Change mindsets on how teaching profession is viewed

The results of the 2022 Programme of International Student Assessment (Pisa) released in December 2023 have again given us another bout of indigestion.

I wrote in 2020 on the need for more quality teachers and the fewer would-be teachers interested in pursuing a teaching career. Globalization and computerization adversely affected the traditional supply of teachers. Globalization opened up jobs for domestics abroad, while computerization and business process outsourcing provided teachers with a niche in communication, marketing, and public relations. Teachers left the classrooms in droves to take advantage of these positions that paid more but were unavailable.

Filipinos see teaching as something other than a prestigious profession. The specter of Filipino teachers heading to Singapore and Hong Kong as caregivers is adding to its professional marginalization. The demoralization of this profession has yet to contribute to a highly motivated teaching force in this country.

If a master’s degree becomes the norm in a teacher’s certification (as in Finland), matched by salaries in a managerial category, the profession will attract quality people. When the public puts more value and prestige into teaching, parents will see it as a viable career path for their children. Eventually, society will notice; a different mindset will emerge, and the profession will rise to a respectful level. Its clientele, the students, will only benefit from these transformations.

However, it will take a divergent mindset to change the long-established way the public views the teaching profession. We reserve titles for doctors, lawyers, engineers, and even church ministers but not for teachers. It’s instructive to know that the Japanese word “sensei” does not simply mean a teacher but also a term of endearment. They apply it to doctors, lawyers, politicians, and others. It’s a cultural reflection and a societal view of the distinction accorded to a teacher.

The Filipino psyche has been a victim of centuries of colonization. Armed with the Vatican’s “Doctrine of Discovery,” Spain pushed aside local traditions, subjugated the people, and replaced indigenous religion. The impregnation of foreign culture gave us an oligarch-run economy, an inbred dynastical political elite, a permanent underclass, and a populace deep into a subservient culture. Worse of all, they gave us a religion whose motherland is permanently at war, a bloody intolerant history, and a leadership bent on making us live like people of the fourth century. Our subconscious is weighed down with baggage not conducive to success in education, economy, and governance.

It hurts to think that the top five in the most recent Pisa are all Asian, just as the 2018 results were. The Filipino DNA has evolved independently from our Asian brothers. A Filipino “Confucian ethic” is an oxymoron of the highest degree.

Edwin de Leon, edwingdleon@gmail.com