Teacher: A Living Mirror

Teacher: A Living Mirror

“consciously, we teach what we know; unconsciously, we teach who we are”.

(hamachek, 1999)

Teachers ought to be role models but what are they modeling?

(angela lumpkin, 2008)

Teacher

One should be very careful as he intends to circumvent or define the whoability of a teacher as it has a plethora of meanings and also it means a whole lot of things to different people in different societies operating under different ideologies but the major idea in all is one who has knowledge to share.  For the purpose of this paper we shall who a teacher is from the African philosophical purview of a teacher ought to be. The very first conceptualization of who a teacher is as it pertains to western education came with the colonist and in the case of Nigeria were the Britons. Liberal arts education which enforced intellectuality happened to be the crux of what the Britons wished for and this becomes the major core of what Nigerians will later have as the ideal purpose of education and this still obtains till today. So to an indigenous Nigerian a teacher is a compendium of intellectuality and a fountain of knowledge one who cannot be faulted or makes unthinkable errors

Model

The word model has been used and still in use across different educational dimensions both in the humanities and the so much revered empirical domains. Across boards it is used in reference to examples diagrams illustrations etc but for the purpose of this paper we shall take model as example or exemplary behaviors of which can be used invariably to mean role model in the humanities

   a general classification of the characteristics of a role model involves three

Main components, namely 1) competence, intended as the technical knowledge and skills of the teacher, 2) teaching skills, intended as teacher’s capabilities to communicate knowledge, and 3) personal qualities, i.e., attributes promoting ethical honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, etc. (cruess, cruess, & steinert, 2008).

Character: this is the unique behavioral makeup of a person personality. For a good character it encompasses the totality of whatever habit that is termed as being good and doing that which is seen as right, while behaving unethically is the antithesis of displaying character. Whenever students get caught up in the emotion of a game and intentionally harm another person or cheats to win, they are not being good or doing right. Similarly, if students cheat on tests or plagiarize papers to get better grades, then their character lacks an essential moral foundation. The act of ascertaining what is good can be every blurry as in one situation is universal and in some other sense based on societies the individual finds himself it is beyond the scope of this paper to argue what is universal and what is not. One will agree that those characters like honesty truth fairness responsibility are universally cherished but cultures and customs which are a way of life varies

   Virtue is that which is socially valued, while a moral virtue, such as honesty, is morally valued. According to lickona(1991) schools and teachers should educate for character, especially through teaching respect and responsibility. As teachers interact with the students, it is vital for them to serve as role models of character by making professional judgments and decisions based on societal and moral values.

     a person of character has the wisdom to know right from wrong; is honest, trustworthy, fair, respectful, and responsible, admits and learns from mistakes; and commits to living according to these principles. Liberal education is also of the view that character is a universal phenomenon descriptive of people who possess the courage and conviction to live by moral virtues 

                                   THE TEACHER AND MORALS

Student achievement is not the only topic of conversation in teachers’ lounges, parent-teacher organizations  and teacher education classrooms. There is also much discussion of the moral features of teaching and learning. Sometimes this talk content is on such issues as prayer in schools, sex education, and whether there are just grounds for teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. At other times, the conversation is about a teacher’s own moral values and whether or not these values should be communicated to one’s students. When the talk turns to a teacher’s own moral values, it often becomes entangled in whether it is even possible to provide a thorough and adequate education in the absence of certain moral values, as well as whether teachers are and should be the proper agents for the transmission of such values. These are thorny issues, which all too often get pushed aside because of their complexity and the ease with which they seem to foster disagreement. We believe there are ways to sort through these issues, ways that are not only helpful in resolving many of the tensions in the moral education debate, but ways that enable more powerful approaches to teaching and learning.

