Better teacher training in less developed countries is key to progress

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by VIctoria Sethunya

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Better Aids For Progress in Less Developed Countries

Despite our position on the globe, good, better, best remain social lenses by which we realize cultures within our societies in our different countries.

Allow me to digress for a second. I remember my grammar teacher used to say, "what do you mean, 'good'? Too vague."yet this was a teacher in the same culture I grew up in." So crossing rivers, oceans and climbing mountains must render the gaps in meaning even wider. In other words, if it is not clear what I mean by better even in a local community, how much more unclear could it be to say something is better on an international platform?

It is therefore from this standpoint that we each construe "better" as it pertains to our value standards. It follows from this regard then that better teacher training as a suite for less developed countries is a myth. Assuming that there is one best teaching style some place in the universe is the best illustration why we must take time to read and understand works on relativism. At best the title suggests there is a standard way of training that suits-all. This is a myth. A training method is best defined as better when it is applied from different perspectives in controlled settings of the same community or perhaps representative community. Whether or not such a method exists that will better training in less developed countries is a question we can ask the stars, the moon and the sun. Better training is key to progress everywhere in the world and it is as inevitable as change. If forces those in work-field, in less developed countries and else where to constantly shift gears to fit their needs.

I taught Introduction to Pharmacology and English as a Second Language. Approaches to teaching these subjects were entirely different and did not conform to a standard way of training I attained prior to teaching. Any good teacher in any country knows how to adapt to fit the needs of the students. This is not a thing for less developed countries!

This topic in my view also illustrates the view that less developed countries need to be better to progress. Why is it that these countries cannot and could not have been left virgin as they were to design their progress as it fits them? Why do we impose our standards of development on people who are well and sound without our desired developments?

Is is possible that this standard of "better" and "development" may be key to materialism?

The story of "better teaching" brings to mind the story of "better living" in America. When I came to America, I did not have credit. One reader already jumps at this remark to say, of course you just arriving how could you have credit? Actually, I had seen people using Visa credit cards in South Africa but I had no longing for one. So it makes sense that if I could, I would have brought some credit with me overseas.

I remember the first ring that I bought for a souvenir ring at a Jewelery store in Ogden, Utah. it was 500 dollars. I had no sense of a dollar and how much labor it took to raise a dollar. I had not seen other gold and diamond other than South African flavor and I was fascinated with the look about the American Gold. There was white gold too! All of these were great discoveries and I made sure to allocate a good portion of my money to purchasing a piece of yellow gold. I paid for it cash and joyfully left the store heading home to test the ring on a pile of sugar. Weeks later, I noticed I could not get around on the bus because the buses did not run frequently enough and they dropped me too far from where I needed to be. I saw a car at Saturn of Riverdale in Ogden and thought to purchase it. I did not have 13000,00 cash or credit. "You need to build up some credit. That will help you purchase the car without having to worry about he cash."How could I have such a big loan," I thought "This man is out of him mind."

The following week I looked in the newspaper for cars for sale. I found a Toyota for 700 dollars. Station-wagon. I had never seen such a long car. It was like a baby hearse. It needed a little bit of getting used to. That was all. It had silver metal Handles and basket on the roof. I had no idea what these were for. Later I found out they were for skis. I was not overly concerned about this equipment on the roof but i knew that it was going to transform me into a different person.

I had had sandals that I wore since my first week in the country. They were beige. They were rigid and strong, brown to resist dirt. They had buckles. Now they were a soft dark brown suede with crumbles of beige, and the buckles were hanging on threads. The soles once used to be rigid resin now had little windows that welcomed pebbles of all sizes and closed on them with leafy flaps. Sooner or later, my heels would be kissing mud. Hence the reader understands why I would so very lovingly embrace a 700 dollar "wagon". I had waited this long to afford one. Still I did not have credit.

This baby hearse was good on gas for the first two weeks. One jolly afternoon I saw a cloud of smoke behind me. I thought the rear end of my car was burning so I pulled yonder. Just a few combustion problems. You should make it home a driver said passing by. I made a plan to obtain a cell phone so that I would obtained immediate help if I ever got stuck on the road. I purchased a plan from A T & T. By the end of three months I could have purchased the hearse and half from the phone bills to AT&T. That is how often I had to call. A friend suggested that perhaps I needed to built credit and purchase a new car. I hated credit. I did not want to owe! How could I live in this country freely in debt? To me this was one oxymoron ever acted out.

Days went by and I had returned to Saturn of Riverdale for gently-used "new "car with a co-signer. This here my was my initiation to building credit, to building a better life and to acquiring a taste to materialism at the expense of sanity. Better anything,better teacher training, whatever that means, is not a subject limited to less developed countries. The entire world can use improvement in teaching and in general. Everyone can make his or her world better that is sensitive to his or her needs. The "standard" of better dangled over a nation from elsewhere is apt to do more harm than one demanded for by the nation's needs as it sees fit.

It was the same standard of "better"this or that put citizens in debt by allowing them "better" access to progress. We are "better"off keeping these "better" living standards and progress here in the first-class world than exporting them to the lesser world perhaps not yet ready to fool around with these seemingly standard ordeals.

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