Exploring a Teacher’s Identity as a Professional

The status of teacher in general and particularly in India has undergone many changes over the time. The most ancient kind of schools in India were the Gurukuls in which students had to stay for a certain period of time under the teacher’s supervision. The teacher was responsible for deciding the proper curricula for students and teach them in his/her own-devised methods. It was believed that teacher is the ultimate source of power and knowledge and so the words said by the teacher were to be followed without questioning. According to Sarangapani (2003), such an authority is part of a teacher’s identity. Such was the faith on teachers that most of the crucial decisions, be it about a child in the family or some issue in the community, people would consult the teacher in the village as they held that a knowledgeable person like him/her can guide them in taking correct decisions. This authoritarian position of the teacher was brought down with the emergence of the colonial rule.

The colonial masters believed that the unquestioned authority of the teacher did not allow any room for critical thinking on the student’s part and thus the system needed to be changed. Along with demeaning the role of teacher, even the indigenous knowledge was disregarded. Not only was the curriculum decided by foreign subject specialists and administrators, but also the methods of teaching and routine to be followed were pre-decided for the teacher. The teacher had no autonomy either on the content to be taught or the practices to teach the students. The only job left for the teacher was to execute the ‘plan’ step by step as given to him/her. They were assigned clerical jobs and were also subject to fear of the regular school inspection. All these led to the loss of authority and identity of the teacher as a trustworthy intellectual person and he/she became what Kumar (2005) calls as a ‘meek dictator’. Today the teachers who take pride in being the Guru similar to those in Vedic times are mostly Brahmins who think the Sanskrit shlokas and religious traditions are a legacy of the Brahmin Gurukul systems (Sarangapani, 2003). But they are no longer in a position to teach and guide their students independent of any institutional or state requirements.

Giroux (2004) says that teachers are not technical experts equipped with skills to achieve pre-determined goals whose duty is to pass on “predetermined  set  of  discrete  information and  instructional  procedures  through  a teacher-proof  method,  and  highly standardized  tests” (Sedeghi & Ketab, 2009, p.53). He encourages teachers to identify themselves as transformative intellectuals which means that they have the right to integrate conceptualisation and actualisation instead of blindly practicing methods irrespective of its relevance to the classroom context. As discussed till now there are a number of meanings attributed to a teacher’s identity by the society but the purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of teacher’s identity as a professional from a teacher’s own narrative. In the following section, the concept of identity will be discussed which further helps in understanding how professional identity is affected by various factors.

Identity is made up of what one thinks of oneself and the meanings that others attribute to the individual. Mead (1934) says that the different roles that an individual plays in the society and the interactions he/she has with others produce the concept of self for that person. A role has a pre-determined set of expectations to be fulfilled by the occupant of the role and success in performing the expected actions helps in a positive self-esteem which adds to the identity of oneself as a mother, doctor, teacher or whichever role the person occupies (Hogg, Terry & White, 1995). Identity theory asserts that a person might have various roles in different contexts but the commitment to a particular role depends on the importance he/she gives to the social relations dependent on that role. For example, a person, very much respected in the society as a good teacher joins politics leaving aside his profession of teaching, may think that his identity as a teacher will help him in reaching out to more people as a ward member. But his identity as a teacher might get faded in eyes of the society. Thus, identity is a continuously evolving entity which is determined not only by self but also through social interactions.

The Social Identity Theory conceptualised by Tajfel and Turner in 1979 suggests that the membership of social groups and categories forms an important part of our self concept (Hogg, Terry & White, 1995). Therefore in an interaction, the individuals involved represent a group or a category and not just themselves as individuals. Social identity is the part of our self-concept based on knowledge of our membership of one or more social groups. Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups.

Some social groups have more power, prestige or status than others and therefore members of a group will compare their own groups with others and determine the relative status of their own group. Thus when a comparison is done between different professions like teaching, medicine and law, one group might feel that the others have more privileges and so might not consider themselves to be at par with the other group.This kind of group-identity related with professions results in either positive self-esteem of an individual or demeaning one self because of weak group identity.

Now I move forward to present the various elements associated with teacher’s identity as a professional. Beijaard, Verloop and Vermunt (2000) categorise the identity of teacher on the basis of the subject one teaches, the relationship with students and the teacher’s perception about his/her role in the institution. Along with these factors, a teacher’s identity is also determined by the grades he/she teaches (Sriprakash, 2012). Teachers of primary classes are often considered to be at a lower position than the secondary and higher secondary school teachers. There are some other factors like relationship with colleagues and significance of his/her role in developing school policy (Day, Kington, Cobart & Sammons, 2006) which influence the way a teacher’s identity is formed. Day et al. (2006) also assert that educational reforms have an impact on the teacher’s identity as sometimes these reforms do not take into consideration the contexts in which individual teacher works. This might result in a negative self-esteem for the teacher in regard to his/her profession and consequently affects his/her motivation for continuing the job (Kelchtermans, 1993).