Teaching morally and teaching morality

To make our argument we introduce what we believe is an important distinction between teaching morality and teaching morally. In most primary schools, the moral education debate often focuses on character education programs or other moral curricula. Such programs and curricula are championed as a means of teaching morality and transmitting moral virtue from one generation to the next. They are also derided as programs that have no place in the school curriculum because of the concern that morality is a matter of personal preference, religious conviction, or cultural commitment. Although this concern is worthy, it has, we believe, blocked us from attending to the more subtle ways that teachers, the larger society, and the state bring moral matters into the classroom, even when they do not adopt specific moral curricula. We understand these other ways of attending to moral matters as teaching morally. Is there any difference between teaching morally and teaching morality? We will argue that there is, and that there is much we can learn from exploring this difference. There are, however, many complexities and subtleties encountered in the course of distinguishing teaching morally from teaching morality. Our hope is that the value of this article will be found in its attempt to describe these complexities and subtleties, and to explain why they are important to our understanding of how teachers assist or impede the moral development of their students. The argument will lead to a number of vexing places, places where we have only questions and no answers. Perhaps there are readers who have answers and will contribute them to the growing study of the moral dimensions of teaching

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Distinguishing between two forms of teaching

To teach morally is to teach in a manner that accord with notions of what is good or right. That is, to conduct oneself in a way that has moral value. To teach morality is to convey to another that which is good or right. In the first instance, the teacher is being a good or righteous person; in the second instance, the teacher is providing to another person the means for becoming a good or righteous person. Once distinguished in this way, the difference between teaching morally and teaching morality seems clear. Unfortunately such clarity does not last long, for there are a host of questions that follow from this distinction. The first of these pertains to modeling, as when a teacher conducts herself in a way that is morally good in front of her students. An observer might say that she is modeling good conduct for her students. In the case of modeling, might we say that the teacher is both teaching morally and teaching morality? That is, might she be teaching in a morally upright manner and also conveying to her students a model of morally upright conduct? If it is indeed so, then it seems the distinction between teaching morally and teaching morality is a hard one to maintain with any degree of clarity. Perhaps the distinction could be preserved if we determine whether the teacher is actually trying to impart moral lessons to her students. Under these circumstances it seems appropriate to claim that the teacher is engaged in both teaching morally and teaching morality, as she is acting in a morally upright manner and making her manner an object of instruction. Now suppose the teacher makes little or no effort to have her students take notice of her good moral conduct nor does she encourage them to emulate it. Could we say in this instance that the teacher is teaching morally but not teaching morality? Exploring this question reveals an interesting facet of teaching. Consider a different example, a teacher with a peculiar speech accent. He never intends for the students to acquire his accent, but suppose the students do. Do we want to say that the teacher modeled the accent for the students? In this case we are likely to inquire into the intentions of the teacher, asking whether or not he intended that his students acquire his accent. We could also examine his practice, checking to see if he asked students to pronounce words as he pronounces them, or if he appeared to attend more carefully to students whose speech sounded more like his own. In other words, this teacher’s intentions and how they were made manifest in his behavior would most likely make a difference to us when pondering whether he served as a speech model for his students. In the case of the accent in speech, the intention of the teacher seems to make a difference whether or not we believe he modeled the accent for his students, but in the case of morality, we seem more prepared to say that the teacher is modeling morality whether or not she intends to do so. We believe the difference here has something to do with our general sense that a person who teaches, at least in any paid or professional sense of the term, must, in some way, be morally engaged with students. There is a moral aspect to our conception of teaching, such that cultivating the moral dispositions of one’s students is part of what we mean by teaching. This point has been made repeatedly and well in explorations of the moral dimensions of teaching (sees especially hansen, 1995, 2001). If this line of reasoning is correct, then a teacher is modeling morality whenever that person teaches, regardless of whether one has such conduct consciously in mind when going about the work of teaching. Having arrived at this point, what are we now to say of the difference between teaching morally and teaching morality? It may seem as if there is no difference, at least no important one. However, as we try to show below, the distinction is an analytically useful device, even though it does