THE TEACHER AS A STUDENT

The saying that a teacher should be continually learning is well known. In everyday discussions, however, people tend to attach a very restricted meaning to this saying. They tend to think only of the teacher seeking continually to improve himself in terms of knowledge of his subject- matter (i.e. a deeper knowledge of the particular school subjects he hap- pens to be teaching). The teacher is a student of the following:

 (b) The society (it~s“§t“1?ucture, its major characteristics, its aspirations, its evolution). What are the major characteristics of  society? What type of education does Pakistani want for her children? In what ways is  society evolving? (c) The nation’s educational policy (its objectives and how these can be interpreted). What exactly does the National Policy document say on each aspect _of education? How can these be implemented? (d) Subject-matter (the various fields of knowledge he has to teach).

What specific aspects of subject-matter should be taught and to what depth?

All the four areas of study assigned to the teacher are very closely inter- related. The teacher has to know about children, the nation’s educational goals, and the society in which he works because his teaching of his subject has to be closely related to these. In the course of teaching the appropriateness of the methods he uses will be judged by the extent to which they are in consonance with what the learner needs, the extent to which they help the learner fit into his society, and the extent to which they help to realise the objectives of the nation’s educational policy.

There are, at the same time, several aspects to the teacher’s continuousd study of subject-matter. In the course of his training the teacher will probably have studied some academic subjects in some depth, like stu-dents in colleges and faculties of education who study two academic sub-jects. But, even then, it may not have been possible for him to learn all that there is to know on each subject. 

Moreover, knowledge is not static-.There are always new discoveries and new ideas which tend to change or modify existing. knowledge and beliefs. The organisation of school sub-jects is also constantly changing. There was a time, in Pakistani, when subjects like Integrated Science and Social Studies were not part of the programme of study in primary schools and they were consequently not taught in teacher training institutions. Teachers who were trained under the old system have now to teach subjects which they themselves wereneve t h . F ' 'r aug t or them to retain their self-respect, they have to employ all available methods of self-improvement to learn these new subjects and how to teach them.

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