes like physical education, gardening, and cooking. They are also integrated into regular mainstream academic classes as well, but it’s usually not to the same degree as electives.

Michigan schools say that want to break down the walls between general education and Special Study creating a system in which students will get more help when they need it, and that support doesn’t need to be in a separate special education classroom.

Some school districts in Portland, Oregon are a little further along than the Los Angeles schools that are just bringing special education students back from special schools and Michigan schools that are just beginning to try full integration of its students and eliminating most of the special education classrooms.

Being a little further along in the process Portland makes an interesting case study. Many of the parents who initially supported the idea of integrating special education students into regular education classrooms in Portland are now worried about how the Portland Public School System is doing it. Portland is aiming for full-inclusion by the year 2020. However, some of the teachers in Portland are saying, “Obviously the special characters on keyboard  education students are going to fail and they are going to act out because we are not meeting their needs… If there’s not the right support there, that’s not acceptable, not only for the child but for the general education teacher as well.”

A Portland parent said, “I would rather have my child feel successful than for them to be ‘college-ready’.” She further states, “I want my children to be good, well-rounded human beings that make the world a better place. I don’t think they necessarily need to go to college to do that. I think that children are individuals, and when we stop treating them as individuals, there’s a problem.” Sadly, many parents and teachers have left the Portland School District, and much more are fantasizing about it because they feel the full-inclusion model isn’t working there how they pictured it would.

How much should schools integrate the special characters on keyboard education students is the burning question of the hour. In my personal experience, some integration is not only possible, but it’s a must. With some support, many of the special education students can be in the regular education classrooms.

A few years ago I even had a non-speaking paraplegic boy in a wheelchair who was on a breathing respirator sitting in my regular education social studies class. Every day his paraprofessional and his nurse rolled him into and sat with him. He always smiled at the tales I told of Alexander the Great marching across 11,000 miles of territory and conquering much of the known world at that time. By the way, Alexander the Great also practiced his own model of inclusion by encouraging kindness to the conquered and encouraging his soldiers to marry the captured territory’s women in order to create a lasting peace.

Other important factors to consider in special characters on keyboard education inclusion is the much-needed socialization and the saving of money integration offers. Kids learn from other kids and money not spent on special characters on keyboard Education could be spent on general education, right? Hmm…

If you noticed, I said a little bit earlier that many special characters on keyboard  education students could be integrated, but I did not say all or even most should be integrated. There are just some students that are going to take away too much of the teacher’s time and attention from other students, such as, in the case of students with severe behavior problems. When we put severe behavior problems in regular education classes it’s just outright unfair to all of the other children in there. Similar cases could be made for other severe disabilities to that demand too much of the mainstream teacher’s individual time and attention.

Hey, I’m not saying to never try out a kid with a severe disability in a general education setting. But what I am saying is that schools need to have a better system of monitoring these placements and be able to quickly remove students that aren’t working out, and are taking precious learning time away from other students. Furthermore, schools need to do this without shaming the teacher because the teacher complained that the student wasn’t a good fit and was disrupting the educational learning process of the other students. Leaving a kid in an inappropriate placement isn’t good for any of the parties involved. Period.

Over the last two decades, I have worked with more special characters on keyboard education students than I can remember as a special education teacher and a regular education teacher teaching inclusion classes. I have learned to become extremely flexible and patient and thus have had some of the toughest and most needy kids placed in my classes. I have worked miracles with these kids over the years and I know that I am not the only teacher out there doing this. There are much more out there just like me. But, what I worry about is that because teachers are so dedicated and pulling off daily miracles in the classroom, districts, community leaders, and politician may be pushing too hard for the full-inclusion model thinking that the teachers will just have to figure it out. Setting up teachers and students for failure is never a good idea.

Furthermore, I hope it’s just not the money that they are trying to save while pushing this full-inclusion model forward because what we should really be trying to save is our children. As Fredrick Douglas said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Regardless of how the financial educational pie is sliced, the bottom line is that the pie is just too small and our special education teachers and our special characters on keyboard education students shouldn’t be made to pay for this.

