Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Guest Post: The Blame Game


The Quality of Education: Who's to blame?

I had practiced the teaching profession and until now, that passion is still running through my veins. If and only I am a rich lady, I will never leave the profession I love the most. Yes, I am guilty of abandoning my mission in life and guilty of turning my back to the vows I made to mold the minds of the youths. Someday, I know leaving the profession would be one of my biggest regrets.

If people get sad every now and then when they hear the quality of education in our country gets worst day after day, imagine how the heart of a teacher feels.

The success and failure of the quality of education in our country is not just a product of one factor but a combination of different denominators that should be working together hand in hand. One factor always receives the blame because people fail to open their eyes to the reality that they themselves failed to do their part.

By different denominators I mean: government, schools, teachers, parents and students. Let me point out the shortcomings so we should all be vigilant not only in watching their mistakes but to watch ourselves as well.

The Government: If the government is a human being, I can visualize him. He’s not perfect, prone to mistakes and his body full of bruises. Bruises from all the foul words and blames due to his inability and failure to provide the children with complete descent class rooms, books and teachers. We’re aware of that fact decades ago but are we aware enough to see what it had done? Classrooms were built on public schools, books delivered for a new school year but which didn’t suffice because of the fact that a new looming set of generation were also added to the school’s population.

Schools: Schools fail to do their part when the authorities involve never reach out to the people around. How can they motivate their teachers to work hard if they were left pulling all the resources they have (personal resources) and in the end rewarding them with late pay checks (which is a common scenario in private schools). Mismanagement of resources would lead to the failure of the whole institution.

Teachers: If there are dedicated teachers, sad to say there are those who perform the duty to teach to earn a living. It’s not a high paying job but at least it will save you from starving yourself. There are sacrifices to be made and if they don’t take the profession by heart, they should quit at once before they end up like those who made their student’s copy 10 pages of lectures while they are busy reading newspapers, send students in the garden to pick out the grass, collect money for a project which the students never saw. One reason they act like that was the school’s/government’s failure to reach out to them and for their needs. To our dear teachers, you’re working on the precious mind of the youth, why do you let them suffer just because of your selfishness? If you’re not happy with what you’re doing and with whom you’re working with, QUIT. You have the reason to complain if you perform your duty well.

Parents: Other parents thought once they bought their children’s school supplies and paid their tuition fees, their work is done. I as a teacher find it difficult to deal with parents who are more stubborn than their children. No matter how you talk to them and remind them to always watch their children’s studies and failing grades, they will always pass the blame to the teachers. I often talk to students before. Their usual reason why they don’t want to pay attention to their studies is to get the attention of their parents who are so busy making a living but fails to make a life for their children. So parents think twice. Teachers aren’t perfect and so are you.

Students: Cutting classes, assignments left undone and books unopened. I always hear students complaining about their teacher because they thought she’s not an authority to what she teaches. They got bored because their teacher was using the old version of transmitting knowledge and the result, they don’t attend their subjects anymore. What a pity to those who never gave their teachers a second chance. They might be boring today, but tomorrow is a new day. How could they do their task if the students were not there for them to work at?

They waste their time on video games, night life and other boisterous activities and afterwards will blame their teachers for their failing grades. Nice job kid. You have a long way to go.

Now who’s to blame? Instead of pointing our fingers to somebody, let’s start the change and encourage others to follow.


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"An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life." - Author Unknown

"Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works." - John Keats



About the Blogger:

Hello everyone, I'm Sey from 14th Street. I blog about my boring life, my adventures, mistakes and the lessons I learned. I want to travel and if will be given the chance, I will visit the historical places in the world. I am a teacher by profession but currently working as a sales consultant for an IT company which specializes in data recovery, software development, wed design and consulting. How did a teacher became a consultant was such a long and different story.

Leah asked me to do a guest post today for which I am thankful because I will be given the chance to air my views...thanks Leah! I will not blab more about myself and bore you, after reading my views, feel free to share yours.

You can also follow me on Twitter and Google +

27 comments:

  1. collaboration is needed for success. gov+fam+teachers+school+students.

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  2. It's a combination of a lot of things, and the problem won't be solved until people realise that and try to fix everything at once. Though that in itself is more difficult than trying to do it by fixing one thing at a time.

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  3. pointing fingers! like the topic! i don't know how to react. but the author's right.

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  4. this is just amazing-love your blog girl
    xx the cookies
    share the feeling
    visit <3
    samecookiesdifferent.blogspot.com

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  5. Twas nice reading your post today. Well, just wanna thank you po for following me. Hmmm All of us should work hand in hand if we really want a better education. We shouldn't be fault finders and there's nothing to blame with. We are all part of the race, so we should lend an extra effort if we really wanted education to excel in all aspects. Bow!