not cleanly divide the actual activities of teaching into two neatly distinct parts. To demonstrate this point, we must further examine the notion of teaching morality. Teaching morality as manner and as content there are probably quite a few ways to teach morality in the context of the school, but only two of these will be explored here the first is by some form of example; the second, by specifically addressing the topics of morality in the course of instruction. The first approach we call manner; the second, content. Manner refers to the traits or dispositions the teacher exhibits in the course of doing something, while content refers to the material that is the subject of the relationship between the teacher and the student. Consider the case of teaching history. In doing so, one conveys the facts of history and the interpretations of historians, and perhaps weaves connections between past and present lives as well as among past, present, and future events. These are features of the content of instruction. At the same time, the teacher provides this content in ways that are fair, tolerant, compassionate, respectful, and so forth and that’s the reason why some students wish certain teachers handled them on some certain areas even the teacher has never stepped into their class in socio-politico parlance it may be referred to as charisma . These features make up the manner of instruction. They describe the teacher’s conduct in the course of seeking students’ understanding and mastery of the content of history. Following this distinction, one might teach morality via content by bringing matters of moral significance to the attention of students, making these the actual subject matter of instruction. In these instances, the teacher is not simply attending to history, or science, or language arts, but to moral rules, stories, or ideals. Thus teachers can bring moral content into the classroom by interjecting their own moral convictions or expectations, by adopting a curriculum or program designed to teach morality (e.g., character education and life skills programs), by exploring the moral issues within the academic curriculum itself (e.g., war policy, literary characters, species extinction, welfare), or by building capacities necessary for morally good conduct (e.g., empathy, moral reasoning, and perspective taking). We now have two ways of teaching morality, through manner and through content, and a variety of ways to do it through content. Because the distinctions can become hazy rather quickly, it may be helpful to repeat it. A teacher who acts morally teaches morality through his or her manner. Modeling is the most prominent form of teaching morality through manner. In this case, the actual topic of instruction is typically a subject such as science, history, music, or language arts. Somewhat differently, the teacher who makes moral matters the topic of instruction is also teaching morality by calling the attention of her students to her own moral ideals, rules, and expectations, by pursuing a program specifically designed to instruct in moral matters, by addressing moral content that is somehow embedded within the academic curriculum, or by developing capacities necessary for morally good conduct. With these distinctions in mind, imagine a teacher who is either not morally well-developed or does not know how to evidence critical moral dispositions in her instructional practices. What is the likely outcome when this teacher makes moral matters the content of her instruction? It seems as if it can be done, under certain limited circumstances, but it is not likely to be successful in any durable or substantial way. On the grounds of logic alone it appears that moral manner is an important precondition for engaging in moral content, else the teacher is in a similar situation to the instructor whose avowed aim is to teach his students the traits and dispositions of critical thinking but whose own thinking is based almost exclusively on memorization and obedience to the authority of text. Students, even the very young, perceive the deceptive and contradictory features of such instruction and seldom give it serious consideration except for whatever is required to move through the levels of the system. The claim advanced here is that manner appears foundational to content in fostering the moral development of the young. We make this claim with some reservations, as our argument for it is not as strong as we would prefer. Yet we shall present it as best we can. The central premise of this argument is that morality taught through content in the absence of moral manner on the part of the teacher will ring false to students and likely not be seriously entertained by them. The next section expands this premise and explores it in more depth.

Morality as it pertains to the nigerian society

According to prof omatseye in book educational philosophy and the african school opined that when the western type of education was introduced into africa through the instrumentality of religion it came with the philosophical outlook of liberal arts education which had some educational tenets of educational uprightness and intellectuality predicated majorly on the grounds of idealism. Teachers back then were expected to be morally upright individuals who displayed good character. They were expected to teach and discipline their students to be respectful of authority and responsible in completing their lessons. While maybe not as visibly emphasized today, these expectations remain essentially unchanged. Because of teachers’ influential role in the lives of young people, the public still expects teachers to display behaviors reflective of moral virtues, such as fairness and honesty, and to adhere to professional codes of conduct.