In addition, I have been a teacher for too long to not be at least a little skeptical when I hear the bosses say that the reason they are pushing for the full-inclusion model is because socialization is so important. I know it’s important. But, I also know that too many people are hanging their hats on that socialization excuse rather than education our special needs students and providing them what they really need. I have seen special characters on keyboard education students whose abilities only let them draw pictures sitting in honors classes. There is no real socialization taking place here. It just doesn’t make sense.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

One of the sectors which foster national development is education by ensuring the development of a functional human resource. The institution of strong educational structures leads to a society populated by enlightened people, who can cause positive economic progress and social transformation. A Positive social transformation and its associated economic growth are achieved as the people apply the skills they learned while they were in school. The acquisition of these skills is facilitated by one individual we all ‘teacher’. For this reason, nations seeking economic and social developments need not ignore teachers and their role in national development.

Teachers are the major factor that drives students’ achievements in learning. The performance of teachers generally determines, not only, the quality of education, but the general performance of the students they train. The teachers themselves, therefore, ought to get the best of education, so they can in turn help train students in the best of ways. It is known, that the quality of teachers and quality teaching are some of the most important factors that shape the learning and social and academic growth of students. Quality training will ensure, to a large extent, teachers are of very high quality, so as to be able to properly manage classrooms and facilitate learning. That is why teacher quality is still a matter of concern, even, in countries where students consistently obtain high scores in international exams, such as Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). In such countries, teacher education of prime importance because of the potential it has to cause positive students’ achievements.

The structure of teacher education keeps changing in almost all countries in response to the quest of producing teachers who understand the current needs of students or just the demand for teachers. The changes are attempts to ensure that quality teachers are produced and sometimes just to ensure that classrooms are not free of teachers. In the U.S.A, how to promote high-quality teachers has been an issue of contention and, for the past decade or so, has been motivated, basically, through the methods prescribed by the No Child Left Behind Act (Accomplished California Teachers, 2015). Even in Japan and other Eastern countries where there are more teachers than needed, and structures have been instituted to ensure high-quality teachers are produced and employed, issues relating to the teacher and teaching quality are still of concern (Ogawa, Fujii & Ikuo, 2013). Teacher education is, therefore, no joke anywhere. This article is in two parts. It first discusses Ghana’s teacher education system and in the second part looks at some determinants of quality teaching.

2.0 TEACHER EDUCATION

Ghana has been making deliberate attempts to produce quality teachers for her basic school classrooms. As Benneh (2006) indicated, Ghana’s aim of teacher education is to provide a complete teacher education program through the provision of initial teacher training and in-service training programs, that will produce competent teachers, who will help improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning that goes on in schools. The Initial teacher education program for Ghana’s basic school teachers was offered in Colleges of Education (CoE) only, until quite recently when, the University of Education, University of Cape Coast, Central University College and other tertiary institutions joined in. The most striking difference between the programs offered by the other tertiary institution is that while the Universities teach, examine and award certificates to their students, the Colleges of Education offer tuition while the University of Cape Coast, through the Institute of Education, examines and award certificates. The training programs offered by these institutions are attempts at providing many qualified teachers for teaching in the schools. The National Accreditation Board accredits teacher training programs in order to ensure quality.

The National Accreditation Board accredits teacher education programs based on the structure and content of the courses proposed by the institution. Hence, the courses run by various institutions differ in content and structure. For example, the course content for the Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast is slightly different from the course structure and content of the Center for Continue Education, The university of Cape Coast and none of these two programs matches that of the CoEs, though they all award Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) after three years of training. The DBE and the Four-year Untrained Teacher’s Diploma in Basic Education (UTUBE) programs run by the CoEs are only similar, but not the same. The same can be said of the Two-year Post-Diploma in Basic Education, Four-year Bachelor’s degree programs run by the University of Cape Coast, the University of Education, Winneba and the other Universities and University Colleges. In effect even though, same products attract same clients, the preparation of the products are done in different ways.

It is through these many programs that teachers are prepared for the basic schools – from nursery to senior high schools. Alternative pathways, or programs through which teachers are prepared are seen to be good in situations where there are shortages of teachers and more teachers ought to be trained within a very short time. A typical example is the UTUBE program, mentioned above, which design to equip non-professional teachers with professional skills. But this attempt to produce more teachers, because of the shortage of teachers, has the tendency of comprising quality.

