Danilevsky’s view that the transference of civilizations from one country to another is impossible has received a general welcome from sociologists. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi expressed another excellent view that since Islam is the last religion which encompasses all the truths contained by the previous Divinely revealed religions, one who gives up Islam is like the butter spoilt, while one who gives up either of the other religions is like the milk spoilt, as those religions were already corrupted. As is known, the butter spoilt cannot be eaten, where as the milk spoilt can be. The youth of Muslim countries are victims of both the useless efforts to import Western civilization into their countries and the rejection of Islam on a large scale, while the youth of the West suffer from the corruption and denunciation of Christianity and from suffocating materialism.

Some of our intellectuals have preferred to weep in the face of the pitiful condition of the young. Pained to witness the collapse of a once glorious state, some sighed; 

I have become like the owl which laments over ruins,

When I have seen this once paradise-like land in it’s autumn.

If I lived in the time of roses I’d become the nightingale to celebrate it;

O Lord! I wish you had sent me to the world earlier!

However, lamenting without doing anything practical will be of no use. In order to solve the problems of the young, what must be done first is to diagnose those problems well. What is the origin of those problems? Are the young responsible for them? Why are those problems so grave today, graver than in any other period of history? Did the young come to the world as they are, or were they not, rather, brought up and educated in our homes and schools? Are the problems which we see as originating from the young really their problems or are we ourselves responsible for them?

Man comes to the world like a raw metal to be wrought, without knowing anything about life. When an animal comes to the world, it comes equipped with all it will need during its life. Some of them learn and are adapted to the conditions of life in a few minutes or hours. A sparrow or a bee acquires in so short a time as twenty days all the faculties it needs to be fully active and mature; a human by contrast needs about twenty years. This means that the main life tasks of an animal and a human are quite different. Man’s basic duty in life is to find the true way in thinking and believing and, by using his outer and inner faculties like the five external senses and the intellect, the heart and feelings, to attain physical, intellectual, spiritual and moral perfection. Unless this can be done, it is inevitable that we must face many problems in life. We should not forget that all problems originate in man and end in him.

In order to diagnose the problems of the young, we must discover the character of man and know it very well. As long as man remains unknown, the problems concerning him will remain unsolved. To know man requires being able to answer the vital questions every individual asks himself: ‘Who am I? Where do I come from? Who has sent me to this world and why? What is the purpose for my life? What does death ask of me? What is my final destination in life? Unless man can find convincing answers to such questions, answers which will make him at peace man can neither find true happiness nor will it be possible to solve his problems.

The first school where man receives the necessary education in order to be perfected and find the answers to the questions above is the home. Both for the raising of a healthy generation and the continuation of a healthy social system or structure, the home is of vital importance. However important a good school is for the education of man, the responsibility of home cannot be restricted to the period before school, rather, it continues throughout a whole life. A man receives the first impressions in his family. Those impressions cannot be easily deleted in later phases of life, rather, they are of a kind to show their effect throughout life. Further, the control of the family over the child exerted in the garden, among other children and toys, is to be continued at school among friends, among books and in the places he visits. The function of the parents in bringing up their children is like the duty of a shepherd to his flock: as a shepherd may be regarded as having done his duty so long as he finds good pastures for his flock, prevents them from grazing in fields belonging to others and protects them against dangers, so also the parents must keep their children within lawful courses, shape them in good manners and virtues prepare them for the future phases of their lives and educate them to be useful members of the society: and enable them to seek eternal happiness in the eternal world.

For a man to receive a good education at home, a healthy family life should be established and preserved. For this reason, marriage should not be seen as something to enter into for mere pleasure. One should marry to form a healthy family life and thereby contribute to the permanence of one’s nation in particular and the human population in general, and to restrain one’s carnal desires. Since the first condition of peace, happiness and security at home is mutual accord between the spouses, the accord in thinking, morals and belief, the couples who have decided to marry should know each other very well and consider, rather than wealth and physical charm, the purity of feelings, chastity, morality, and being virtuous. The condition of the children who grow up in a house where the parents repel each other like the particles charged with the same sort of electricity, is truly heart-rending. Discord between the parents causes the children to grow up unable to get on well with others.

There are many families founded on sound logic and reasoning in reliance upon God. They function like a good school during a whole life and secure the future of their nation by means of the ‘students’ they educate. For this reason, the nations which have succeeded in making homes into schools and schools into homes have guaranteed the peace and happiness of future generations. A building deserves to be called a ‘home’ only if its inhabitants have the necessary human values. 

