What does it mean to be a teacher in an entrepreneurial society? How can teachers prepare themselves to constantly be relevant? Two teachers share their thoughts and tips.
Teacher Adrian Goh Says: Questions, Not Answers
Who is an entrepreneurial leader? I read from somewhere that it is a person who organises a group of people to achieve a common goal by optimising risk, innovating to take advantage of opportunities, taking personal responsibility and managing change in a dynamic environment. Actually, I consulted Google, which led me to our all-time favourite knowledge depository – Wikipedia. Don’t judge me. As much as we don’t want to admit it, we do look to Wikipedia for information! I’m merely taking the additional step to quote it. I’m sure some of us have consulted Wikipedia for information, but we present it as “I read from somewhere…” As I read the definition of “Entrepreneurial Leadership”, I was reminded of The Leadership Challenge®:
- “common goal”: Inspire a Shared Vision
- “optimising risk, innovating, managing change”: Challenge the Process
- “taking personal responsibility”: Model the Way
If I can redefine the entrepreneurial leader, he would be someone who exhibits the 5 Leadership Practices in The Leadership Challenge® model. Moving on to the more important question: Why do we need to build entrepreneurial leaders?
Recently, I watched a YouTube Video about 21st century education and it set me thinking: Am I adequately preparing my students for the future? Sometimes, as educators, we get so caught up with delivering our lessons and producing academic results that we fail to reflect and ask ourselves: How are my lessons going to prepare them for the future? How can we begin to teach our students skills for jobs that are not yet in existence. How can we teach them to solve problems that have not emerged? Isn’t that depressing? Doesn’t that make you feel inadequate? I certainly felt that way! Why did I feel that way?
Again, I reflected on this and realised that the problem lies in the nature of our job. We work in a somewhat closed environment, and our interactions are limited to students and other educators. Unless we expand our knowledge to include the world beyond school, the only thing we can adequately prepare our students for is teaching. And how many of our students eventually will choose teaching as a profession?
“We work in a somewhat closed environment, and our interactions are limited to students and other educators. Unless we expand our knowledge to include the world beyond school, the only thing we can adequately prepare our students for is teaching. And how many are teachers?” – Adrian Goh, teacher
I did a quick check: We have about 32,000 teachers (Source: Ministry of Education statistics 2013) and about 2.1 million resident labour force (Source: Ministry of Manpower workforce 2013). This means about 1.5% of our students will be teachers. What about the remaining 98.5%? How can we ever prepare them for an uncertain and complex future?
The answer lies in ourselves. As educators, we need to expand our knowledge of the world beyond the school. We need to have quality conversations with our friends in other sectors, learn about what they do, learn about other economies, learn about our beneficiaries as we bring our students for Values-In-Action, learn about our vendors as we engage their services. As we learn, we teach. When and how do we teach what we have learnt?
For starters: through short stories in our lessons. Our students are hungry for knowledge, knowledge of us, what we do, our experiences as teachers and our interactions with the world beyond the school. What else can we do beyond the sharing of experiences?
In developing my student leaders, I find it effective when I reply their questions with further questions and throw them a potential problem for every proposed solution they offer. In doing so, I teach them to respond to uncertainties and force them to make decisions because the answers no longer come from me. I stop giving them problems to address. Instead, I ask them to look around for problems. In doing so, I teach them to see the needs around them and meet them and I teach them to see the opportunities around them and seize them. The less we feed them, the more they will turn inwards and feed from their creative and inventive hearts, minds and souls.
“The less we feed them, the more they will turn inwards and feed from their creative and inventive hearts, minds and souls.” – Adrian Goh, teacher
This journey of education will never be easy. We are in the midst of a transition. Last year, I met a parent who asked if I could give more homework to keep his children occupied during the year-end holidays. A couple of weeks after that, I went on a trip to Spain and had a conversation with one of the tour group members who questioned why schools give so much homework. We can never please everyone and I think we shouldn’t! At the end of the day, if our students have acquired the skills necessary to navigate this increasingly connected and dynamic world, then we can say that, as educators, we’ve done our job well.
Teacher Nicole Quek Says: We are not in the education business, but the people business
Halogen360 (H360): What kind of leaders do you hope your students will become?
Nicole Quek (NQ): At St. Anthony’s Canossian Secondary School (SACSS), we inspire our students to become servant leaders. Not only do we encourage them to be problem solvers, we also encourage them to serve with a heart. Our theme for Investiture this year is “Life built on Love through Servant Leadership”. We hope they will be Servant Leaders who know how to give back