As noted by Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci, and Stone (2010) the factors that contribute to the problems of teacher education and teacher retention are varied and complex, but one factor that teacher educators are concerned about is the alternative pathways through which teacher education occur. The prime aim of many of the pathways is too fast track teachers into the teaching profession. This short-changed the necessary teacher preparation that prospective teachers need before becoming classroom teachers. Those who favor alternative routes, like Teach for America (TFA), according to Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci and Stone (2010) have defended their alternative pathways by saying that even though the students are engaged in a short-period of pre-service training, the students are academically brilliant and so have the capacity to learn a lot in a short period. Others argue that in subjects like English, Science, and mathematics where there are usually shortages of teachers, there must be a deliberate opening up of alternative pathways to good candidates who had done English, Mathematics and Science courses at the undergraduate level. None of these arguments in support of alternative pathways, hold for the alternative teacher education programs in Ghana, where the academically brilliant students shun teaching due to reasons I shall come to.

When the target is just to fill vacant classrooms, issues of quality teacher preparation is relegated to the background, somehow. Right at the selection stage, the alternative pathways ease the requirement for gaining entry into teacher education programs. When, for example, the second batch of UTDBE students was admitted, I can say with confidence that entry requirements into the CoEs were not adhered to. What was emphasized was that, the applicant must be a non-professional basic school teacher who has been engaged by the Ghana Education Service, and that the applicant holds a certificate above Basic Education Certificate Examination. The grades obtained did not matter. If this pathway had not been created, the CoEs would not have trained students who initially did not qualify to enroll in the regular DBE program. However, it leaves in its trail the debilitating effect compromised quality.

Even with regular DBE programs, I have realized, just recently I must say, that CoEs in, particular, are not attracting the candidates with very high grades. This, as I have learnt now, has a huge influence on both teacher quality and teacher effectiveness. The fact is, teacher education programs in Ghana are not regarded as prestigious programs and so applicants with high grades do not opt for education programs. And so the majority of applicants who apply for teacher education programs have, relatively, lower grades. When the entry requirement for CoEs’ DBE program for 2016/2017 academic year was published, I noticed the minimum entry grades had been dropped from C6 to D8 for West African Senior Secondary School Examination candidates. This drop in the standard could only be attributed to Coes’ attempt to attract more applicants. The universities too, lower their cut off point for education programs so as attract more candidates. The universities as alleged by Levine (2006) see their teacher education programs, so to say, as cash cows. Their desire to make money, force them to lower admission standards, like the CoEs have done, in order to increase their enrollments. The fact that, admission standards are internationally lowered in order to achieve a goal of increasing numbers. This weak recruitment practice or lowering of standards introduce a serious challenge to teacher education.

The Japanese have been able to make teacher education and teaching prestigious and therefore attract students with high grades. One may argue that in Japan, the supply of teachers far exceeds the demand and so authorities are not under any pressure to hire teachers. Their system won’t suffer if they do all they can to select higher grade student into teacher education programs. To them, the issues relating to the selection of teachers are more important that the issues relating to recruitment. However, in western and African countries the issues relating to recruitment are prime. It is so because the demand for teachers far outweighs that of supply. Western and African countries have difficulties recruiting teachers because teachers and the teaching profession is not held in high esteem. Teacher education programs, therefore, do not attract students who have very good grades. It is worth noting that, it is not the recruiting procedure only that determines whether or not teacher education will be prestigious, however recruiting candidates with high grades, ensures that after training, teachers will exhibit the two characteristics essential to effective teaching – quality and effectiveness. Teacher education can be effective if the teaching profession is held in high esteem and therefore able to attract the best of applicants. Otherwise, irrespective of incentives put into place to attract applicants and irrespective of the measures that will be put in place to strengthen teacher education, teacher education programs cannot fully achieve its purpose.

