The notion of school teacher in changing social world: A narrative analysis

Pages: 344-349
Anubhuti Dubey and Garima Singh (Department of Psychology, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur)

A major portion of life period of a person is spent in school premises. During the schooling period a student interacts with teachers and other fellow students. Hence, the present study was undertaken to explore the student’s experiences, expectations and conceptualization of school teacher in their life. The data was collected from undergraduate and postgraduate students (n=70) of Department of Psychology, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, individually. These students had written a write up on good and bad teachers in their school life with focus on their look alike, handling of classes, help or constraining in handling schooling pressure, behavior of teachers and student expectations, etc. The narrative analysis was done with focus on thematic and structural type of narrative analysis. The themes that emerged for good teacher included characteristics such as better way of teaching, no discrimination among students, disciplined class, dutiful, care and concern, person with moral values and helping nature. Characteristics of a bad teacher included themes such as insulting student in class, discrimination among students, inappropriate teaching methods, excessive expression of aggression and punishment, pessimistic and inhumane nature, and no respect for others. These findings are very pertinent in developing teacher training modules that what characteristic a student want or don’t want in his/her teacher in contemporary world of information overload where the student is not looking to his/her teacher as information provider but as a motherly or fatherly figure who shape them, give emotional support in ups and downs of school pressure.