Issues Faced in Choosing and During a Career and its Remedies - Research Paper Example

ISSUES FACED IN CHOOSING and DURING A CAREER and its REMEDIES The following essay provides a personal insight on how arduous, the process of choosing a career for one’s self is, when in a closed and a conservative environment and further moves onto presenting the highlights of the respective career, the problems faced in it by not only one individual but majority of the employees and lastly the possible and probable solutions and remedies to these very problems. This essay focuses primarily on the plight of a male World History teacher and by shedding light onto his experiences, discusses the aforementioned aspects. The essay also takes in to account the major issue of untrained teachers, teaching in most schools across the country, contributing in deteriorating the standards of education. It talks about the very prominent issue which bars the intelligentsia of the country from taking part in the employment in the education sector, i.e the low salaries of teachers and how this trend can be reversed and the teachers can be given their lost glory and respect. A convocation day is by far the proudest and the happiest moment in one’s life after spending four, long, arduous years in university. Wearing my best Marks & Spencer suit and my favourite maroon tie, I stood in front of the six foot long mirror in my room and took a sigh of relief. My four years in the Carnegie Melon University lived up to the stereotypes and the general idea formed about life in university. I could say with sheer confidence and veracity that it certainly was not the best time of my life but yet again it was the most important one. I learnt about the League of Nations, the Second World War, and the Cold War and most importantly, I knew each and every single clause of the Treaty of Versailles, by heart and I was proud about it. As I received my degree, I puffed up, widened my chest and filled it with air. After many sleepless nights of hard work, utter zeal, zest and dedication and back breaking studies, I held an undergraduate degree in World History, with honors. The ride back home was a rather unusual one. Never in my life, had I contemplated about anything, with such concentration. My father was of the view that by majoring in World History, I had wasted my life and I should pursue a degree in some other, practical field which could get me a decent job with recognition. My mother thought that I might end up procrastinating and doing nothing, hence wasting myself after getting the degree and I had no idea what to do, yet I pondered over and over. Choosing a career, in the society, where I grew up and come from, is as difficult as breaking a concrete wall with bare hands. And so was the case for me. Even though, I did have an undergraduate degree, I did not know where I wanted to go in life. This had made my life even more ambiguous, frustrating and often there were times when I felt purpose less and unwanted, though I totally knew that this attitude would end up making me suicidal. Such was the extent that by then end of the so called brainstorming process I started I did not know what my strengths were; I had forgotten what my weaknesses were. I also could not figure out what was important to me, job satisfaction or earning a handsome amount of salary, nor could I ascertain the living standards I wanted, despite dreaming of living as a prince and driving a Mercedes S320, after graduating from college. “Socio-cultural factors exert strong influences on individuals' career choices in Pakistan. There are powerful norms around what economic roles individuals can or cannot perform based on their wealth, education, caste and gender. By and large, Pakistani society is averse to manual work and jobs involving manual labor and hard work are considered undesirable. Such perceptions are particularly strong among the relatively wealthy and educated, who prefer ‘clean jobs’ (desk-based, clerical, supervisory or administrative positions). It has often been observed that the educated can remain voluntarily jobless for long periods of time in their search for the right form of employment. Related to the aforementioned, the society holds a strong inclination for formal employment, especially in the public sector. In fact, in most situations, a central reason for acquiring education is to gain the requisite qualifications for formal sector jobs. Public service is particularly sought after, as it is considered permanent, honorable and a source of security. More often than not, individuals prefer a permanent government sector job over a higher paid role in the informal sector. Regardless of preferences, however, very few individuals are actually assimilated in such positions whilst informal sector is the biggest employer” (Government of Pakistan). The caste and gender also influence the employment opportunities in the country, I lived in. Even though, it was a male chauvinist society that I belonged to but because of the increased awareness and changing trends amongst the employed youth, I was likely to face discrimination, unlike as expected. After weeks of brainstorming, analyzing the cost and benefits and judging the societal view about different jobs, which I could go for, I decided that I would start teaching high school kids at a local private school. Concordant to the increased involvement of my parents and the society in general in choosing a career path for me, this decision of mine was not taken very pleasantly. The spiteful reactions can be regarded as the primary reason, as to why I chose this field. During my survey about the possible jobs, when teaching was talked about, I judged a certain sense of inferiority in the eyes of my elders. According to them, teaching as a career, did not match the social stature of my family and unfortunately these thoughts were not limited to my parents and immediate family only. Many other people I met during the evening walks, tea parties and random marketplaces, shared the same ideas. The more people I talked to with such views, the more rebellious I became, against the status quo and the more I desired of adapting teaching as my profession. As the very article that would earn me bread to eat, clothes to wear and my very own shelter, under which I would live and the very activity I would continue to do so, for the rest of my life, however, less did I know about the complexities involved in this profession and the Pandora’s box that it would open until I got used to it. The word, “Teaching” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary, as the imparting of knowledge or skill. Teaching, for me is a holy profession. Making someone learn something and helping them improve at a certain skill is synonymous to making a phoenix rise from the ashes, contrary to the popular belief, prevalent in the society, as a result of the existence of the conventional and traditional ideas that have been circling amongst generations, for centuries. As stated earlier, I had taken up a job as a World History teacher in a private school. The experience of me teaching was similar to my experience at the university. The extensive knowledge that I possessed and boasted around, about the League of Nations, the Second World War, and the Cold War, I realized, was not extensive at all and there was so much that I did not know and so much that I could have learnt. Moreover, I realized that the profession of teaching had certain pre requisites. These pre requisites were far more than having extensive knowledge, apart from which I qualified in nothing, which constituted as the sole reason, why I was not successful as a teacher, during the initial stages of my career. The problems, as a teacher that I faced and after a thorough research I