Man comes to the world like a raw metal to be wrought, without knowing anything about life. When an animal comes to the world, it comes equipped with all it will need during its life. Some of them learn and are adapted to the conditions of life in a few minutes or hours. A sparrow or a bee acquires in so short a time as twenty days all the faculties it needs to be fully active and mature; a human by contrast needs about twenty years. This means that the main life tasks of an animal and a human are quite different. Man’s basic duty in life is to find the true way in thinking and believing and, by using his outer and inner faculties like the five external senses and the intellect, the heart and feelings, to attain physical, intellectual, spiritual and moral perfection.In the family, the elders should behave toward those younger than them with compassion and the younger ones should show respect for their elders. Especially the parents should love and respect each other and treat their children with compassion and due consideration of their feelings. Without compassion, which envelops the universe warmly and resonates in man as a melody of creation, it is impossible to raise the children to true humanity. The parents should also treat their children justly and should not discriminate between them. They should not bring up their children jealous of one another. They should never shake their children’s trust and confidence in them.

The parents should not neglect to give their children good, meaningful names, say greetings to them when they come in and go out of the house, assign to their children certain things like particular rooms, beds and so on, follow their games and work with sincerity, frequently ask about their health and problems, share their joys and sorrows, and sometimes embrace and kiss them. Although they should make their children feel that they are aware of the wrong they do and sometimes punish them lightly, the children should also feel that the breeze of forgiveness and tolerance blows in their home.

School

After home, the school is so vital a part of the making of human beings that it may be considered as a laboratory in which an elixir is offered which can prevent or heal the ills of life, and teachers are the masters by whose skills and wisdom the elixir is prepared and administered.

The school is a place of learning where everything related to this life and the next can be learnt. It can shed light on vital ideas and events and enable its students to understand their natural and human environment. It can also quickly open the way to unveiling the meaning of things and events, which leads man to wholeness of thought and contemplation. In essence the school is a kind of place of worship whose ‘holy men’ are teachers.

Good schools worthy of the name are pavilions of angels, which develop feelings of virtue in their pupils and lead them to achieve nobility of mind and spirit. As to the others, however soundly built they may appear they are in fact ruins – they instil false ideas into their pupils turning out monsters. Such schools are nests of snakes, and we should be consumed with shame that they are called places of learning.

As it is in the school that life, flowing outside in so many different directions, acquires a stable character and identity so too it is in the school that a child is cast in his or her true mould and attains to the mysteries of personality. Just as a wide, full river gains force as it flows in a narrow channel, so too, the flowing of life in undirected ways is channelled into unity by means of the school. In like manner, a fruit is a manifestation of unity growing out of the fruit-tree’s diversity.

School is thought to be relevant only in a particular phase of life. However, it is much more than that. It is essentially the ‘theatre’ in which all the scattered things of the universe are displayed together. It provides its pupils with the possibilities of continuous reading and speaks even when it is silent. Because of that, although it seems to occupy one phase of life, actually the school dominates all times and events. Every pupil re-enacts during the rest of life what he or she has learnt at school and derives continuous influence therefrom. What is learned or acquired at school may either be imagination and aspirations, or specific skills and realities. But what is of importance here is that everything acquired must, in some mysterious way be the key to closed doors, and a guidance to the ways to virtue.

Information rightly acquired at school and fully internalized by the self, is a means by which the individual rises beyond the clouds of this gross world of matter and reaches to the borders of eternity. Information not fully internalized by the self is no more than a burden loaded upon the pupil’s back. It is a burden of responsibility on its owner, and a devil which confuses the mind. That kind of information which has been memorized but not fully digested does not provide light to the mind and elevation to the spirit, but remains simply a nuisance to the self.

The best sort of knowledge to be acquired in the school must be such that it enables pupils to connect happenings in the outer world to their inner experience. The teacher must be a guide who can give insight into what is experienced. No doubt the best guide (and one that continually repeats its lessons) is life itself. Nevertheless, those who do not know how to take a lesson directly from life need some intermediaries. These intermediaries are the teachers- it is they who provide the link between life and the self, and interpret the manifestations of life’s happenings.

The mass media can communicate information to human beings, but they can never teach real life. Teachers are irreplaceable in this respect. It is the teachers alone who find a way to the heart of the pupil and leave indelible imprints upon his or her mind. Teachers who reflect deeply upon, and impart the truths will be able to provide good examples for their pupils and teach them the aims of the sciences. They will test the information they are going to pass on to their pupils through the refinement of their own minds, not by such Western methods as are today thought to provide facile answers to everything.

