- Teachers have been urged to “package themselves” through dressing, manners and conduct to restore public respect for the profession.
Teachers need to package themselves in order to redeem the old glory of the profession, which is now fading fast in the eyes of the public.
In the old days, a teacher was easily known and respected without even introducing himself. The older generation of teachers commanded respect from the community because of how they carried themselves.
Look at their style of dressing. They dressed well: shirts always tucked in, trousers well ironed, shoes polished. Even when they were on their dairy farms in gumboots, you could still see a teacher in them. They maintained dignity. Today, some teachers have lost that. They dress carelessly, in torn jeans and untucked T-shirts, even in class. How will a pupil respect you if you dress like his deskmate?
The way of eating with manners also mattered. The old teachers ate with decorum. They did not eat greedily in public or talk loosely with food in their mouths. They had table manners that taught children without words, unlike some in the current generation who eat carelessly and talk loosely, even insulting others in front of learners.
Even the walking style itself should differentiate a teacher from a common person. A teacher should walk with confidence, purpose and humility, not stagger or loiter aimlessly at market centres. Who said that teachers should hang around cheap dens that sell unlicensed liquor and get into confrontations with school dropouts, some of them former students who now see an opportunity to settle old grudges in such settings? How will a pupil respect a teacher he last saw staggering in a drinking den, exchanging insults with a boda boda rider he once taught in Class Five and who now sees him as a drinking mate? That is not a teacher. That is a disgrace to the chalk.
Selling dignity “in cash,” not “on credit”
If people in trades like the hotel industry package and sell themselves first before selling the product, why not teachers, who are custodians of knowledge? Why are they not selling themselves expensively? Instead, many have resorted to bending low as sycophants of politicians who are even less educated than themselves, hanging around politicians’ homes begging for small favours and tarnishing the noble profession in the process.
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If teachers learn not to sell their social dignity “on credit” and instead resort to selling it “in cash,” then there is hope to redeem the noble profession at any level. Do not give people your dignity on credit, where they abuse you, gossip about you, and repay you with disrespect later. Sell it in cash: demand respect instantly through your dressing, your conduct, your language and your principles. Let people know that being a teacher has a price.
A model worth emulating
It is time for teachers to revise their social conduct, drawing inspiration from figures such as Hon. and Commissioner Wilson Sossion, if they hope to regain public respect. Sossion carries himself with dignity: firm and well-dressed, articulate, fearless and proud of being a teacher. He does not beg for respect; he commands it.
By Enock Okong’o
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