Guruvani: 'A teacher is a role model for a nation'

What is the biggest professional challenge that you face in your role as a principal?It's the need to reshape pedagogy focused on changes that are being caused due to technological advancements and training teachers to work with students within technologically rich learning environments. In the 21st century, technology has a pervasive presence all around us.Once a teacher, always a teacher. Do you agree?I would say that teaching is a great job as it educates the next generation. Teachers are given the responsibility to mould young souls. A Chinese saying says, 'Engineer is the one who builds up the building but teachers are the greatest ones who build up the human souls.'Teachers are just like the candle who burn themselves in order to lighten up the next generations' future. Without a teacher, where are the leaders of the country? Without a teacher, from where comes the doctors, the engineers, and the lawyer, etc? Teaching is the only job where you find people respecting you till you are retired, or even till you are dead. Once you carry the title, 'teacher', you are always a teacher. You are a role model not only for young children but for the whole nation. A 21st-century teacher does not just play the role of a teacher, but also of a parent, a counselor, a friend, a technician, an actor, a singer, a musician and so forth. Therefore, it is a noble job that we should be proud of. Success has become an obsession with people of all ages nowadays. Your comments.Out there in the world today we will come across people that are obsessed with being successful and they cross all boundaries to gain success. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with being obsessed with success although through this process one must have adequate control to discern the right path from the wrong one in order to achieve success. Moreover, we should not allow our obsession to grow into something dangerous and in turn, allow our passion to drive us into making a difference.What emphasis do you put on teacher training?This stands more as a rhetorical question for me as it is mandatory for teachers to possess a great deal of knowledge and skills with regard to both teaching and assessment practices. Teacher training or rather as I would define it, their learning process, must be continuous. I emphasise that areas such as classroom management, emerging technological tools for the classroom, new curriculum resources and much more is covered as only then do they help improve students' learning process to their highest potential.What in your view is GenNext's biggest strength? Which are the key areas of improvement?They own the world of technology with their limitless beliefs to do great things with it. This is definitely by far their strength as it drives their hunger for their passion to change the world. This drive, if not most times but sometimes does lead to them losing sync with reality and they tend to become impatient in order to deliver results within unrealistic timelines, causing them to pressurise themselves to an unhealthy extent.How can the elderly contribute to a student's growth?The concern about cultural and value degradation is not new to us in our current society. This is seen as a major concern and a large part of society is pinning their hopes today on concept schooling to ensure that they both are imparted in the appropriate format even though it is true that family is the prime agency to aid in developing these aspects. I consider that connecting the elderly is the best strategy for us as they can impart valuable information and experiences that are rich with emotions. They can provide our youth with the right road map to living a life based on moral principles, which is important both for the individual student and from a collective context for our society. What according to you is the role of media in education?Education and media go hand in hand from my perspective, taking into consideration that media is a vast concept and stretches across various platforms. We are surrounded by some form of communication transmitted through a certain form of media, which has become a very important part of our life. This definitely creates a strong impact even in terms of our education system today as our students are linking themselves to the best universities, faculty members and other students, creating a global academic community. As an educationist, I support this integration and consider sound media communication as a prerequisite to providing a higher quality of education.