The students of the Prophet Jesus, upon him be peace, learnt from him how to risk their lives for the sake of their cause and were able to endure being thrown into the mouths of lions: they knew that their master had persisted with his teachings even in the face of death threats. Those who put their hopes on, and gave their hearts to, the Prophet Muhammad, the greatest exemplar of humanity, upon him be peace and blessings, realized that suffering for the sake of truth resulted in peace and salvation. His students observed their master wish peace and felicity for his enemies even when he had been severely injured by them.

A good lesson is what is taught at the school by the real teacher. This lesson not only provides the pupil with something, but it also elevates him or her into the presence of the unknown. The pupil thus acquires a penetrating vision into the reality of things and sees each event as a sign of the unseen worlds.

At such a school one is tired of neither learning nor teaching, because the pupils, through the increasing zeal of their teacher, sometimes rise to the stars. Sometimes their consciousness overflows the boundaries of ordinary life, brimming with wonder at what they have thought or felt or experienced.

The real teacher seizes the landmarks of events and happenings and tries to identify the truth in everything, expounding it by using every possibility.

Rousseau’s teacher was conscience; Kant’s was conscience together with reason… In the school of the Mawlana and Yunus, the teacher was the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. The Qur’an is the recitation, its words are Divine lessons – they are not ordinary words but mysterious ones surpassing all others, and they manifest the highest unity in multiplicity.

The good school is the holy place where the light of the Qur’an will be focused, and the teacher is the magic master of this mysterious laboratory. The only true master is one who will save us from centuries-old pains, and, by the strength of his wisdom, remove the darkness covering our horizon.

Working patterns have changed drastically over the last decade with few reaping the benefits of advances in technology. Occupational stress has become a fact of life in most professions. Recently, a British court classified stress as an industrial injury in the ease of a social worker, strengthening the view that the pressure on the ‘caring professions may be greater than on others. Several research studies carried out in a number of countries suggest that stress and ‘burnout’ among teachers is a common problem.

The Meaning of Stress

For many people work proves to be a source of stress. Work stress is usually short-lived and overcome successfully. However, for some, it represents a continual threat and can lead to serious damage to health. The term ‘stress’ originates from physics in which it is used to describe ‘any force, strain, or pressure to a system.’

In the case of teacher stress, it is used to describe ‘a demand made upon the adaptive capacities of the mind and body… which if continued beyond the ability of these capacities to respond, leads to the physical and psychological exhaustion and possibly the ultimate collapse referred to by Seyle’ (Fontana, 1989).

Seyle (1956) laid down the foundation for later research in this area. He described stress as ‘the non-specific response of the body to any demand’. This diversion from the conventional meaning-became popular among physiologists.

Teacher Stress

If you are a teacher, ask yourself the following questions: Do you feel ‘used up’ at the end of the working day? Do you feel emotionally drained? Do you often feel overworked and underpaid? Do you feel alienated from the school in which you teach, from your colleagues, or from the administration? Are you having trouble dealing with paperwork? Do you often feel burnt out, irritable, or depressed at the end of a school day? Do you often miss school because of minor illness? If your answer to one or more of these question is ‘yes’, you are a teacher under stress and a candidate for ‘burnout’. If you are, unfortunately, you are not alone.

Education in most parts of the world has undergone rapid changes in the last two decades. The relationship between teachers and pupils is more informal and pupils are much more reluctant to accept a teacher’s authority. Parents and pupils are increasingly aware of their ‘rights’ within the education system. All these changes were designed to benefit the ‘clients’, and have resulted in an even greater burden on staff to justify what and how they teach. Whilst welcoming the situation where teachers are no longer on pedestals but are more approachable, we must recognize that it is now more difficult to motivate pupils when the ‘because I say so’ line has been removed from the teacher’s vocabulary. The status of the teacher in society has declined considerably. At one time, teachers were held in high esteem by society, on a par with doctors, solicitors, etc.

The effect of teacher stress is not restricted to the classroom. It is obvious that a teacher under stress does not produce good results, but the problem does not end there. Faber’s aptly titled book, Crisis in Education: Stress and Burnout in the American Teacher (1991), concludes that ‘teacher stress and burnout have affected and will continue to affect the lives of teachers and their families’ The work of Friedman (1992) and Borg et al (1991) show that the changes in education and resultant increase in stress is not restricted to western Europe and America.

