KZBlog

Another nice post I picked up from the Peace Corps Volunteers in Kazakhstan blog feed. This one is an end of summer post, but I thought the bit on how directors of colleges see their teachers as a workforce was interesting.

One of the big problems I was loath to face was the situation at college, where petty and possessive administrators wield the iron fist (minus the velvet glove) to keep teachers in the office from 9 to 5, no matter their lesson schedule. It’s resented by local teachers who are actually paid by the college, but it’s been especially hard for me, since last year I wanted to do projects in other community institutions and was constantly getting myself or my fellow teachers in trouble for it.

Then, apparently, the Education Minister cut our lesson hours, reducing my schedule to between 2 and 6 teaching hours a week. I started ignoring the administration and going to teach at different local schools until the college director found out and… the shit hit the fan. People started getting yelled at and threatened, in the all-too-familiar Soviet manner, and I was summoned to her office to explain myself.

Only in a place like this, where ingrained clannish greed too often rears its ugly head, would I have to explain why I’d prefer to fill my days with useful activities rather than obediently drinking tea in the teachers’ room. Last year I respected and was even a little intimidated by the director, but this year I see her clearly for the narrow-minded fist-clencher that she is.

There’s some possibly unjustified nastiness toward the Soviet system and tribalism, but the at the heart of the matter is the problem that school teachers are too often treated like members of an office staff. And their loyalty to the “company” is more important than their being able to be productive. I myself have seen teachers arrive at school to be told that their regular students are on a field trip and they should teach a completely different group of students. Or that they must be at school from 9-7, but they shouldn’t let students distract them because they need to be on-call in case the director or Minister officials want to talk to them. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, teachers often don’t get paid much here so they need to work several jobs just to make ends meet.

In general, unfortunately one major issue here is still that the work of a teacher is not appreciated. It’s more than just following a textbook or giving a lecture or giving students a worksheet and correcting their errors. Teachers need to be engaged with students, they need time to prepare lessons and reflect on and evaluate past lessons, and they need time to read and learn from each other and take courses to become better teachers. They also need time to meet with students individually and deal with disciplinary issues. Time spent in a classroom is probably 30-50% of the time teachers spend working. Teaching is not like fixing pipes where you can just show up, do the job, and go home. It’s also not like you can be on call all the time to report to your superiors. What can they report? “Today we studied the Periodic Table. All of them understood atomic mass but they still don’t remember all the symbols. We will drill them tomorrow.”

Of course, teachers need to be accountable to students and the school and occasionally the director will need to meet with them to discuss issues. Monitoring by the Ministry or the local government is also needed. But in my opinion, imposing a regular work schedule is not the solution.