#stratalogues Teaching the teacher

Gurur brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurdevo Maheshwara
The teacher is the triumvirate, the teacher is everything!
Source: #stratalogues
Strategic instigation by: @wolfzhowl

Sea-change in the
perception &
portrayal of a
“teacher” in pop-
culture.
(1) Teacher to be
romanced.
(2) Spitting, funny
teacher. A mere
comic-element.
(3) Principal &
teacher romancing
in a
stupid, slapstick
manner.
(4) A shades of grey
principal & evil-
teacher.
1
2
3
4 Mai Hu na (1,2, & 3). DDD –
Channel V (4).

What has led to this sea-change?

Institutionalization & commercialization of education.
The earlier guru’s were supported by a larger social eco-system, patronized by kings,
landlords, village-elders, communities. The only fee was the “guru-dakshina” The return
gift of sorts that the sishyas (students) used to give to gurus.
The loss of this eco-system and dis-continuity of education as a hereditary practice has
both democratized access to education, but also not (since quality education is still not
accessible to most in India and no literacy still a large social-evil).
While there is a larger discussion to be had on the one-dimensional perspective on
education in the modern world and the myopia of looking at skill-sets based education
passed on by skill-gurus as non-literacy, the focus of this presentation is on the plight of
modern day “professional teachers” for whom teaching is a career.

“The modern day professional teacher”

Though the modern day professional-teacher in the private (non-governmental)
sector is seeking a career and better remuneration, the pop-culture portrayal of
teachers does injustice to most of the teachers/professors I have met on
#stratalogues.

By all means, most of those who come into the profession of teaching do have an
intense desire to impart quality education and they do love their profession.

However their need for a better remuneration leads them to seek jobs in premium
private institutions. These private institutions do demand a hefty fees and parents do pay
these fees through their noses.
Read a figure somewhere that the average middle-class Indian family now spends close to
30% to 40% of their MHI (monthly household income) on education of their children.
Cramming their children’s day with school, tuition, extra-curricular activities (which are
the new way for parents to say my child is better than yours now), parents demand more
from institutes everyday.

Education is the “way out” for most middle-class Indians to break/up-grade their
current economic class.
Education = % on report cards, because higher education system embraces you into
their fold basis % scored in the previous qualifying grade.

“The modern day gold rush in India has been the
“silicon valley”/”software field job”.
Well this has made the computer one of the
symbolic representations of Saraswati (the goddess
of education & learning).

Computer has almost the power of god in a parent’s
perspective.
It is the modern day kamadhenu. Assists you in
education, helps you search for jobs & gets you jobs. It
is also an entertainment, social-networking device.

“You know my child is just 2yrs old and he
already plays around on my laptop/iPad”
Computer = one of the most predominant
symbols of a child’s progress.

So from a computer lab where we were taught basics as a mere sign of progressive
education in the 1980’s, now most class-modules are to be experiential and taught
using a computer and multi-media.

Most private schools, colleges, universities are trying to get most number of parents
& most amount of money out of them. It’s more or less become a rat-race for
parents and their kids.
So one out-shouts the other with offers that range from “best percentages/best
placements/best jobs” to “a balanced education approach” to “best teacher-student
ratio” to “experiential learning, using digital – multimedia tools”

“experiential learning, using digital – multimedia tools”
An amazing promise by the private institutes, but not enough of a
trained/skilled teacher-force to do that.

“The teacher who is most multimedia skilled, is most sought after and most paid”
“Teachers who are not skilled are either asked to upgrade their skills with mediocre
training inputs & inputs or just slowly replaced”

Bigger pay & more respect Vs lower pay & an eventual sacking!
Not much of a choice is it?

Well that’s not the only digital-devil riding a teacher’s back!!

Shri Steve Jobs’ji decided to make smart phone the
coolest thing to own for youngsters and what’s more
– Google enabled the students with the power of
being able to search & refer to everything.
Yup! Blame shri shri Jobs’ji for everything ;)

So Steve Jobs + Google put the devil in a smart
phone for the teacher and gave it of all the
people to “the student” who loves nothing
more than to show the teacher-up.

Quant-check of about 30 teachers around India, well represented in most aspects.

So Google the god of knowledge has now brought
an age-old educational system back into practice.
Gyaanam = manthanam of vaadam & prati-
vaadam.
Wisdom is the result of the churn that happens
between an argument and a counter-argument,
between the teacher & the student. The old gurukul
system of education used to cherish this as one of
its core principles of teaching.
Students were encouraged to refer to other
materials, discuss with fellow students and develop
different point of views on the same subject by
interrogating it from different perspectives.