The causes of teacher stress

Borg, Riding and Falzon (1991), through answers to questionnaires provided by 545 Maltese teachers, identified four main causes of stress. They were:

• pupil misbehaviour
• poor working conditions
• poor staff relations
• and time pressures.

Each of these categories could be broken down further. For example, the most common cause of stress was ‘pupil misbehavior’ and the most common aspect of ‘pupil mishehaviour’ was ‘pupil’s lack of motivation’ followed by the sheer numbers in the class, etc. Their work suggested that almost all teachers suffered from a degree of stress.

Levels of stress

Educational research identifies four levels of stress.

Low: where the stress presents no major problems

Moderate: where the level is bearable but the individual should examine ways of reducing it

Serious: where there is a risk of a psychological breakdown

Very serious: where the individual is nearing a state of total collapse described by Selye (1976). Fontana and Abouserie at the University of Wales, using the above categories identified the scale of the problem, found that 72.6% of teachers suffered from moderate stress and 23.2% had more serious problems. The stress level for men was slightly higher than women.

Coping with stress

Ability to deal with stress varies from person to person. It has been found that ‘stronger correlations to burnout existed in terms of how teachers perceive themselves rather than how they feel others perceive them’ (Friedman, 1991). The one who copes best is the one who manages to feel that the benefits out- way the problems’ or to say ‘I enjoy working with students’.

Several stress management programmes have been developed. They aim at teaching coping techniques. An alternative approach is religion as there is a positive relationship between religion and decrease in stress.

Teachers have to, under today’s stressful conditions, develop strong personalities in themselves and others. The function of education should not be limited to imparting knowledge alone, but concurrent with the teaching of subject matter, it should be concerned with the emotional aspects of development. This will best be realized by emphasizing the aim of self- knowledge. This is a pivotal issue in personality development and human education. How can teachers be helped to cope with their stress? What needs to he done or what changes should be emphasized in education so that teachers can best actualize their potentialities and function optimally in their respective groups? Religion is very similar to certain forms of psychotherapy in the way it alters cognitive appraisal. It provides a set of personal and social values and methods of self actualization which are consistent with one another. Religion produces a positive self concept. In terms of the transactional model, religion offers relief from stress by altering the perception of demand, of capability and of the importance of coping. For example, toil and drudgery may be seen to be praiseworthy forms of worship, faith brings renewed physical and psychological strength, where admittance to a heaven is more important than success or even survival in the world. For many millions of people the practice of religion appears to be effective in enhancing their ability to cope with life and, on this evidence alone, its effects must be judged to be important both by the individual and his society. In one study of combat soldiers in the Second World War, three-quarters of the infantry-men questioned said that prayer helped a great deal to control intense fear, while 60 per cent of the airmen surveyed in another study reported that prayer helped them cope with stress. An individual’s belief system or world view provides a sense of coherence and a means of coping with stress. For some, this sense of coherence makes frustration, failure and pain more tolerable.

Some are able to cope with stress better than others, and others actively seek it out. It could perhaps be argued that committed teachers are in some cases more likely to suffer adverse effects of stress than uncommitted ones. If a teacher is indifferent to his pupils’ progress or the standard of their behaviour then there is no sense of frustrating, stressful failure if standards are not achieved. On the other hand an idealistic member of staff with high expectations is likely to experience feelings of stress if his expectations are not shared either by his pupils or by his colleagues. Research suggests that religious people are able to cope with stress. Pargament (1990) showed that religious belief, faith and rituals:

1. make stressful events more bearable by providing a meaningful, coherent explanation and orderliness to events in the universe
2. provide a source of hope and comfort as well as established guidelines on how to handle stressful events
3. nurture a sense of belonging as promoting identity and a sense of intimacy and support with both God and with the religious community.

References

• BORG, MG. (1990) ‘Occupational Stress in British Education Setting: a review’. Educational Psychology, 10, p.103-126.
• BORG, M.G. et al ‘Stress in Teaching: a study of occupational stress and its derminants, job satisfaction and career commitment among primary school teachers’, Educational Psychology, 11, p.59-75
• FONTANA, D. (1989) Managing Stress, London, Routledge.
• FONTANA, D. & ABOUSERIE, R. (1992) ‘Stress Levels, Gender and Personality Factors in Teachers’, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 63, p.26I -70.
• FRIEDMAN, I. & FARBER, B. (1992) ‘Professional Self Concept as a Predictor of Teacher Burnout’, Journal of Educational Research, 86, p.28-3.
• SELYE, B. (1976) The Stress of Life (rev. ed), New York, McGraw Hill.

