Redefining the teacher's role: it’s multifaceted profession

By Cherry Ann Z. Baldon

San Vicente NHS, Buhi, CS

Imagine an educational institution where teaching is viewed more as a profession than a trade. Teachers now play a completely different role in both culture and a child's education. The way that modern medical procedures differ from traditional medical practices is similar to how teaching differs from the old "show-and-tell" methods.

Instead of teaching students to sit in rows at desks and listen and record quietly, instruction provides each child with a rich, fulfilling, and individual learning experience. Instead of being limited to the classroom, the educational environment encompasses the home, the community, and beyond. Information is not primarily contained in books; instead, it is available everywhere in the form of bits and bytes, respectively.

Students do not consume information. They actively produce new knowledge. Schools serve as hubs for lifelong learning rather than just being physical buildings. Most importantly, teaching is acknowledged as one of the most demanding and prestigious career paths and is essential to the social, cultural, and economic well-being of our country.

The groundwork for such a radical overhaul of education is being laid today. Massive advancements in knowledge, information technology, and public demand for improved education are driving a slow but steady reform movement in schools across the country.

Thousands of educators are setting the standard by reevaluating every aspect of their work, including their preparation for the classroom, ongoing professional development, relationships with students, coworkers, and the community, the tools and techniques they use, their rights and responsibilities, the form and content of the curriculum, how to set standards and determine whether they are being met, and the very structure of the schools where they are employed. To put it briefly, to better serve schools and students, educators are reinventing both their profession and themselves.

What, when, and how to teach were prescribed to teachers. They had to teach every student in the same way, and when many of them didn't learn, they weren't held accountable. Teachers were expected to follow the same procedures as previous generations, and supervisors discouraged or outright prohibited deviations from the established practices, which were governed by a multitude of laws and regulations about education. As a result, many educators grew glum and tired of being unable to alter their methods and would just stand in front of the class year after year and impart the same lessons.

Nonetheless, a lot of educators are urged these days to modify and embrace innovative techniques that recognize learning as both an art and a science. They realize that a close bond between an informed, kind adult and a confident, driven child is the fundamental component of education. They understand that getting to know each student as an individual is crucial to understanding his or her particular needs, learning preferences, social and cultural background, interests, and skills. It is even more crucial to pay attention to individual traits. Educators must have a strong commitment to building relationships with students from diverse cultural backgrounds, including those who may have been forced or dropped out of school under traditional educational practices.

It is their responsibility to support students as they develop and mature, assisting them in integrating their intellectual, emotional, and social growth so that the union of these occasionally differing dimensions yields the abilities to value contributing to society, seek out, understand, and use knowledge, and make better decisions in their personal lives. To ensure that learning takes place, they must be ready and allowed to step in at any moment and in any way possible. Teachers are realizing that they need to foster a love of learning in addition to being experts in their fields, whether it be science, math, or history.

This new dynamic between teachers and learners manifests itself in practice as a distinct understanding of instruction. Many educators choose to switch from lecture-based instruction to learning activities that require students to participate actively in the process of learning as a result of recognizing how students learn. They no longer regard their main responsibility as being the head of the classroom, a kind of authoritarian determining what's best for the helpless imitators under their supervision. They've discovered that believing in the roles of co-learners, facilitators, and educational guides helps them achieve more.

The most esteemed educators have figured out how to turn their students into enthusiastic learners through project-based, interactive learning experiences. They understand that curriculum needs to be relevant to students' lives, learning activities need to pique their natural curiosity, and assessments need to be meaningful and an essential component of learning if they are to help students take genuine responsibility for their education.

Rather than just disseminating information, a teacher's daily tasks now include creating and assisting students with engaging learning experiences. Finding and creating meaningful learning experiences that enable students to solve real-world problems and demonstrate that they have acquired the big ideas, potent skills, and mental and emotional habits that satisfy established educational standards is an educator's primary duty. As a result of their involvement in the production and dissemination of new knowledge, the abstract and lifeless knowledge that students once learned by heart from old, dusty textbooks comes to life.

In addition to reconsidering their primary duty as overseers of students' education, educators have taken on additional responsibilities within schools and their profession. They are collaborating with coworkers, families, legislators, academics, community members, employers, and other stakeholders to establish attainable benchmarks for the values, knowledge, and skills that Filipino children should be taught. They collaborate to establish priorities, take part in daily decision-making in schools, and resolve administrative issues that have an impact on their students' learning.

Students and schools can be considerably improved by redefining the role of teachers both inside and outside the classroom. Even though the foundations of this improvement are being laid in today's schools, they still need support to expand and genuinely change the educational landscape in the Philippines. To provide teachers with the assistance, autonomy, and confidence they require to carry out the crucial task of educating our children, the rest of us—politicians, parents, superintendents, school board members, employers, and faculty members of education schools—must also be prepared to reconsider our roles in the educational system.