found out that many other teachers go through the same problems, were faced, because I and my other colleagues were not qualified as teachers, but were qualified in our respective fields, though as stated earlier, it takes more than the knowledge to be a good teacher and to impart that very knowledge and skills in an efficient manner. Therefore, before starting a job as a teacher, there must be certain qualifications that the applicant must fulfill, moreover, the employer should take the responsibility of provision of training to its perspective employees, and before them joining the service as well as during the period they are serving for their organization. These teacher trainings must have a vast array of subjects, involved, ranging from communication and interpersonal skills to disciplining their respective class of students. These trainings should continue during the service as well and the schools should work at improving the standards, qualitatively. As a result of not receiving any formal teacher training I experienced many incidents that a teacher would never imagine of. “Young students often show an ignoring and neglecting behavior as they do not know the importance of education. Such uninterested and unmotivated students cause frustration in teachers and are a real challenge. Teachers can overcome this problem by understanding what their students are interested in” (Adam the Teacher). Some students also had the tendencies to show blatant disrespect towards their teachers, especially because of the over exposure of electronic media and the changing trends, the teens had the most of this unfortunate tendency. Furthermore, it was also noted that many of my colleague “teachers also complained about lack of parental cooperation and guidance with them. A student can become successful only when parents support his teachers. But in fact, parents started attacking teacher when they hear complain from their kid against teacher. Parents like to defend their child without knowing their child’s behavior and problems” (Adam the Teacher).There were also students who became a nuisance for the class because of their sleep deprivation, lethargy and excessive usage of gadgets such as cell phones, Palm tops and iPods, despite them being banned in classes. This made it difficult for them to concentrate. Contacting their parents too was not a favourable thing to do, for the earlier stated reasons. Proper and effective training of teachers can be classified as one of the major problems concerning the education sector and the job that I was prescribed to. It was, however very pleasing to note that this problem was solvable, if the solutions were carried out and implemented in an efficient manner. Some of the remedies, to improve the problems linked with the untrained teachers, are as in the following, specific to the aforementioned problem of teacher training. The problem of the deteriorating educational standards and the in classroom environment can be very right blamed on the sheer lack of awareness and veracity. It has been claimed and proven by surveys that the untrained teachers are not able to handle their tasks effectively, “The Training of Trainers (TOT) should be a continuous part of the teacher training institutions. Furthermore, efforts should be made to decrease the supervision load of trainers so that student teachers can receive individualized evaluation and feedback on their performance. Standard formats for lesson planning should be analyzed, discussed and, once agreed upon, implemented. This will promote coordinated effort between the university and school supervisors. The result will be clearer expectations for trainee-teachers (student teachers) – and more consistent evaluation measures. Additional training for trainee-teachers should be provided in the areas of student evaluation and assessment methods to assist them in effectively determining the educational needs of each student. Furthermore, trainee-teacher should have opportunities to take the results of assessments and utilize them to design and deliver lessons that meet specific student needs so that optimum learning can occur. After observation, student teachers should conduct micro-teaching lessons (with lesson cycle components) in front of experienced teachers and peers to improve their classroom instructional skills prior to entering the classroom. Provision and proper use of teaching aids should be taught in teacher training institutes. Additional training for student teachers should provide insight and instruction on how to use cooperative learning and professional learning communities in order to better engage students in the learning process” (Sarwar and Hussain) Another very persisting issue, as to why the teachers are looked down and considered inferior by most other high earning professions is because of the minute amount of salaries they get, despite the hard work they put in. A teacher steps into the shoes of a parent, till the time the child is in the school and undertakes the responsibility of the personal and academic development of the children. The main argument, brought forth by most colleagues of mine was that their salary should be enough to match their efforts and support their households. The low salaries are the reason why most teachers don’t tend to take their job seriously, which further leads to the deteriorating quality of education and teachers in the country. “Education research convincingly shows that teacher quality is the most important schooling factor influencing student achievement. A very good teacher as opposed to a very bad one can make as much as a full year’s difference in learning growth for students. Furthermore, the effect of increases in teacher quality swamps the impact of any other educational investment such as reductions in class size. Such findings suggest that improving the quality of the teacher workforce presents educational policymakers with a terrific opportunity for dramatically improving the educational achievement of America’s students. But, how to define teacher quality? An often used but ill-defined term. In the context of this paper, teacher quality is the ability of teachers to contribute in measurable ways to student gains on standardized tests. This is admittedly a narrow conception of what teachers do, yet a focus on this measure of teacher quality is useful both because these tests generally do represent an important measure of genuine learning and because measured student performance on these tests is driving many educational policies today. Unfortunately for policymakers, increasing teacher quality is no simple task. Policies targeted at new entrants in the labor market are by definition incremental in that they only affect the flow of new teachers, which represents a small fraction of the total labor force. An even more troubling policy issue is that there does not appear to be any specific credential or characteristic that is a silver-bullet predictor of quality, making it especially difficult to craft policies to attract and retain the right teachers based on paper credentials alone. In fact, the latest research casts considerable doubt on the prospects of using state licensure policy to determine who is eligible to teach (a gatekeeper approach) to significantly improve the quality of the teacher workforce” (Goldhaber) Works Cited Adam the Teacher. Problems Faced By Teachers. 26 February 2012. 4 May 2012 . Goldhaber, Dan. "Teacher Pay Reforms." 2009. Government of Pakistan. "Youth Strategy: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities." Policy Brief. 2011. Sarwar, Muhammad and Shafqat Hussain. "Teacher Training In Pakistan: Problems and Solutions for Student Teaching Training Preparatory Programs." European Journal of Scientific Research, 2010. Read More