Where the school is situated effects the quality of education it can provide. Ideally it should be detached from urban centres. Noise and disturbance around the school can be just as disruptive as noise within the classroom. The easy access in town to cinemas and cafes, to sports stadia, to shopping or amusement arcades, prevent the pupils from committing themselves fully to their school life. Away from these temptations, pupils will be able to devote more time to reading and relevant conversation and, when they need to relax, to active, useful pastimes in each other’s company. In this way, they will have the freedom to become more broadly cultured. They will develop self-reliance, and independence and will be able to concentrate more on their academic achievement. Also, the beneficial effects of exposure to the freshness and restful colours of a rural setting are well known – to say nothing of the advantages for students of nature, whether artistic or scientific, of having the real thing outside the window

Physical design

As well as setting, the design of the school buildings and equipment are vitally important. For example, desks and chairs that are too comfortable may encourage an over-relaxed, even lazy, attitude in pupils; on the other hand, if they are too luxurious and ugly they may cause distress and restlessness in class. Each individual pupil should be assigned a desk and a locker specifically for his or her use. This would free pupils of the burden of carrying too much around with them from lesson to lesson. The general character of the school buildings should, I suggest, be traditional. At present, the primary consideration in the design of buildings is cost – the ‘best’ design is the cheapest. By contrast, in the past, efforts were made to surround the schools and universities with green, with trees and walks in wooded lanes, rivers and ponds, besides which the pupils could relax. Consider how well the learning environment was designed and presented in the ancient seats of learning like Oxford or Cambridge – their buildings seem, in a sense, to improve as they age. They used stone to build thick walls and walled many interior spaces with quadrangles and cloisters which owe their form and function, ultimately, to Islamic originals in the Maghreb and Spain.

Nosy cost-cutting has led to the building of separation walls so thin that teacher and pupils can hear what is being said in the next room:the resulting distraction can lead to irritability and loss of learning time. Lighting is another important factor, too often neglected. Artificial lighting is not as satisfactory as natural light. As well as being costly to run, many pupils daim that it leaves them feeling tired at the end of the day The maximum possible use should be made of natural light. Apart from being ‘free’, it is conducive to the well-being and cheerfulness of both teachers and pupils. Similarly air circulation should depend on openable windows rather than on noisy (and expensive) air coolers and fans.

It is necessary to give adequate attention to the maintenance of a mean temperature that is neither too hot nor too cold. In view of the cost of heating, it may be advisable to invest in a system that, although costly to install, may be cheaper in the long term, such as solar energy.

Tower block construction is quite unsuitable for educational buildings as it inhibits direct, physical contact between students. Again, telephone or computer networks, important as they may be, are no substitute for direct personal contact which is indispensable for teaching and learning.

The detachment of the school from the urban centre means that its buildings complex must be self- dependent. Facilities need to be provided on or very near the school so that leisure activities, vital to the enhancement of study can be easily accessed. They should include sports fields and gymnasia. It is important that the school caters for the needs of pupils so as to allow them to play and compete in a proper way: failure to do so will only encourage truancy.

The ethos of the school should encourage self-discipline and self- improvement. The school should not, in other words, try to mimic the society at large, rather it should aim to reform and improve that society. To this end, chewing gum and smoking and other such habits should be banned altogether, not only in certain areas or at certain times. The walls and halls of the school should bear the portraits, or record the achievements, of the men and women who have set a good example in their particular walk of life. The decor of individual buildings or rooms should, as far as possible, reflect their particular character and purpose: a biology laboratory should look and feel different from a chemistry laboratory; the walls of the dining room should not be the same as those of the classroom, and so on.

The school library should be one of, if not the, most important resource and access should be made easy. It hardly needs saying that books and periodicals should be as up to date as possible, that many kinds of newspapers should be made available to enable students to keep up with (and have informed discussion about) current affairs. In general, the equipment used by pupils should be the best and most modern available. It seriously damages morale if the pupils know that, for instance, the computers they are using are obsolete models. Also, the relevance of what is learnt using certain equipment is significantly diminished if that equipment is no longer in service outside school.

Relevance is a principle that needs to apply to course design as well as to decor and equipment. Unfortunately; too much of what is taught in existing schools is known (and felt) by pupils to be merely ‘academic’. It is particularly important in science and technology that pupils have the opportunity to try out, to apply in practice, what they have learnt in theory. Otherwise, pupils will leave school with a mass of information into their heads but no experience of how to translate that knowledge into practical design or actual manufacture.