In order to strengthen teacher preparation, there is the need for teacher preparation programs to provide good training during the initial teacher training stage and provide and sustain support during the first few years after the teachers have been employed. That is why Lumpe (2007) supports the idea that pre-service teacher education programs should ensure teachers have gained a good understanding of effective teaching strategies. Methodology classes, therefore, should center on effective teaching strategies. Irrespective of the pathway the training program takes, the program must be structured such that trainees gain knowledge about pedagogy, besides the knowledge of subject matter. They should also get enough exposure to practical classroom experiences like the on-campus and off-campus teaching practice. Whether or not there is the need to fill vacancies in the classroom due to the high teacher attrition, many countries face, teacher preparation programs should aim at producing quality and effective teacher and not just filling vacancies.

3.0 DETERMINANTS OF TEACHER QUALITY

Teacher quality has such enormous influence on students’ learning. Anyone who has been in the teaching business will agree that teacher quality is central to education reform efforts. Priagula, Agam & Solmon (2007) described teacher quality as an important in-school factor that impacts significantly on students’ learning. Quality teachers have the positive impact on the success of students. Where the students have quality and effective teachers the students make learning gains while those with ineffective teachers show declines. With respect to the classroom teacher, teacher quality is a continuous process of doing self-assessment so as to have professional development and a self-renewal, in order to enhance teaching. For the teacher educator, an effective or quality teacher is one who has a good subject matter and pedagogy knowledge, which he/she can build upon.

Outstanding teachers possess and exhibit many exemplary qualities. They have the skills, subject matter, and pedagogy to reach every child. They help equip their students with the knowledge and breadth of awareness to make sound and independent judgments. Three determinants of teacher quality will be considered here. They are; pedagogical knowledge, subject-matter content knowledge, and experience.

3.1 PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Trainees of every profession receive some sort of education that will give them insight into and prepare them for the task ahead. That of the teacher is called Pedagogical Content Knowledge or Pedagogical Knowledge. Pedagogical Content Knowledge can be described as, knowledge the teachers use in organizing classrooms, delivering the content the students must show mastery over and for managing the students entrusted into their care. Generally speaking, pedagogical knowledge is knowledge the teacher uses to facilitate students’ learning. Pedagogical Content Knowledge is in two major forms – teachers’ knowledge of the students’ pre-conceptions and teachers’ knowledge of teaching methodologies. Students come to class with a host of preconceptions relating to the things they are learning. The pre-conceptions may or may not be consistent with the actual subject-matter that is delivered. Teachers must have a good idea of both kinds of preconception, in order to help students, replace the inconsistent pre-conceptions or build upon the consistent pre-conceptions to bring about meaningful learning. Teachers must have a repertoire of teaching methodologies for facilitating students’ learning. When the methodologies are applied wrongly little or no learning occurs in students. In effect when either of the two is weak, the teacher becomes a bad one because that teacher will not be able to execute his/her responsibility in the vacation he/she has chosen. Due to this during teacher preparation, Pedagogical Content Knowledge is emphasized.

Teachers gain Pedagogical Content Knowledge from various sources. Friedrichsen, Abell, Pareja, Brown, Lankford and Volkmann (2009) distinguished three potential sources of Pedagogical Content Knowledge. They listed the sources as professional development programs, teaching experiences and lastly teachers’ own learning experiences. During their days as students in teacher education programs, teachers are assisted in variety ways to gain Pedagogical Content Knowledge. For examples, during practice, they learn how to put the pedagogical skills they learned. Teacher education programs and other professional development programs create avenues for teachers to gain pedagogical content knowledge through workshops, lectures, working together with colleagues, and in teaching practice. Then their experiences in their classrooms as they teach students to lead them to gain insight into which methodologies work under best under specific situations. That last source is usually ignored. It indicates that the professional knowledge of the teacher begins to develop long before the teacher becomes a candidate entering into teacher education. This means the way teachers teach influences to a large extent the prospective teachers’ professional knowledge and beliefs. This type of learning is, generally, overlooked by teachers at all levels because unintentional and informal, it is.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge can be gained through formal and informal means. Learning opportunities for pedagogical content knowledge, formally, designed by institutions, based on learning objectives which generally are the prerequisite for certification, constitutes the formal means. Informal learning, students have clear ideas about the objective of acquiring pedagogical skills. Informal learning, on the other hand, is not organized intentionally. It takes place incidentally and so can be considered as ‘side effect’. As Kleickmann et al (2012) described it, it has no goal with respect to learning outcomes, and it is contextualized to a large extent. This is often called learning by experience. Informal, but deliberative, learning situations exists. This occurs in situations such as learning in groups, mentoring, and intentional practicing of some skills or tools. Werquin (2010) described informal, but deliberative, learning as non-formal learning. Unlike formal learning, non-formal learning does not occur in educational institutions and does not attract certification. Whether pedagogical content knowledge

