Quite a few of my memories of my elementary school years have been erased from my mind. Though perhaps the clearest of many memories is still the moment of meeting my teacher on the first day of school. I held my father's hand tightly and I believed that no force could take me away from my father and put me in that class, at the door of which we waited, where there were dozens of children and parents. I am certain that the children inside, many of whom were crying, were, a couple of minutes prior, standing where I was standing and were feeling the same emotions. When a woman older than my father, whom I thought was my teacher, approached us with a big smile on her face, the first thing my father did was let go of my palm, which became sweaty from squeezing, and button his jacket with shyness and respect that I had never seen before. My teacher, on the other hand, knelt next to my father, whom I draw very close to, and while extending her hand to me said: "Welcome to your classroom, shall we meet?". The acts of respect that my parents or other parents displayed that day and the following elementary school years when they see a teacher are among the photographs that remain in my mind in various forms.

Many of you are witnessing news or talks regarding how this type of traditional respect for teachers and schools by parents is diminishing nowadays. In case these thoughts are correct; in other words, in case schools and teachers have lost the respect they used to have, it is necessary to think of the reason(s) for such a situation. There can be many reasons for this; economics of education, teacher training policies, frequently altered educational curricula or systems, supply-demand relations, or out-of-date educational approaches. The reason I stated the last will be the point that I would like to focus on.

From the first ages to today's technology age, knowledge and the source of knowledge have always been valuable. Famous philosophers, teachers and students who remained by their side for years, tremendous libraries established by the rulers and the lives spent in these places, written books... This and numerous more instances that we can list indicate that knowledge has always been hard to reach, and that its source is valuable and respected.

The curiosity and need for knowledge manifested themselves through the respect shown for the source of the knowledge. Who knows, perhaps my father's behavior towards my teacher was because he saw my teacher and school as the only source of knowledge at that period of time, and the benefits he thought this situation would provide for his most precious one.

Could this be one of the explanations for the deterioration in the perception of teachers and schools that we see currently happening in Turkey? Put differently, could the system, method, school, and teacher attitude that try to hold the monopoly of knowledge in the world of education, where knowledge is not acquired from a single source, be one of the reasons?

Now imagine yourself as a teacher; your students are competing with each other in every moment to share with you a piece of information, which they discovered the previous day, that you may not have heard before. Think as teachers who try to give you the academic knowledge the system wants you to teach in a continuously streaming bombardment of information, from how a seahorse male can get pregnant to how to handle a city built in a virtual world, from the place of the great white shark in the food chain to the essentials for life in outer space. In this circumstance, the power of being the “source of knowledge”, which you believe is the most valuable power you hold in your hands, may now be your weakest attribute. You can be the commander whose sandcastle on the shore will be destroyed with the first wave.

So, the real question is what can schools and teachers do or what should they do in this situation? The point that is related to this subject and could be the subject of another article is what should parents expect from schools and teachers in such a system? So how should the right choice regarding the school be made?

In a world where knowledge is omnipresent, what should schools and teachers teach and how? I suppose teachers have started to gain awareness that they should not prevent children from learning, that they should, at the right time, include the right questions that can be a catalyst for the process, and that they should be people who can teach real-life skills that are needed, not required.

Teachers and schools, which are able to distinguish the fact that what children need is not to learn, that they need to be taught how to reach the right information and how to learn, are far ahead of the schools that are not aware of this. Concordantly, schools should get rid of mere academic concerns and educate students as individuals who are qualified for today's technology age, who can ask the right questions promptly, and who are equipped in terms of skills as well as mental processes.

We know that very intense education inflation is being experienced at the moment. In a world, where in the past high school graduates were valued, while everyone is nowadays a bachelor's or even a master's degree graduate, the criteria sought in new individuals will not be exclusively academic competence. What sport they are engaged in, whether they can dance or not, whether they can play an instrument, even a chef's certificate from a cooking course...

In the world nowadays, they stand in front of us as characteristics that determine who we are, rather than the quality that diverges us from the majority. German Horst Lutz asked a question about 8 years ago: “Why am I experiencing chaos when moving from one unfamiliar movement to another, even though I own cognitive abilities? What is going on in my brain and subsequently in my life in this process?” Studies regarding the brain conducted before and after this question reveal that most of the individuals who can recognize, control and develop their body together with academic processes are socially strong, read books, dance, and play an instrument, that is, they do not use their body only as a means for carrying the brain, but they also take a step ahead of their peers in academic success.

Consequently, individuals who cannot dance at the party they went to after winning the first place in the exam, who are not able to recognize the sound of an instrument being played, or even learn to tie their shoes seem to be unable to be successful in life without learning how to tie their shoes first.

Guney CINAR

General Manager of Yesilyurt Aci College