Teaching a calling not all can answer

**Teacher training and understanding students' psychology has been at the forefront in discussions about how to handle students.**

Agnes Amondi

"I should have been a dentist," Agnes Amondi says at the beginning of the conversation on what influence her teachers had on her.

The fourth year Law student at a private university insists she would have pursued a different course had her teachers inspired her.

When she joined Form I she had the zeal of a young girl ready to take on the world.

Amondi had joined a top national school and was almost assured of a position in a top university at the end of her four years in secondary school.

Her joy would be shortlived.

The pressure that abound proved too much for a typical secondary school teenager.

Having lived with her parents throughout her primary school life, being away from home in a boarding school was turning out harder than expected.

Initially she imagined there would be new-found freedom, something she would explore as she morphed into an adult.

"It started with the dining hall food."

Amondi didn't like it very much. She started losing weight, so much her menstrual cycle became irregular.

She had a chance to call home once in a while, but her parents played down her complaints, saying she was only being homesick, a situation they thought is commonplace.

Surrounded by nothing but unfamiliar faces, Amondi would head on to the next responsible people she thought she had around - her teachers.

She loved Chemistry, so the first would be Mr Mutiso.

He had fair skin, relatively young, and a good orator.

Amondi enjoyed speaking to him, even if to simply catch up on elements in the lesson she hadn't quite grasped.

Most teachers are more focused on clearing the syllabus, not whether the students grasped the content or not.

Mutiso was different.

But Amondi realised her closeness to the male teacher was attracting comments from her fellow students she thought were misplaced.

What was worse? The rumours got to Mr Mutiso, who had to be called in for questioning over the closeness he had allegedly formed with some students.

He started keeping a distance - understandably so.

Amondi says after the questioning, Mutiso became more distant, often feeling distant during lessons, not caring much about whether students were grasping what he was teaching or not.

"He simply stopped being a teacher."

She wished he would have ignored the rumours and comments that he had been inappropriately close with a student, and instead focused on his job - teaching.

By letting his emotions get in the way, more students, other than Agnes, gave up on Chemistry.

Veronica Vilegwa

She says she is a sensitive student who banked more on encouraging words from her teachers.

"I just needed someone to tell me 'You can do it'".

Instead, she was constantly bashed on how she would only make it to a cheap college and study a simple course meant for "hoodrats".

Vilegwa did not understand why her History teacher was so bitter.

In the 40-minute-long lesson, 25 minutes would be spent on reprimands, dress-downs and unnecessary criticisms.

She went to a Catholic school in the city, where most of the teachers were female - there were a number of nuns as well.

"You'd expect them to be more understanding of girls' challenges and what they need, other than the many hours spent in class."

Vilegwa narrated an instance where one girl was allegedly wearing a skirt tighter than it should be.

She was asked to stand in front of the school during morning assembly. The principal took a pair of scissors and ripped the girl's skirt apart.

"We could see her under garments."

The silence in the assembly that morning was nothing anyone could describe.

Todate, Vilegwa does not understand why the girls did not go on strike to support their own.

But she adds that perhaps that was what the administration was banking on - tearing them down emotionally so they couldn't take any action.

She says teachers today put too much emphasis on academics but forget emotional development, which she says would make better citizens.

"Even if you landed a great job, how would you keep at it if you are emotionally unstable?"

June Atieno

It's not all gloom, as Atieno states it.

There are teachers who were dedicated to the calling, and inspired their students to be great.

Atieno went to a girls day school in Nairobi which had a relatively huge number of Somali girls.

Most of them would be married off early and so had to drop out of school.

But there was one teacher, who went beyond the call and "made it her business".

The Maths/Business teacher encouraged the girls to keep working, even if they didn't think it would amount to anything.

According to Atieno, the impact the teacher had on the students was so immense, it trickled down to other Christian students.

They admired this teacher's commitment.

The students' end-term results would reflect the impact of the teachers' dedication.

"Someone would score a B or A in Maths, but have a D in English. How would you explain that? Obviously this student is gifted, they just need someone to believe in them, like the Maths teacher did."

Teacher training on psychology

Scholar Joshua Gisemba, in his 2010 study on The Role of Teacher Characteristics and Practices on Upper Secondary School Students’ Mathematics Self-Efficacy in Nyanza Province of Kenya: a Multilevel Analysis, recommends that teacher training colleges emphasize teacher practices and values to enhance students’ self-efficacy, reduce their anxiety and fear, and consequently, enhance their achievement.

He adds, "Professional development opportunities should also be made available to in-service teachers to continually update their knowledge and skills and develop new strategies for teacher effectiveness."

Teacher training and understanding students' psychology has been at the forefront in discussions about how to handle students.

PhD student David Melita Ole Katitia, in the Journal of Education and Practice Vol.6, No.24, 2015, discusses the aspects of teacher education factor that influences student achievement.

Additionally, a teacher, according to Shiundu and Omulando (1992), is the most important person in teaching who sees that educational programmes are successfully implemented by organizing and managing the learning experiences and environments.

Teacher training colleges emphasise on child centeredness and interaction, but these methodologies are unduly influenced by the nature and purpose of exams administered at the end of the programme, not their emotional and mental health.