Blame It On The Dispenser

Star Q

i.  Kejohanan Olahraga Kali ke 61

ii.  Vocabulary Puzzle - Glidogram

iii.  Patenting Asam Pedas

Imagine the dispenser in the picture above; with sweet delicious lemonade  and slices of citrus within its bowel waiting to dispense the cool liquid into an awaiting glass!  But wait!  Notice that the class is turned up side down; it is not ready to accept the delicious goodness the dispenser has to give!

Now, imagine a slightly different situation where the dispenser is a teacher, ready and willing to teach his students and doing everything within his means to ensure that his students get the best of everything.  However, all this dedication from the teacher's part seems to go to waste when the students do not seem willing to accept the education that the teacher is willing to impart onto them.

In this sad case, can the teacher then be blamed for the situation.  Can the teacher be lambasted after trying all that he could to get the students to learn?  Can the teacher still be criticized after having done everything within his means to come up with interesting and well-thought exercises, diversifying his teaching techniques and sweet talking the students into doing their work?  Can the teacher be castigated when these same students do not perform in their exams?

I think it is utterly unfair to put the blame whole-heartedly on the dispenser of knowledge when the proverbial receptacle is either cracked, dirty or turned upside down.  It is even more unfair when during a post-mortem, the teacher after having given a detailed information of an examination which did not produce sterling results (I stress on the adjective!) due to these undesirable receptacles, gets bombarded by his superiors; literally like shooting the messenger!

I can now see clearly why the results of our examinations seem to be improving year after year even when the level of proficiency in English amongst students (for the purpose of this discussion, the population is restricted to his locality only) is quite the contrary.  I suspect, if the bearer brings bad news ie. news of poor examination results, the message bearer himself would get shot!