When Teachers Become Clients: Do They Practice What They Preach?
Renata Montaldi, Brazil
Renata Montaldi is a teacher at FACAMP, a college in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Her current professional interests are motivation in learning / teaching a foreign language. E-mail: renatamontaldi2@gmail.com
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Introduction
Background
Conclusions
References
Being an old hand in any job entails getting acquainted with the vices of the trade and due to having been teaching English as a foreign language at schools, colleges and language schools for over 25 years, I have often witnessed one such vice. I´ve seen co-workers often complain about the low value (ergo low remuneration) that has been given to the work of language teachers.
If on the one hand the greatest asset an education-oriented industry possesses is its staff, specifically its teachers, on the other hand, some teachers, at least in Brazil, count on no more thanminimum wage and the promise of a few bucks more per year if they achieve outstanding performance and reach the moving goalposts of retention targets. A successful teacher should be the one to bring academic success to the school and an increase in the number of student enrollments. However, what we see is that part of the industry lives and dies on the strength of its advertising budget and commercial affiliation.
Hekimgil, F. (2015) talks about the concept of disengagement.
“…Disengagement is mostly viewed as a natural consequence of trauma or distress of one sort or another and as such, most people succumb to it during, at least, one period of their lives. One of the most common current causes of disengagement is the fear of not being able to make a living, not being able to maintain a desired quality of life...”
One might wonder whether a vicious cycle is not being fed by the trinity teacher / student / industry. The latter not providing remuneration / recognition that suffices and the first becoming increasingly more disengaged of the process, thus affecting the cycle of motivation for the client, who, in turn will threaten both with their invested by the market power of choosing a service among the ever increasing competition.
Some co-workers and hiring managers complain about the lack of a coherent and solid course of education that qualifies the teachers both in terms of language and in terms of teaching skills, which surely causes a lack of fully qualified professionals to act in an ever more competitive market. The industry counts on an army of under qualified in either or both skills teachers looking for a teaching position, and faces having to make the difficult decision of choosing one skill over the other when hiring staff.
This also brings us to the informal characteristics of the hiring market, as a consequence of the afore mentioned issue, that absorbs not only professionals who have solid career in teaching, but also speakers of English as a native or foreign language who might be in between jobs and due to a lack of job opportunities in their fields, end up taking up teaching positions. The most obvious consequence is an identity crisis felt by the staff, followed by discontentment and disengagement that may lead to lack of investment in the betterment of the teaching practice.
I have also heard many of my colleagues attribute their feelings of disengagement to the clients, for they are the ones who choose a language course based on price second to no other criterion, in a scenario where quality seems to be of a lower importance. These teachers complain about the gap between their investment in the career and the value given to them by the clients and in some cases, by consequence, by the institution they work for. This discontentment may lead such professionals to a deepening lack of motivation, which in turn, can also lead to increasingly less investment in their careers.
Schwartz,J. (2007) addresses the issue of quality in language teaching / learning. She cleverly strips the concept of quality in teaching of the almost religious aura it has somehow acquired and brings its definition to a very practical business oriented one as follows:
“…as in business, quality comes from the strategic reinvestment of profit into the upgrading of resources, based on periodic yet consistent review of existing levels of operation. Big words for "use your money to fix what doesn't work and take good care of what does". Sure, there is a lot more involved to quality assurance than that, but it is obvious that quality teachers are the hallmark of a quality school.”
She adds that it is up to the school owners / administrators to treat their “major assets” accordingly as partners in profit and not just partners in work and conversely zero-tolerance should be afforded to teachers who do not share in the common goal of the holy trinity of student, school owner and teacher. It is clear that if this so called cycle of quality is observed, the whole industry will prosper.
We can thus, at least grasp the pivotal role the end receiver of education services has in the delicate balance of teacher / school relationship. It is up to the client to exert pressure on the service provider (school), so that it constantly looks forward to improving the quality of services offered. It is up to the provider, however, to strike the delicate balance between pleasing the client and providing the staff with recognition that will suffice.
I have to confess that hearing such complaints, both about the lack of recognition by the client and the low recognition / remuneration by the industry, has become as pedestrian as bad coffee in the teachers room. However, one different kind of exchange has recently drawn my attention. In more than one occasion I have witnessed a group of language teachers talk about where to send their children / spouses to learn English. The reason why such exchanges have drawn my attention is that when put in the position of a client, who hires a service of education in a foreign language, some teachers also have price, second to none, as a driver of their choice despite being fully aware of the reasons behind low prices, the main one being low remuneration of staff.
I cannot help but wonder, if the fact that we receive so low a recognition might not be connected to the little value we, ourselves, place on the quality of education services when in a position of client. Wouldn’t we too be feeding this cycle of disengagement?
If we, as teachers, acknowledge the client as a powerful agent of quality control and change in the triad school / teacher / client, wouldn´t it be more coherent if we, when acting as clients in this scenario, put our money where our mouths are and had quality, rather than price, as a driver of choice?
It seems to make very little sense that we demand discernment of quality over price from our clients, but hire under qualified services provided by under qualified teachers and schools to cater for the needs of our own families. It might make even less sense that we complain about a market that does not value investment made in one’s career, and we end up positively reinforcing such practice by not valuing investment in quality ourselves When we hire services that are known to be of a lower quality also due to lack of personal and corporate investment in the shaping of the career of staff, the message we send to the market (in which we are also inserted as players that provide the same service we buy as clients) is that no investment and improvement in quality will ever trump a good discount or spuriously lower prices. The message we are sending to our co-workers, and paradoxically receiving from them, is that investing in a career in teaching is anything but worth it.
Maybe it is time to look at ourselves in the mirror and be better aware of our behavior as clients of the same service we provide. We, teachers should perhaps be more aware of our role as opinion makers when it comes to learning a language. We somehow serve as models to the other clients. When we choose a course based on price mostly, we are modeling this same behavior in the consumers that look up to us. We might perhaps, by being more discerning clients become better agents of a change in beliefs that may end up defining a fair value given to our own profession and could even fight this cycle of low recognition, disengagement, low investment and low quality. After all, complaining in the staff room will not operate any miracle change, but taking the matter in our own hands might.
Hekimgil, Feride. (2015) “What if the Teacher is not “All There”?”, February, 2015, htl magazine, Issue 1, Year 17, February 2015.
Schwartz, Jay. (2007) “In Seach of Quality: Teachers as Service Providers and other Tales of Conspiracy”, January, 2007, htl magazine, Issue 1, Year 9, January 2007.
Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.
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