Olsen (2008) says that a teacher’s identity is largely determined by his/her reasons for entering the profession, career plans, personal educational experience and experience in the teacher education institute, present work environment and prior work experience. Kale (1970) also observes that a person’s experience as a teacher in his/her whole career informs the way he/she forms identity as a teacher. All the above aspects of teacher identity have been taken care of while interviewing the teacher for this task.

About the Case studied

For this assignment, I chose a teacher whom I admire since my childhood and I see her as a role model whenever I think of teaching. I think of her as the perfect case for this task as she has been a teacher for students from primary to higher secondary grades in schools and also worked as a Headmistress in one school. Although now she is working as a teacher in other school, I visited this school for fifteen days during data collection for my dissertation and got to see the basic functioning and structure of the school.

Situated in my hometown, Gondia (Maharashtra), Vivek Mandir School is a co-educational English medium school which is CBSE-affiliated for grades 1 to 8 and State board for grades 1 to 10. It was established in the year 1993 with only nursery and kindergarten but has grown into one of the most successful schools in the city in terms of infrastructure, qualified staff, academic achievement and participation of students in various co-curricular activities in and outside the school.

Methodology

The task was done in two parts, first a questionnaire was sent to the teacher and then a telephonic interview was conducted. It was felt that asking questions and writing down or recording the answers on phone was not the right way to get insights about the teacher’s life. The questionnaire ensured that the teacher gets enough time to recall and narrate experiences over these many years of her career in as many words as she needs. Based on her responses to the questions in questionnaire, some more questions found to be necessary were asked on the telephone. Permission was taken to use her name and career details in the document. Following is the analysis of the teacher’s response to the questions addressing her identity as a professional.

Career in Chronological order

Born in 1954, Mrs.Mala Banerjee (will be referred to as Mala henceforth) graduated from Calcutta University in 1974 and later did her M. A. in English literature in the year 1993. Her career began in 1981 as a temporary teacher in a school where she taught children in Kindergarten through grade 5 for few months in Kolkata. After this in 1987, she joined Nirmal School (Gondia) and taught children in Kindergarten through grade 7. One year later, she joined Rabindranath Tagore High School as an assistant teacher for grades 8th to 10th. Later she was appointed as the Headmistress of the school and was in this position for 3 years. After working there for 16 years, in 2004 she joined Vivek Mandir High School as an assistant teacher for grades 8th to 12th. Now she is a permanent teacher for the grades 9th and 10th. She taught English and Social studies in the earlier schools at middle and secondary level and now teaches English to the secondary and higher secondary grades. Even before her post graduation she was offered to teach English to higher grades which she accepted unwillingly as she felt that she was not qualified and capable enough to teach higher level English. She says that teachers should always be in a position to answer their students’ questions and for this it is important that they have a strong theoretical understanding of the subject otherwise students will receive only partial knowledge. This is emphasised by Khora (2011) as he says that the knowledge base should be such that it is useful in explaining concepts in practice.

For clarifying the meaning of profession in this task to Mala, Carr’s (2003) criteria of defining something as a profession were explained and they are i)moral enterprise, ii)public service and iii)importance of theoretical knowledge for practice. She says that teaching is indeed a profession as all the above are true for teaching also. According to her, as soon as an individual opts for teaching, he/she becomes morally obligated to think about and help in the overall development of students. She thinks of teaching as taking a responsibility of children’s well-being. She believes that teachers are like patriots who provide service to the nation by strengthening the future generations. In her words, “To be a patriot, one does not always need to hold gun and fight the enemy of the country. Making children morally strong and law-abiding citizen is also a social responsibility”. Thus, she agrees with the role of teacher as a patriot as stated by Sarangapani (2003). As for the third criterion, Mala says that practice helps in implementing the theoretical knowledge and thus is as important as theory since “what we teach we learn too”. For her, learning from the experiences in practising various methods in teaching and applying it later for different contexts is a continuous process and helps her in evolving as a professional.

When asked about her reasons to enter this profession, she told that her father had encouraged her to take up teaching as he felt she could deal with children well and become a good teacher. Although initially she was not interested in it, as she started teaching and spending more time with children she got more and more involved in the profession and developed a passion for it. In regard to factors affecting her identity such as subjects and grades she teaches, Mala says that since she always got the opportunity to teach her favourite subject English, it was never an issue for her and she takes pride in being called a language teacher. For her, students are students no matter which grade they belong to. She believes in adjusting her teaching methods according to students’ level and thus students of any age find it easier to approach her with their problems. This helps her in building a positive self-esteem since students develop a good rapport with her which in turn strengthens her identity as a professional teacher. But she is quick to add that although she loves all her students, she is not lenient with them in matters of lack of attentiveness and delinquent behaviour. She states that it is essential to keep a boundary so that students are not afraid of her but at the same time take her seriously too when she is teaching. Hence, she does not believe in the unquestioned authority of teacher which existed in the Guru-Shishya relationship but tries to maintain the discipline required for an effective transaction in the classroom.

