Our arts teachers should walk with their heads held  high

During celebrations to commemorate the World Teacher’s Day, the President made some bountiful promises to the science teachers.

In his speech, he tried to paint a blissful picture that teachers of science are more important than their counterparts. 

The President explained that sciences change nations and change lives.
 I may or may not agree with him but I respect his opinion. I would like to bring to the attention of the President and powers that be that many arts teachers who haven’t received salary in the last two years have come out this lockdown stronger.  

Even when government made a public empty promise to support teachers during lockdown, we have survived and continue to fend for our families.
Well, while listening to the President I wondered whether most of the influential philosophers were scientists.  Great philosophers like Aristotles, Plato and Socrates were not  scientists.

Again, if scientists mattered that much in this country, the vice president, prime minister, Speaker of Parliament, most ministers would be scientists. 
For purposes of debate, one would say our minister for Higher Education is a science teacher. Following the disruption in learning, the ministry was allocated funds for preparing materials for home learning but up to today many learners in our villages are still waiting. 

 The anthem of scientists reverberates every time our head of state meets teachers. Would it not be prudent enough if National Curriculum Development Centre scrapped these arts subjects completely from the syllabus and we teacher only sciences. 
Why are we still allowing universities to enroll thousands of innocent Ugandans for arts courses? 

In my opinion, we could actually reshuffle our Cabinet and throw out most of these ministers who are arts leaning. I am sure they are the reason corruption is still a foothold in this country.

In his teachings, Machiavelli offers the theory of leadership which helps create public order and maintain stability in the society. Machiavelli  also draws the conclusion that people are governed by two motives: love and fear – a successful ruler uses both of them. 

In other words, the combination of love and fear allows the ruler to influence human beings. Therefore, rulers must be careful that they work in a way so that our fear does not turn into hatred. 

When you put an arts teacher in such a precarious position, what do you expect his reaction to be? Our leaders need to know who exactly is more ambitious and, as a consequence, is more dangerous for them as rulers.

Actually Socrates presented a less-strict doctrine of leadership and power. He thought that the leader should be smart and wise. “Let him that would move the world first move himself.”

 To him, a person who wants to be a leader should be more attentive to themselves. People are more likely to reach something when they do not tell anybody about their intentions. 
Socrates saw the leader with a great will, and therefore does not expect leaders to be rigid like Machiavelli perceived.

Concisely in my observation, the teachings of Machiavelli have a lot in common with the modern leaders. 
Our leaders today believe in using adequate pressure to create stability and order. The deception of the people is also effective for successful management. It is at this point that I ask the most fundamental question. “Is it true that arts teachers are not important and useful to society? 

Well, fellow arts teachers, the battle lines have been drawn. You either fight for your place in this country or our politicians  use us to pursue their selfish interests. 
For long, our nation has survived on divide and rule. But isolation policies are simply a reincarnation of a retrogressive and barbaric past. 

We have woken up to a new era of indigenous colonialism and imprisonment. A state where our own leaders want to make us hostages of what we believe in, of our professions, of our tribes, of our religions, of our economic status, and of our own aspirations.

Whoever is giving our President this kind of lame duck advice is the greatest enemy of this country. It even makes me wonder that most of our politicians who confess that sciences are more important than arts are parading their own children in arts courses. 

Let me remind our leaders that Barrack Obama is not a scientist.  George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Mahatma Ghandi were not scientists but they changed their countries and the lives of their people. 

Therefore, as  teachers of arts we need to walk with our heads held high because we are not  product of Shs4m but of great ideas that resonate and  influence a number of young innocent lives that have gone through their hands and more yet to come.

H.M.B.B
 Proud teacher of  Arts