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  6. this post was really well thought out; it definitely comes down to everybody, just in different aspects in society. we've all gotta buck up and get our educational systems together!

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  7. wow teacher! i can sense the passion in you.

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  8. Ang mga magulang ang unang teacher sa mga bata.


    Well said! :D

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  9. For everything you do when motivated by money, be sure that work becomes a burden, but if it is done out of love, then be sure no matter how hard it is, it becomes an enjoyable challenging game.

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  10. i would always have high regard to my teachers, old and new, familiar and those that i am yet to meet.

    and yes, i believe home is the perfect place to learn and family members are your most influential teachers.

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  11. If we want to see difference in education, I will not blame institution. It's just one facet of the problem. I think we should be more inquisitive and look at our culture. Our culture is influenced by a lot of things, but towards education, we don't seem to understand that whatever we want to pursue in life, we should have a solid foundation in moral and discipline. That goes both ways for money and passion. We should start having that kind of culture of discipline all throughout.

    I think this post should make people think a lot.

    Great job for another cool post! :)
    g

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  12. Sa tingin ko ayos naman ang edukasyon natin mga pilipino, sa tingin ko rin kaya tayo nagkaletche-letche dahil sa matataas din ang pinag aralan natin...ang probs lang, hindi naman ito ginagamit sa tamang paraan.

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  13. It's really a collective effort of all sectors in order to have and maintain quality education. I also believe that the government should focus more to education.

    Education is the key to success if only we could wait... kasi it will not happen in an instant.

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  14. i love teachers bcoz i was raised by teacher, nanay ko teacher.. ok naman ata edukasyon natin hehe!

    im back!

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  15. Madalas talaga mangyari yang pointing fingers to somebody at minsan without even assesing where the problem came or what caused it.

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  16. If we want to see change, we should start with the things that we ourselves can do. Don't complain, do something that could improve things.

    This is true, Sey. If you ever get back to teaching again, then the students who will belong to your class are really blessed.

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  17. Very well said, Sey :)

    ♥hello Leah! Thanks for visiting my blog. And haha. No, the unsent letters are for my jowa. :)

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  18. to summarize this up... it all should start with I word! :)

    instead of pointing out to others and throwing all out the blame on them we should better start to check our own self....

    Fact finding...LOOK not only SEE!

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  19. May God guide us always and make us cooperate to make a team work...

    nice post...

    sama sama tayong lahat tungo sa tagumpay ng edukasyon!!!

    go!go!go!

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  20. madame din tlgang kelangan baguhin sa sistema ng edukasyon sa Pinas. madameng remote places sa Pinas na d naabutan ng mga benefits at mg libro at ang mga tecahers doon ay 1K per months lang ang sweldo, buti sa kabila ng lahat my mga nagtitiyaga pa ding mag volunteer sa mga guro kapalit ang kakarampot na 1k na sweldo. sana nga madame taung resources, at sana madameng tumulong instead na magsisihan nlng. very nice guest post,

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  21. i think all the factors stated have all their part to push for a quality education. however, the biggest part should be of the government because they have the power to implement rules or execute plan for better educational system and have the money to spend that we have paid for through our taxes.

    in the end, it's like a beauty pageant question.. lol... peace out..

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  22. I agree---in a problem as complicated as this---top to bottom approach is needed. The government should do more. My wife still works in public school. When she said she wants to buy an OVERHEAD PROJECTOR from her own salary kasi yun ang ginagawa ng mga co-teachers nya--i immediately said no!!!! Sabi ko--stop doing what the government should do. It's the responsibility of the govt to provide for that.Bat sa teacher na kakarampot ang sahod pa babagsak? Sa ibang bansa nga --once you get hired, you are automatically given a laptop by the government. dito kanya kanyang bili ang mga teachers. Tas pati OHP ba naman? too much.


    at the end of the day---our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education----

    bat me beauty contestant dito na nasundan ko sa comments? nyahaha

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  23. i-disqualify na nga yung comment #22.. kung maka-aura lang ha.. lels :))

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  24. i-ban nalang yung nasa comment #23 kasi parang naka singhot lang ng rugby kung maka comment.lels

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  25. ah okay.. so kelan pa daw nakasali dito ang mga bangag.. at pasimple pa ang pagpromote sa rugby game ha.. bayad ba yun..

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  26. I agree! it should start within us. If we are not willing to help, collab with each other no good result will be aim :)

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  27. IMO, it's true that the environment plays a vital role on how we grow up and I think it is the role of the parents to educate their child and explain them very well the importance of being educated.

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