The teachers

The teachers are the essential key to whether an educational institution succeeds or fails. A good teacher is one who stays abreast of the latest developments in his or her field and knows how to pass on that knowledge to others. Although there are worthy arguments against doing so, I favour the regular resting of teachers to ensure that they are keeping up in their subject areas. There are, alas, too many teachers who use the same notes they used twenty years before, and whose work (for the pupils as well for themselves) lacks freshness and appeal.

Beside intellectual and teaching ability teachers should be trained and selected for a number of other qualities:

1. strict punctuality – the teacher should not arrive late to class;
2. fairness the teacher must have an understanding of the personal frictions that can develop between teacher and pupil and how to overcome them;
3. sense of humour – while retaining some distance and authority the teacher should not be solemn for the whole of a teaching period, but vary and lighten the tone of the teaching in order to keep the attention of the pupils;
4. openness to innovations – new equipment and new techniques are always coming onto the market:the teacher should seek to exploit these effectively not avoid them because it might mean changing established methods and habits;
5. freshness – the teacher should seek to adapt and combine different teaching styles and methods in the way most effective for pupils doing that particular subject at that particular level: in language training, for example, some ready- to-use courses require the teacher to lecture, others to merely observe, others to participate with pupils, etc.- a good teacher should know how to mix and match from what is available to suit his pupils’ needs;
6. sensitivity – the teacher should be alert to the social and cultural norms of his pupils and go with care when mentioning or discussing ideas or symbols which have special resonance for them, even when he or she does not share the same norms.

Teachers need to be well-trained to start with. However, they also need to be provided with opportunities to further their knowledge and skills, if necessary going abroad on a direct or exchange basis with foreign establishments. And finally, to secure high morale among teachers and commitment from them in a taxing profession, they need to be much better paid than they are at present in Turkey for example: many, alas, have to devote some of their time and energy in a second job, simply to make ends meet.

The pupils

An effective class is one made up, more or less, of pupils of the same ability at the same level. To achieve this, testing of pupils before, and perhaps also after, they are admitted is essential. Mixed ability schools are one thing but mixed ability classes are quite another and impose intolerable burdens on the teacher who cannot know how to plan the pace and level of difficulty of what he is teaching: going too slowly he or she risks losing the attention of the brighter pupils, going too fast risks driving the weaker pupils to opt out of the lessons altogether.

It is important too for the school to screen the pupils it admits for personality or character as well as for academic potential. If such information is available to teachers, they will not overreact when a pupil with, say, a record of bullying or stealing, bullies or steals. Too harsh a punishment by a teacher could further intensify the pupil’s problems which would, in turn, affect class and school performance.

To diminish the effects of social class differences, at least during school time, pupils should wear a uniform or the same or very similar clothes. Teachers can be expected to behave more fairly towards pupils if they appear the same.

The administrators

Administrators, especially principals and heads of school, should be authoritative and serious. Their concern for discipline should be equitable, and focus on teachers as well as pupils. They should encourage and enable parent-teacher meetings at the school to discuss an individual pupil’s progress with his or her teachers. It is the duty of administrators to see to it that the school is clean and fit for all normal activities. It also falls on them to advertise the school effectively so as to raise its image in public perception and so attract more pupils.

Finally administrators need to keep abreast of the latest developments in educational psychology and innovations in methods or equipment.

The family

Parents mostly entrust their children to schools (rather than teach them themselves) and for many ‘out of sight, out of mind’ applies. However, education and upbringing are very much within the responsibilities of parents to children. The parents may be disappointed by their child’s performance but must not blame the teachers for it. Rather, they should openly acknowledge the effects of family life on the stability of children’s character and on the quality of their performance. Parents should exhort children to do their homework, to take part only in such leisure activities as are beneficial, and help their attendance at school by accompanying them to it.

Instruction and teaching materials

Instruction hours should not be overly prolonged as pupils’ attention span is limited. Particularly to be avoided is the habit some teachers now have of combining two periods into a double period which is simply much too demanding for ordinary pupils. Instructional material exists in great abundance hut only appropriate use of it benefits pupils. TV and video need not be a means of passively wasting time; they can be applied to the job of teaching many hundreds of pupils at the same time.

Computers, will never replace human contact but are useful tools which ease organizational problems and can stimulate children. They may match certain temperaments and help children over specific learning difficulties.

Always relevant are the traditional instructional materials such as pictures, tables, diagrams, maps and illustrations. But the technology exists to operate these maps and diagrams through the computer by scanning images, or transferring them to overhead projector slides for a modern version of the blackboard.