Superhumans in the classroom

The Editor, Sir:

I am writing in full support of the public-sector teachers who are making demands for their retro-active salaries. For far too long, teachers have been mistreated by the powers that be, and so it is rather understandable if they have reached their boiling point.

Any prudent government would acknowledge that the success of its people is dependent on how educated they are and, hence, would give attention to the comfort of its teachers. The state of our public schools is rather dismal and this has often been placed squarely at the feet of our teachers. However, education is not one-sided. A child cannot read unless he or she has been taught and, likewise, a teacher cannot make a child learn if the child is apathetic.

For education to be successful, there needs to be an alliance between teacher and student, teacher and parent and parent and student. Only through these means is education successful. Somehow, however, most people, including this inept Govern-ment, have forgotten that there are three sides to a triangle, not one.

The Government and the general public are well aware of the challenges faced by our teachers. Conditions in many public schools are deplorable. Teachers have the challenges of limited classroom space partitioned by blackboards, high pupil-to-teacher ratios, inade-quate resources, delinquent parent(s)/guardian(s), disciplining disruptive students without being attacked by the students themselves or the parent/guardian, demands of writing a weekly lesson plan, among a multiplicity of other things.

Second, apart from having the role of imparting knowledge, the teacher has to play the role of counsellor, parent and nurse, just to name a few. Obviously, teachers aren't humans, they are superhumans, or at least the unsympathetic education minister and indifferent parent/guardian apparently think so.

I am, etc.,

WENDY SIMPSON

ocsa.wendy@hotmail.com