Diary: You are not the king anymore!

When our city's most famous physics teacher died, our city experienced one of the biggest unplanned funerals. Thousands of people rushed into the roads and exhibited a state of pure sadness. I can vividly remember on the very first morning after his death when I was anxiously looking for a place to have some of his photos color-copied – based on a promise I made to his son- the man who finally agreed to do this on that Friday morning – and of course was not happy at all to do that on a weekend- looked at the photos and suddenly recognized him. He copied all the photos for free. Why was he so popular? Where did that charisma come from? Now I can certainly say that he was a perfect conveyor of knowledge. He was an expert in transferring knowledge to students. He was a charismatic teacher.

As I stated in my own previous Diary entry, there has been a trend in the history of teaching/learning toward deemphasizing grouping and labeling learners under certain titles and highlighting individual differences and uniqueness. But it seems that in case of teachers this trend is vice versa.

It has been believed for years that an ideal teacher is who can transfer knowledge very well. Teachers have been looked at as unlimited reservoirs of knowledge that can water the dry lands of learners' minds. Learners in this view have been considered as passive recipients of knowledge and teachers as the leading actors of the show. In such a view teachers – if hardworking enough- may gain charismatic characters. This charisma can solely happen in a context within which the teacher is the dominant authority.

But what has been changed?

It would be quite evident that when such a dramatic change has happened to the view toward the position of learners in the learning/teaching process, automatically the view toward teachers has also been changed. I would like to call this shift seesaw transition – as a little fun let me add Sadeh (2009) to it. By seesaw transition I mean the higher the position of learner the lower the position of teacher. I, hereby, would like to clarify that by lower and higher I do not necessarily mean that the roles of either side are weaker or dimmed. What I am trying to convey is that when teacher has the dominant role of teaching/learning process the students inevitably become passive participants of information. But on the other hand when the emphasis is put on learners it does not mean that the role of teacher has been dimmed. The best thing to do to support my view is to take a look at Constructivist model of teaching.

According to Constructivism, knowledge is essentially constructed by individuals rather that transmitted from one person to another, but it occurs within specific contexts and social interactions. So what is the role of teacher? According to the mediation theory, modern teachers are not only reservoirs of knowledge but also facilitators of learning. As the founder of Mediation theory, Feuerstein believes that right from birth, a child's learning is shaped by the intervention of significant adults. His theory is different from teacher as disseminator of information. According to him, mediation must be concerned with empowering learners, not just transferring information and also establishing interaction between mediator and learner and seeing the learners as active participants. But what happens to all approaches and methods devised during the history? According to Louden, teachers should establish their own horizons i.e. their individual practice. Two major contributing factors to horizon are traditions by which Louden means shared ways of teaching which may be all the approaches and methods we, to some extent, are all aware of and personal experiences. I believe his view leaves teachers with two distinct options: eclecticism and adherenig to post method era. By eclecticism it is meant that based on the experiences of individual teachers a collection of methods available has been formed which according to Dr Hassaskhah it itself may lead to a new method. By post-method era it is meant that there some maxims set for teachers to adhere to.

Once again to state the major change in teaching trend, I should emphasize that education becomes concerned with helping people to make their own meanings through mediating role of teachers. As it can be seen the role of teacher is being dissolved in the teaching/learning context. I believe within this trend it is no longer possible for teachers to become charismatic figures as they are being much more dissolved in the process of mediation. To prevent a big misunderstanding to happen, I should state that though it may seem that the role of teacher is being dimmed but in fact not only the teacher is not less concerned but also he has gained tougher responsibilities. In the modern approach, while keeping their primary role as reservoirs of knowledge, teachers should be psychologically informed and should be quite powerful needs analysts. They are obliged to identify uniqueness of each individual learner and help them find their own personal ways of constructing meaning. They should be responsible society members who care about humanity and appreciate the existence of all society members as distinguishing individuals who have their own rights to behave uniquely. They should be critical thinkers and reflective practitioners and should be constantly revising their approaches toward teaching and learning process. History of TEFL is experiencing a state of seesaw transition; once the left seat is above once the right seat. If we take the traditional approaches as thesis and modern approaches as anti-thesis there inevitably will be a synthesis; a seesaw equilibrium. Something that Widdowson calls it learning-centeredness.

But are we culturally ready to be such teachers?