Pedagogical Content Knowledge is used to bridges the gap between content knowledge and actual teaching. By bridging the gap, it ensures that discussions of content are relevant to teaching and that discussions themselves are focused on the content. As such, Pedagogical Content Knowledge is something teachers must pay attention to. Teachers who possess and use good Pedagogical content knowledge have good control over classroom management and assessment, knowledge about learning processes, teaching methods, and individual characteristics (Harr, Eichler, & Renkl, 2014). Such teachers are able to create an atmosphere that facilitates learning and are also able to present or facilitate the learning of concepts by even lazy students. They are able to make learning easier by students hence teacher with high pedagogical content knowledge can be classified as quality teachers. It is worth noting that it is not pedagogical content knowledge only that makes good teachers. A teacher will not be good if he/she is master of pedagogical knowledge but lacks subject matter content knowledge.

3.2 SUBJECT-MATTER KNOWLEDGE

The goal of teaching is to help learners develop intellectual resources that will enable them to participate fully in the main domains of human taught and inquiry. The degree to which the teacher can assist students to learn depends on the subject-matter the teacher possesses. That is to say, teachers’ knowledge of subject-matter has the influence on their efforts to assist students to learn that subject-matter. If a teacher is ignorant or not well informed he/she cannot do students any good, he/she will rather much harm them. When the teacher conceives knowledge in such a way that it is narrow, or do not have accurate information relating to a particular subject-matter, he/she will pass on these same shallow or inaccurate information to students. This kind of teacher will hardly recognize the consistent preconceptions and challenge the misconceptions of students. Such a teacher can introduce misconceptions as he/she uses texts uncritically or inappropriately alter them. It is the teacher’s conception of knowledge that shapes the kind of questions he/she asks and the ideas he/she reinforces as well as the sorts of tasks the teacher designs.

Teachers’ subject-matter matter content knowledge must go beyond the specific topics of their curriculum. This is because the teacher does not only define concepts for students. Teachers explain to students why a particular concept or definition is acceptable, why learners must know it and how it relates to other concepts or definitions. This can be done properly if the teacher possesses a good understanding of the subject-matter. This type of understanding includes an understanding of the intellectual context and value of the subject-matter. The understanding of subject matter generally reinforces the teacher’s confidence in delivering lessons, thereby making him/her a good teacher.

3.3 EXPERIENCE

Experience is one of the factors that account for variations in teacher salary, the world over (Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006). The fact that salary differences are based on the number of years the teacher has served, suggests that employers believe the teacher’s experience makes him/her a better teacher and such a teacher must be motivated to remain in the service. Though some studies like that Hanushek (2011) have suggested that the experience positively influences teacher quality only in the first few years and that beyond five years, experience ceases to have positive impact on teacher efficacy, common sense tells us the one who has been doing something for a long time does better and with ease. Experience will, therefore, continue to pay, since, more experienced teachers have the propensity to know more about the subject matter they teach and think and behave appropriately in the classroom, and have much more positive attitudes toward their students.

Teachers who have spent more years of teaching, usually, feel self-assured in their skill to use instructional and assessment tools. These teachers are able to reach even the most difficult-to-reach students in their classrooms. They also have greater confidence in their capability to control the class and prevent incidence that might make the teaching and learning process difficult. Their experience makes them much more patient and tolerant than their counterpart with few years of experience (Wolters & Daugherty, 2007). Novice teachers progressively gain and develop teaching and classroom management skills needed to make them effective teachers. They spend time learning themselves – trying to understand fully the job they have entered. The teachers who have spent more years teaching have gained a rich store of knowledge the fewer experienced teachers will be trying to build. Teachers’ sense of effectiveness is generally associated with good attitudes, behaviors and interactions with their students. This is something the experienced teacher has already acquired. These explain why more experienced teachers are usually more effective teachers than the novices.

