THERE is an outcry about punitively difficult 'sure fail' exams that teachers set for students prior to the national PSLE, O levels and A levels.

This practice is supposed to motivate those with worse-than-expected grades to work harder for the real thing later on. But as reader Thara Rubini Gopalan put it in a letter to the Forum pages on Tuesday, this is 'overdone' and demoralising.

A teacher pointed out to me that instead of focusing on the students who have been affected by such exams, we should question the motives of teachers who set them in the first place.

Is there not something dishonest in doing so? After all, national exams are not pitched at the same levels of difficulty. A larger issue is involved here: 'authenticity in teaching', the teacher suggested.

So who is the authentic teacher? First, he is not one who has all the answers or whose teaching technique is the most finely honed. Second, he is not always the most interesting teacher or the one who resorts most frequently to real-life examples. Third, he is not necessarily a paragon of virtue.

Authenticity has more to do with a congruence of action and belief: What the teacher does must also match what he holds dear. The authentic teacher is one who lives his life in such a manner and models it for his students.

A plumber need not manifest this kind of authenticity. We don't care if he is a wastrel or womaniser as long as he fixes the leaking sink. But if a teacher talks passionately about the lessons from the race riots in Singapore in 1964 but is himself a racist, one wonders why his knowledge does not expunge his intolerance.

We were taken aback recently when it was revealed that one of the parties found guilty in the infamous serial neighbourhood tiff at Everitt Road was a junior college teacher.

We expect knowledge in teachers to lift up their characters and fit them as role models for our kids. Perhaps we unfairly create a certain image of teachers, and then expect them to live up to it. But our claim on them is grounded in the fact that they and their charges - our kids - are links in a chain of transmission of knowledge and tradition.

We all started school taking teachers very seriously. For example, when we were in primary school, we would be quite astounded to see our teachers eating out or shopping. In our minds, they were superbeings who knew everything and had presumably no need for the mundane.

As we grow older, we might deride the 'bad' teacher and perhaps even make snide remarks about various parts of his or her anatomy. Yet, in our teens, we would still look up to the 'good' teacher for advice.

In The Ethics Of Authenticity, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor argued that we come to make sense of our own identities and become authentic persons only through interaction and discussion with others. Such interlocution allows us to exchange ideas, gain new insights, reflect upon our biases and amend them accordingly.

To become authentic beings, true to ourselves, we must paradoxically engage others in discussion and debate. We can decide for ourselves, but only in accordance with the values and norms that we share with others in our community. In this way, we become responsible members of a culture - together.

Likewise, the authentic teacher treats his students as persons with their own interests, intentions, preferences and emotions. He engages them in dialogue and respects their developing intellect and character. Role modelling - show and tell - is the essence of teaching, not conveying some de-contextualised intellectual content, though the job demands that too.

As Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov wrote: 'Man will become better when you show him what he is like.'

The authentic teacher may even invite his students home to share his life. Ex-teacher William Ding, who lived with his parents, had invited some boys to stay over at his home for some academic coaching. But he was accused of molesting four of them three years ago. Only on appeal last month was he acquitted of wrongdoing. That is a risk that teachers face if they care too much. So the teacher as role model must also set limits - in negative terms.

In positive terms, he must present himself without artifice and communicate with his students as fellow citizens. Caring for one's students authentically means helping them learn, develop and grow. Such a teacher may not teach content or convey information better than other teachers, but he will certainly offer his students the potential for growth and change.

He can pass on to his students, by modelling for them, good habits of the mind. These may include holding defensible viewpoints, knowing how to weigh evidence, discerning patterns and interconnections, developing alternatives as well as becoming aware of the significance of the things we do or the beliefs we cherish.

Perhaps most teachers, like most of us, choose to live in our 'everyday-ness' - to use a phrase of the philosopher Martin Heidegger - doing and accepting what is done and accepted by everyone, every day. The opposite of that is authenticity. The authentic teacher would transcend everyday-ness by reflecting critically upon the norms of his community.

He will create the conditions to allow his students to fully engage with and learn the subject matter under consideration so they can develop good habits of mind. In doing so, he would extricate himself and his students from everyday-ness.

He would not ever be a party to, or even consider setting, 'sure fail' exams. Exploitative tactics like these signal inauthenticity in the system. What teachers need to be first and foremost is to be real.

andyho@sph.com.sg

TALKING TOGETHER, GROWING TOGETHER

To become authentic beings, true to ourselves, we must paradoxically engage others in discussion and debate. We can decide for ourselves, but also only in accordance with the values and norms that we share with others in our community. In this way, we become responsible members of a culture - together.