But the “syllabus” taught teacher himself/herself is used to seeing subject matter from a
one-dimensional text book perspective.
The poor soul is then driven to make the students mug-up the uni-dimensional subject
matter and spew it out on an exam-sheet so that marks are scored & the school can
quote % and grab money.
Then there is time-pressure to deal with as well. There is administrative work, paper-
correction, 40/60 students per class which hardly leaves the teacher any time to
prepare for more than the text-book based subject matter.
Hey the poor soul also needs a personal life!

So with the smart-kids throwing a challenge…
…high-end/premium schools/colleges/universities demanding multi-media skills off
a teacher, the pressure on the mass-premium, smaller schools to match the claims
to stay competitive is also mounting!
Basically “experiential teaching = 101 of teaching now & even more so in the near
future!

Armed with all these learnings from quality conversations with teachers, students &
parents @wolfzhowl checked out the concepts at first qualitatively with other
teachers and then did a small quantitative e-survey.
So these teachers who know how to operate the internet (otherwise how can they
answer the survey) from all over India were exposed to the following concept:

The reactions to the concept:

Well even the relatively e-savvy teachers agreed with the problem at hand!

Sizeofopportunityindicator

100% willing to train themselves. Even amongst those who
found the offer only somewhat appealing.

Suggestions for improving the concept:

Hello NIIT, Hello
Classteacher.com 

When we spoke to some of the teachers post the concept, we found out:
1. More teachers in tier-2 cities, towns and even smaller towns were interested. The metros were also very
interested.
2. Metros were willing to pay more for a 2-week training course (possibly because big-paying schools were more
in metros), the rest though had more volumes and less e-savvy & hence higher intensity of need.
3. When you think small town think Palakollu – West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh & Towns near Gawan,
Uttar Pradesh. So the size of opportunity and the depth of it is humongous.
4. Creative professionals teaching them presentation skills, ability to conduct interactive discussions, search-
capabilities for presentation material & stimulus to excite and enthrall students were rated as most important.
5. Most teachers wanted an expertise-mix of senior teachers who understand their profession and its pressures
and experience in dealing with students + creative professionals teaching them presentation and other softer
skills. Softer skills were was what felt as missing in any institutes that currently attempt this.
6. Most teachers wanted a demo and were willing to join only post a thorough checking-out of credentials.
7. IIM accredited was rated as great, but not necessary. The demo was more a point of conviction.

Still processing more information & can guide on conversation around course
curriculum, branding aspects, personality and tone and manner of a brand that
should be doing this etc;
Contact us @: wolfzhowl.strategy@gmail.com

Questions you might have:

What is #stratalogues ?
#stratalogues is an effort to immerse in the consumer world and really get to know people, rather than
sitting in air conditioned cubicles and pretending to know consumers. People & their lives.
#stratalogues 2013 has been a 4 & ½ month journey through Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and parts
of Coastal Tamil Nadu with more than 180+ hours of people-immersions. People from social-
custodians, retailers, traders, teachers, sociology & economics professors, journalists, theater artists
etc;
Note: There have been a wide range of topics that we blogged, updated, tweeted, FB-posted which
possibly did not lead to total clarity on what were the focal points of #stratalogues.
The key focal areas are:
Digital triggers for heartlands (UX/UI, Social Media content drivers, Mobile phones, Laptops etc;)
Male grooming tirggers
Health care triggers
Urban/Rural migration (This is purely for a better understanding of the kind of things to come in
India)
#stratalogues is soley owned & completely done by @wolfzhowl

Who is @wolfzhowl?
@wolfzhowl is a behaviour & brand strategy consultancy, which believes in:
Problem-loving: We love all kinds of behaviour/brand problems. Whether it is the end-
consumer, influencer, sales force motivation issues, communication issues, perception
change issues, getting your HR team to incorporate your brand vision based KPI’s into
the evaluation system etc;…We feign over problems. So the specialization is in problem-
solving (yes! As undefined as that & facilitation of solution management &
implementation)
Un-tooling: Too many tools in the world. One tool does not fit all – hence we do
bespoke. Custom built solutions and approaches for unique problems. It’s painful for
us, but fruitful too.
Why the name wolfzhowl: Because it is about animal instincts, intuition and
transformation. Our inspiration to self & to others:
http://www.slideshare.net/ChallapalliKalyanRam/wolfzhowl-anthem-1
In-detail: in.linkedin.com/in/challapallikalyan/

Processing:
• Digital triggers for heartlands (UX/UI, Social Media content drivers,
Mobile phones, Laptops etc;)
• Male grooming tirggers
• Health care triggers
• Urban/Rural migration (This is purely for a better understanding of the
kind of things to come in India)
What’s next?
Note: Some of the content is for our commercial purposes & for clients only,
while some more stuff we will be publishing.

#stratalogues Teaching the teacher

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#stratalogues Teaching the teacher