The skill of multi-tasking your work is not easy to learn. With training a few learn to manage two critical tasks at the same time. This is most apparent in technology organizations where creative work needs to be done with quality, to the specification and on a tight time-line. In such organizations, one is careful in giving more than two projects to anyone at a time.
There is some sense it this practice. Loading a person with more tasks would result in sub-standard results. There may be an upper limit on our mental resources which makes it harder for us to multi-task between more than two projects
Now contrast this with a teacher in a typical school. At any given time, there are many time-critical projects on teacher's head. Here is a not-very-uncommon list of them - other than teaching a lesson, there is managing the class, correcting notebooks, setting exam papers, evaluating papers, substitute classes, filling progress reports, attendance, lesson-plans, dealing with parents, meetings, concerts, sports-day, national-days, projects, presentations.
Many of the above tasks are ON at the same time. But more importantly all of them are important. The requirements for any of the above tasks is not very different from those of technical projects. A teacher needs to be creative and resourceful to deliver results with quality, to the specification and on a tight time-line.
Has anyone asked, how much a teacher can multi-task ? Consider the role played by a teacher in children's life. Consider if the teacher delivers badly on all these tasks in the end. In the view of this reality, is it possible for a teacher to deliver quality education. Multi-tasking beyond two projects is impractical. We need to address this if there is any chance of improving education.
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