Mala says that a healthy working environment is very important to keep oneself satisfied and happy with his/her work. For this she asserts, having warm relations with colleagues helps to a large extent. Less of competitive atmosphere and more of helping each other in improving teaching methods works well for her identity as a professional. One more factor which is said to have a significant effect on a teacher’s identity is school policy and educational reforms. Mala emphasises that since these are made for the betterment of students and overall education system, it is her responsibility to implement the reforms and ensure that it serves the purpose. Therefore, her identity as a teacher is independent of any extrinsic interest and is grounded in the goal of educating children in an effective manner.

Talking about the role of her own educational background in her practice as a professional, she says that it plays an important part since she keeps recalling her teachers, their lectures and ways of teaching. She also affirms that positive experiences in one’s education motivates a prospective teacher to do even better in his/her profession. Going through her work history, it was interesting to understand how her career till now has shaped her teacher professional identity. She says that she enjoys teaching the most since she is also very affectionate towards children. But once she was promoted to the post of Headmistress, she could not teach much and had more administrative responsibilities which gave her less satisfaction. It also required her to ignore certain practices (of management and teachers) which she felt were wrong. Thus, she left the job and joined Vivek Mandir as an assistant teacher. Hence, for her teaching is not just a job which she does for monetary gains but it is a part of her self-image which allows her to do what she likes and what she thinks is right. She says that she also learns from her own classes methods which work and which do not, adapts to various contexts and applies techniques accordingly.

There is also pressure on teachers because of increasing accountability to parents about their wards’ progress. Mala says that the status of teachers has changed significantly because of this reason. Earlier the community had faith on teachers and entrusted them with their child’s future. Now there are instances when parents come to teachers and blame them for their child’s slow progress or failures in some cases even though they themselves do not have sufficient knowledge about their child’s studies and other activities. She says that parents’ intervention is not completely a negative thing since parents help teachers in understanding the personal problems a child faces and thus can handle him/her accordingly. They sometimes give good suggestions for the school and teachers and these are taken note of but there are always some parents who look down upon teachers. Mala says she ignores such people as they are not in a position to understand a teacher’s responsibilities. She admits that it does influence a teacher’s identity but depends on individual whether to let it affect themselves or not.

The effect of context on her way of teaching was also investigated. She says that at home she is free to spend as much time as required on each student because the number of students is less and she can work on their progress based on their abilities. This is not possible in school because there is a stipulated time allotted for each class and there are at least 40 students in each class. Thus even though she is professional in both the contexts, she is restricted because of institutional limits in one and has liberty in the other. She says that a teacher should be caring and thoughtful like parents for his/her pupils because then only children will feel comfortable and teaching-learning will be effective. She emphasises that being motherly helps a great deal in managing children, the reason why many women see it as an easy career option. But she adds that only sentiments are not enough and a teacher should be well-qualified and have the skills to teach using appropriate methods. According to her, “Wrong teaching will make wrong citizen”. Thus she complies to the parent-child relation between teacher and student and as discussed earlier, believes that teachers provide service to nation by preparing children to become good citizens.

Finally her experiences in her present workplace were explored to understand how it has moulded her identity. She says that the management of the school gives the desired importance to teachers in their policy making process. They also conduct regular meetings and seminars to clarify their reform actions. The teachers are provided with sufficient resources to teach and the management constantly asks them about their needs for more resources. When asked about the liberty of teachers in teaching and assessment methods, she answered that the school gives guidelines regarding the overall structure to be followed while teaching but methods to be used is completely the teacher’s decision and is not interfered in by the school. The assessment is done using Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) which takes into consideration the holistic well-being of children and not just scholastic development. The school also strives to develop the children in all aspects of life and thus makes efforts to engage them in various curricular and co-curricular activities. From this discussion it is evident that the school has provided Mala with a conducive environment to grow as a positive person and as a professional. She says that such good experiences from workplace keeps her motivated to achieve new levels in teaching for herself and learning experiences for students.

To conclude, all the factors affecting a teacher’s identity derived from the literature and from Mala’s narrative hold true in general but the extent to which a teacher’s professional identity is influenced because of these depends on individuals’ perception about themselves and their work. Mala describes her identity as a person who loves her family, the nature and her profession. She says that her love for children helps her in becoming a better teacher and that her affection for her students is the reason she never thought of leaving this profession. Her growth in personal and professional life is correlated.

References

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