Teaching is the most diverse and challenging professions in today’s world. Teachers are the one, who moulds children into a refined human through their efforts and expertise. They play a pivotal role in this challenging world. The better future of the next generation is based on the knowledge, skills, and devotion of teachers. For me, it’s a profession of challenge, submission and wisdom sharing.

Society is constantly changing, and so the demand society places on teachers change. This profession requires lots of potential to embark upon day to day challenges. Surviving as a teacher is almost impossible for those, who are not enthusiastic to accept the changes taking place in teaching methodologies.

If we look towards the current education scenario in Pakistan, we will be able to evaluate, that it’s the most challenging profession to adopt. I believe that challenges provide lots of learning opportunities to those contenders, who adopt this competitive profession with professional attitude.

Out of many challenges facing by teachers in the current setting, curriculum and classroom interaction issues are the most significant one. Here I’ll share my personal perspectives and real challenging experiences, which I faced during my religious and secular teachings. At the end, I’ll briefly propose some strategies for the improvement of teaching and learning.

To nurture the child in all dimensions, curriculum plays a significant role. In my view, curriculum is a plan, design to cater the needs of learning. The best curriculum is the one, which can develop intellectual openness in pupils. But it’s an unfortunate situation in Pakistan, that our national curriculum did not have a functional, occupational, and cultural impact on students. Our curriculum is fragmented, because the learning experiences are organized in a way, which prevents learning itself. Every successive policy lays down a long list of objective, many of which are contradictory to each other.

The teachers in Pakistan are the victim of exclusive school and government policies. If a teacher initiates to bring changes in curriculum, or plan an action research, they are either being fired from job, or force to fasten their valuable opinions. The curriculum is not being designed according to the psychology of the students; but the teachers are being forced to teach, what is being given in the textbooks.

During my 8 years of teaching, I’ve evaluated that our curriculum is not meant to develop effectual skills and ideas in students. It’s only promoting the culture of rote-learning rather than promoting logical thinking. The challenge for a teacher is to discourage rote learning and to appreciate intellectual learning. Our policy makers claim, that the national curriculum is designed in such a way, that it can build ethics, and social skills in students. But I disagree!

Henry Pillay writes,

“The curriculum of the secondary school in Pakistan is organized around the bases of knowledge, the needs of society, and human learning and development.”

I appreciate the comment; but as far as my experience is concerned, I believe that I haven’t seen much encouragement of human learning and reasoning. Our system do not produce any effort to develop character building in students nor it provide opportunities to grow intellectually. The society is progressing, but the real essence of positive learning is missing.

One genuine challenge a teacher confront is to complete weighty curriculum within a set time-frame. It’s the widespread motto of administrators that a teacher should achieve the target of objectives on time, and teaches every thing same as prescribed in the curriculum book by hook or by crook; else the students might loose marks in board examination. When a teacher takes up challenge to teach more than what is being given in the curriculum, they are being discouraged to do so. It’s the common practice in Pakistan to judge parrot learning rather than students’ unique expression of ideas. When I started teaching Pakistan studies, I saw that the books were not revised since years. It was not meant to develop critical and rational development. I took up challenge and made notes. Not only the textbook knowledge was added, but the inclusion of new knowledge was also incorporated. In this way, my learning centre students didn’t loose marks in national board examination, and the strategy to provide current knowledge was also achieved. I guess that a challenging teacher should plan lessons in advance to teach effectively in limited time frame.

Another challenge for a teacher is to transfer knowledge after filtration. Some curriculum books contain unauthentic data. The stake holders aren’t enthusiastic to accept others suggestions while designing curriculum. Teachers also face challenge to cater learning disable in a main stream because no curriculum is being initiated which can cater their needs. There is no central curriculum in Pakistan. Teachers understand the need of central curriculum due to which they often raise their voice. But our policy makers dictate the nation, and no one is allowed to hinder. I was fortunate to write workbook of biology book, but was strictly guided not to add extra knowledge and activities. But I filtered the knowledge and wrote to the best of my capabilities. I also wrote few articles in newspapers regarding the monotonous textbooks, which cannot retain the interest of a child or capture their imagination.