We shall predicate our judgment of what is right based on the nigerian system which has some cherished values inherent in its philosophical outlook and we shall see how societal values also encompass universally accepted values. What nations value can be vividly seen in their national goals of a country of which nigeria is no exception

National goals of nigeria

The five main national goals which has been endorsed as the necessary foundation for the national [policy on education are the building of

·        A free and democratic society

·        A just egalitarian society

·        A united strong and self reliant nation

·        A great and dynamic economy

·        A land full of bright opportunities for all citizens

Narrowing these to the teacher cannot be done without a proper connection of it with the nigerian philosophy of education which was drawn from there national goals

Nigeria’s philosophy of education

 we believe that education is an instrument for national development, and interaction of persons and ideas are aspects of education

·        Education fosters the worth development of the individual for each individual sake and for general development of the society

·        The training of the mind in the understanding of the world around

·        The acquisition of appropriate skills competences as equipments for the individual to live in and contribute to the development of the society

In consequence, the quality of instruction at all levels has to be oriented towards inculcating the following values

·        Faith in mans ability to make rational decisions

·        Respect for worth and dignity of individuals

·        Moral and spiritual principles  in inter-personal and human relations

·        Shared responsibility for the common good of society

·        Promotion of the physical emotional and psychological dev elopement of all children

·        Acquisition of competencies necessary for self-reliance

These are what the nigerian society cherishes as values and as good and a teacher according to this paper must be one who is an embodiment of these value so as to fulfill the major aim of education in every society which is socialization process of bringing the younger generation into the awareness of what is tenable because character, virtues, ethics and morality unlike the empirical concepts are best learnt when lived. The ability for a person to do what is good at all times no matter the consequences is what is termed as integrity and if the teacher must live this virtues which is same as modeling these virtues he must have integrity because its only through integrity can he always be good and lack of integrity brigs inconsistency in character teaching/modeling and this brings confusion in students who then seeks succor from his immediate environment unfortunately the nigerian environment is characterized with a lot of ills ranging from political thuggery to violent insurrections, rancor, corruption and a whole bunch of behavioral anomalies. This paper is of the opinion that a good teacher is capable of separating or refining the individual even in his present environment through the very instrumentality of angelic models of teachers of which is a far cry from what is obtainable today. For example there were a group of six students in the faculty of education some two weeks ago who sat to perform the normal academic rituals of nigerian students call “gisting “ and guess what the topic of ponder were their different lecturers i could observe how one of them fantasized about a particular lecture who so good that he taught without the use of materials who will come to class without a note teach without a note and dictate without a note who will continue his dictation the following week with just a reminder of the last word in the last class still without a note they all wished to be as good as he was and then they also talked about yet another lecturer who knew nothing and taught nothing he only comes to class and reads the textbook to them and leaves the class and also use foul words such as ”fuck you” “fuck your asshole” and how much they despised him. To correct these ills the teacher or aspiring teacher needs to have integrity in other to be a good and productive teacher

     teachers model integrity by choosing to do the right thing, even when no one is looking. Integrity means consistently doing what is right, even when it would be easier to do something that is personally more beneficial. Teachers who demonstrate integrity are accountable for providing academic programs of quality and positive educational experiences. Parents, as well as the general public, expects educators to teach character and virtues that can help shape and mold young people into contributing members of the society. Since teachers are entrusted with safety, discipline, ands instruction of young nigerian youths for about half of their waking hours, the influence, instruction, and potential learning that occur at school will be life-changing and this will have ripple effects on the adulthood of the individual.