Another reason more experienced teachers tend to be better teachers than their inexperienced counterparts, is that experienced teachers have gained additional training, and hence, have acquired additional teaching skills, needed to be effective from direct experience. Usually, the training of teachers does not end at the initial teacher training stage. After graduation, teachers attend capacity building seminars, workshops, and conferences. These give teachers the opportunity to learn emerging teaching techniques and also refresh their memories on the things they have learned. Such seminars, workshops, and conferences mostly add to the teacher’s store of knowledge. The other advantage the experienced teachers have is that they have encountered more situations to develop the skills needed to be effective teachers through additional direct, and sometimes indirect experiences. That is to say, they have encountered challenging situations which gave them the opportunity to build their skills. Whether they were able to overcome these challenging situation or not, does not matter so much. If the teachers encounter difficult situations in their classes, they learn from them. If the teachers are able to overcome difficult situations, they get to know how to resolve such situations at the next encounter, otherwise, their reflections and suggestions from co-teachers give them ideas about how to approach same or similar situations. They also have a greater chance of being exposed to current and competent models. More experienced teachers have a higher chance of demonstrating superior self-efficacy in most areas because they have learned the needed classroom management and instructional skills from their colleagues. Teachers who have been in active service for many years are most likely to be classified as quality teachers, because of what they have learned from in-service training, capacity building workshops and seminars, their interaction with other teachers and what they have learned from experience in their classrooms.

4.0 CONCLUSION

Teacher education aims at providing teacher education program through initial teacher training for teacher trainees, and in-service training for practicing teachers in order to produce knowledgeable and committed teachers for effective teaching and learning. To realize this mission, teacher education programs have been instituted for the training of teachers. These programs differ from one country to another. Even within the same country, there may be different programs training teachers for the same certificate. These alternative programs are a created, especially, where there are shortages of teachers, and attempts are being made to train large numbers of teachers at a time. These alternative programs ease the teacher certification requirement, allowing those who under normal circumstances would not become teachers. This introduces serious challenges. Because large numbers of teachers are needed within a short period, their training is somewhat fast-tracked resulting in what is usually referred to as half-baked teachers – teachers of lower quality. Applicants who did not gain admission into the program of their choice come into teaching only because they have nowhere else to go. Such applicants tend not to be dedicated to the teaching service in the end. Fast-tracking initial teacher preparation actually harms the mission for which the initial teacher training institutions were created. This is because the teacher produced through such training are usually not of high quality.

Teacher preparation has a direct impact on students’ achievement. The most important in-school factors upon which student’s success hinges, is a teacher who has been well prepared. A well-prepared teacher is one who has gone through a strong teacher preparation program. It is, therefore, necessary for educators to work to create needed improvements in teacher preparation. To strengthen teacher preparation, teacher preparation programs must provide strong preparation during the initial teacher training period and give support to fresh teachers until they are inducted. Pre-service teacher education should emphasize the acquisition of effective teaching strategies. This can be done in methodology classes and corresponding field experiences. Students who have quality teachers make achievement gains, while those with ineffective teachers show declines, therefore having high-quality teachers in classrooms has a positive impact on students’ achievements.

Pedagogical content knowledge, subject matter content knowledge and experience determines the quality of a teacher. Teachers make subject-matter accessible to students by using Pedagogical content knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge has two broad areas of knowledge: teachers’ knowledge of students’ subject-matter pre-conceptions and teachers’ knowledge of teaching strategies. What Pedagogical content knowledge does is that it links subject-matter content knowledge and the practice of teaching, making sure that discussions on content are appropriate and that, discussions focus on the content and help students to retain the content. The teacher’s job is to facilitate the learning of subject-matter by students. The degree to which the teacher can assist students to learn depends on the subject-matter content knowledge the teacher possesses. Teachers who possess inaccurate information or comprehend the subject-matter in narrow ways, harm students by passing on the same false or shallow subject-matter knowledge to their students. The last of the three determinants of teacher quality is experience. Teachers who have served more years gain additional and more specific training by attending seminars, conferences and workshops and in-service training and so tend to understand their job better. They also might have met and solved many challenging situations in their classroom and therefore know exactly what to do in any situation.