Rudina Xhaferri and Khalid Iqbal comment our curriculum as,

“The curricula of both basic-level education and colleges are outdated and offer a very limited knowledge base. Especially in colleges, the subject matter of most disciplines continues to be outdated and irrelevant, allowing no room for changes in the context of education inclusive the content or improvement if inefficient teaching methods.”

I agree with their analysis. The knowledge based curriculum is missing. Our policy makers do not realize the mental level of the students, due to which they design too heavy curriculum. Teachers want to encourage learning based knowledge, which can discover pupils’ creativity. But if the teacher accepts challenge to get involve in planning, their views are not encouraged. To cater few of these needs, we developed few lesson plans and activities for students while teaching at Karachi Kid University. Its main purpose was to promote mental development and interactive session. Individual and group activities, critical dialogue sessions were designed. We also developed evaluation techniques. To face the challenges more effectively, we later joined teaching associations at the Aga Khan University, and learnt skills to cater social, intellectual and emotional growth.

I suggest that the curriculum planners must be in tune with the changing world. There should be a balance between intellectual proficiency and intelligent social perspectives. Teachers’ views should be encouraged before making any modification, so that the teacher can be ever ready to face the challenges.

Teaching religious curriculum is also confronting for teachers. During my religious teaching for seven years, we faced few challenges.

When I was teaching primary, teachers planned to show students slides to create the scenario of deserted place. I took torn plastic bag, and students worn it with the help of band, to visualize Arabic people dress code. Earthenware bowl with water was placed at the corner of the veranda. I took students out and made them feel as if they were on a journey to Arab. After 15 minute of walk, students felt thirsty. I told them that we have to find oasis, as we’re in a deserted area. They searched bowl and shared water. In this way, I successfully achieved my objective.

The primary curriculum is according to the requirement of pupils’ intellectual nourishment; but continuous teachers’ training should be organized effectively, so that they could resolve some sensitive religious queries, which are in their minds. Let’s take an example of the story of Prophet Abraham, available in Talim curriculum. Most of the teachers disagreed to act the words of Abraham, as it was unethical for them. In the same manner, I’ve seen few teachers not in favor of teaching some topics due to conflicts in their mind. Example: whether to tell students of class 1 about different religions at young age or not, etc.

The Secondary curriculum will be made available soon. But for a time being, the most challenging task is to allocate limited resources creatively. There’s a shortage of resources at this time. The lessons plans are not fully integrated with the essence of religious formation. There is no activity book for secondary students’. A creative teacher would say that I can utilize my minimum resources effectively. The challenge can be accepted by a teacher by acquiring continuous education through vigorous research to impart lesson perfectly.

The boundary of challenges is not restricted within the area of curriculum; there are many more challenges facing by the teachers during their day to day classroom interaction.

The main challenge is to interact with students effectively. Effectual Interaction can only takes place, when a teacher will encourage two way communications. But it’s the culture in Pakistan, that most of the teachers avoid interactive sessions. Few of the students often feel shy to interact in class. This is a real challenge for a teacher to motivate reserved students by encouraging them to participate in classroom. I had a reserved student back in 2003 in religious class. I appreciated him and gave some classroom responsibilities and made him realized that he had a great potential. Now he’s in secondary, and I’m proud that he participates actively in classroom discussion.

The challenges to accept criticism and to answer student’s queries are not being initiated by most of the teachers.
Muhammad Ali Khan writes,

“The classroom environment is largely an expression of one’s enthusiasm for teaching and learning. However, it is also considered by many that by encouraging student one invites problems for himself/herself. As when students get empowered they can ask all sort of questions and the inability to answers on the part of the instructor will belittle the image of the teacher.”

The views presented are acceptable, because critical discussions and questioning are mostly discouraged in most of the traditional schools. A challenging teacher must accept student’s criticism and take it as a path of learning. I always encourage criticism. If I find my mistake or lack of command, I always accept it.