A teacher integrity, or thereof, is observed by students. Students evaluate the characters of their teachers based on how they are treated and taught. Student know when their teachers are committed to their psychomotor, cognitive, affective learning, and they can tell when their teachers genuinely care about them and are trustworthy, honest and respectful .how teachers can serve as a role models by teaching character and moral virtues of honesty, trust, fairness and respect and responsibilities/hardwork which are the hallmarks of the nigerian philosophical tenets are discussed below

Honesty: teachers display honesty by telling the truth and acting in an honorable manner examples of honesty among teachers include complying with federal state and l.g.a rules and policies. Managing school finances properly and evaluating the work of students based on established grades rubrics. Honesty includes fulfilling promises and commitments, such as maintaining confidentiality of student’s records. Honesty also includes not lying cheating or stealing as teachers fulfill their professional responsibilities.

  teachers should stop discussions or activities to exemplify what honest people will do in certain situations for example when the basket ball goes out of play the teacher should teach student honesty by giving reasons why who touch the ball last should own up

Teacher teach students honesty by telling the truth all the time and  teaching the students how to be genuine enough to tell the truth why assignments were completed secondly in cases of writing papers without having to copy from others or website honesty should mean teachers been sincere at every point in time no matter how painful it may seem honesty serves as prerequisite for trust, responsibility, fairness and  respect

Trust; an honest person most times can be trusted as many fulfill their promises when they are made. When  a teacher establishes and upholds class expectations such as such as following assignment and marking rubrics the student tend to have some level of trust for the teacher and tend to have a reason to act same the emergence of trust is the vanguard of education trust replaces apprehension or fear with confidence. When students trust their teachers an inevitable mistake is transformed from being a fear of failure into an opportunity to learn. Helping students in a difficult exercise can build some level of trust in children and this builds in them the character of self confidence which is another needed trait in the nigerian sphere

   trust like other virtues is best taught when lived when students trust their teachers they are not scared of being laughed at in class over a mistake since they know they will be corrected individually or personally with love. Trust is nurtured when a student turns to a teacher because they feel he will listen in their days of distress in interpersonal relationships, academic struggles, personal problems etc trust builds self confidence in students as they learn to depend on their teachers to help them grow and develop

Fairness here this means the teacher should deal with every student in the same manner because children easily notice when teachers tend to attend to them disparately a teacher should give the students a sense of equality were everyone is given a chance to score a particular grade as this will go a long way in showing the child the beauty of equality and fairness which unfortunately the present day nigerian environment doesn’t practice. In another vein the teacher can also attend to student disparately on some certain grounds for instance on grounds of trying to encourage the learning strides of an academically poor student who has started making progress in his academics. Teachers also should always emphasize self control and acting appropriately just as they practice it outside the classroom in their dealings with other teachers.  Teachers who are fair believe in the abilities of each student to learn and encourage each person to hit the highest point possible teachers are fair when they give same punishment to the intellectually gifted and that child who lacks intellectuality when same offences are committed by both parties

Respect: this begins with teachers having respect for their students regardless of their ethnicity race religion culture economic status individual gifts or abilities etc teachers must be unbiased in response to the different skills possessed by her students and must have an open heart to teach all shades of student whether slow learner or not. Civility inside and outside the classroom requires that teachers and students show respect and care about others respect is earned through treating others just as you want them to treat you also. When teachers show respect to their students they get respect in turn.

Respect requires teachers even having positive dispositions even to students and colleagues who don’t deserve it and it is best taught by the teacher acting it in the school society or community

Responsibility/hardwork: teachers demonstrate responsibility by being morally accountable for their actions and fulfilling their duties.  Teachers act responsibly by helping to optimally develop the psychomotor cognitive and affective abilities of their students. Responsible teachers are well prepared for each class and provide prompt and constructive feedbacks to students to help facilitate the learning process. Teachers tend to model responsibility when they act and teach hygiene health related fitness drug abuse. Whenever a student fails to do his homework it should be an opportunity for the teacher to teach the students how to take full responsibility for his actions and not trying to tell lies so as for them to make a better choice next time responsibility can also include a teacher knowing all his students individually of which assists and helps the learning process