Another challenge is regarding the management of class. Savage, 1991 define Classroom Management as,

“Classroom management involves teaching students, how to manage their own behavior in classroom settings by establishing learning situations that will allow them to do this.”(Savage, 1991)

I agree, because that it’s a teacher, who creates learning situation in class room. S/he not only manages classroom settings, but also time, space, resources, student behavior, etc.

Teaching large gathering is another challenge. Teachers usually can’t give proper attention and can’t understand every students need in a large gathering. Most of the teachers in our Govt. schools face challenge to handle more than 40-50 students per class, which is not possible to manage alone. Co-operative teachers are mostly not hired in govt. schools. Few of the government schools do not have chairs or proper room to accommodate pupils’. So it’s again a challenge to manage sitting arrangement in a manner, that a teacher can interact large gatherings properly.

Time management is another issue of classroom interaction. The lesson plan with proper time management helped teachers to cover the objectives, while developing skills. Most of the times, teachers fail to teach and share knowledge effectively due to time constrain. Teachers usually avoid pre-planning. When I did my field practicum, I saw a week planner completed by a teacher in a day. They used to cover most of the left topics in a short span of time without taking feedback from the students. For a couple of days, we planned some lesson plans, keeping in view the requirement of learning within a given time frame.

A teacher should also understand needs of child in a classroom. You may find a learning disable child in your class. Teachers often neglect student’s needs. On the very first day of my teaching in the religious centre, one of the students was hyper and was observing me continuously. At the end of the session, he told me (Aye Sir Tu Kutta Hai!) Sir you are a dog! I severely scolded him and called his parents. Later I came to know that the child was a learning disabled and had behavior excessive problem. On that day, I learnt one thing that a teacher should interact with each and every child positively and should understand their needs. My Master trainer in special education helped me a lot. I gave him extra time. A year later he told me, (Sir Sir Tu acha hai) sir you are good. That sentence raised my spirit and made me realized that a teacher should also interact with the challenged students to foster them. In Pakistan, teachers avoid to cater such students in a main stream school, which is wrong. I’ve seen many disable in our community, studying because of their teachers initiatives to take up challenge.

Another class room challenge is to deal with diversify culture students. In Pakistan, minorities are always being discouraged to participate in class. Students avoid interacting with them. Most of the students shows wrong attitude towards minorities. This challenged was also faced by me when Afghan student joined my class. Students avoided him. I used one strategy to solve the problem. All the students later accepted him whole-heartedly. (Refer http://happybookmark.com/2007/11/12/PLURALISM/).

Favoritism causes a barrier between the interaction of teacher and a student. Few teachers interact more with their favorite students, which can hurt other student’s ego. I always try to be naturalistic and appreciate everyone equally. I thought beyond the boundary of classroom to know my students more. I always tried to treat every child as special. A teacher should provide each student opportunities rather then playing a mantra of favoritism.

Technology up-to-date is the prior responsibility of a teacher, as it not only makes teaching effective, but it is the better approach to accomplish objectives of learning. In Pakistan, most of the teachers are not being given computer education, so based their whole teaching on the traditional blackboard. If the teachers will be technologically capable, they would provide quality knowledge to the students.

A teacher should take regular feedback from the students about his/her teaching style. S/he should be natural. S/he should set time table and pre-plan lessons in advance. S/he should read more literature to keep intact with the latest methodologies. Give students’ time to talk and to share their ideas. Appreciate them! A teacher should share his/her ideas with the colleagues and should work cooperatively with colleagues.

Teacher should readily accept their mistakes and always accept criticism. S/he should maintain reflective journal to analyze weakness and strength. For learning, I believe that it’s a long life process which never ends. S/he should take continuous trainings and should try to develop Interpersonal Skills. Good communication skills, discipline and role modeling can make us a good trainer. The base must be a personal desire to improve oneself.

If a teacher has faith in himself/herself, then s/he could over come all the obstacles and could take challenges as a medium of learning.