To Sir with love?
It’s the most underrated profession. Behind every successful man is a good teacher. A lot of you might want to argue this out and you must. We need a lot of argument around the roles of teaching and learning. Only then will we rediscover the concept of teacher.
What prompts this piece, is a newspaper item today that says that a teacher broke the knuckles of a pupil simply because he couldn’t solve a ‘surprise’ test. No surprise really. This kind of news and a lot even worse percolate everyday. Sadly, the role of the teacher is synonymous now with the role of the beater. I know that it’s a broad brush that am using but very few teachers are exceptions.
If there’s any profession in this world that can’t be taught, it’s teaching. The love of teaching shows up clearly in those who inherently do. For a lot of the others it’s either a default option or a nice soft occupation. So the whole factory that churns out teachers through BEd training or whatever probably creates a lot of instructors and beaters. They are spoon-fed probably on curricula and how to handle errant hordes. The art of teaching or better worded, sharing knowledge, is not and can never be taught. I have personally known teachers whose primary job in schools was to ensure that enough numbers attended their ‘private’ tuition classes. These classes were hotbeds of ‘most likely questions’ and so on. The most likely ones were surely in the exam question paper so the vicious cycle got completed. The ones who didn’t attend tuition classes of course had to bear the brunt of extreme censure in class.
Teaching requires a selfless being. It’s the supreme art of sharing all that one knows without expecting anything in return and possibly guiding the pupil along a particular path. A teacher’s best compliment is a successful student who comes back years later to him. (The Raymond commercial plays on this sentiment to a great extent.)
Humility is another virtue, rare and precious. Great teachers stand at the ringside and applaud when successful pupils make it big. His moment comes when the pupil mentions him in the victory speech. Ramakant Achrekar experienced that am sure when a young 17 yr old spoke his heart out after his first Test hundred.
What prompts this piece, is a newspaper item today that says that a teacher broke the knuckles of a pupil simply because he couldn’t solve a ‘surprise’ test. No surprise really. This kind of news and a lot even worse percolate everyday. Sadly, the role of the teacher is synonymous now with the role of the beater. I know that it’s a broad brush that am using but very few teachers are exceptions.
If there’s any profession in this world that can’t be taught, it’s teaching. The love of teaching shows up clearly in those who inherently do. For a lot of the others it’s either a default option or a nice soft occupation. So the whole factory that churns out teachers through BEd training or whatever probably creates a lot of instructors and beaters. They are spoon-fed probably on curricula and how to handle errant hordes. The art of teaching or better worded, sharing knowledge, is not and can never be taught. I have personally known teachers whose primary job in schools was to ensure that enough numbers attended their ‘private’ tuition classes. These classes were hotbeds of ‘most likely questions’ and so on. The most likely ones were surely in the exam question paper so the vicious cycle got completed. The ones who didn’t attend tuition classes of course had to bear the brunt of extreme censure in class.
Teaching requires a selfless being. It’s the supreme art of sharing all that one knows without expecting anything in return and possibly guiding the pupil along a particular path. A teacher’s best compliment is a successful student who comes back years later to him. (The Raymond commercial plays on this sentiment to a great extent.)
Humility is another virtue, rare and precious. Great teachers stand at the ringside and applaud when successful pupils make it big. His moment comes when the pupil mentions him in the victory speech. Ramakant Achrekar experienced that am sure when a young 17 yr old spoke his heart out after his first Test hundred.
Comments
when i look back on all the education is had in India - IT WAS A COMPLETE WASTE. Useless stuff. And teachers themselves were ignornant - totally out of touch with what's happenning
But there was just this one teacher in school Mrs. Raghavan - the values that she instilled in me still pulls me through some situations i face. But of course, the students' reactions were typical "kya pakari hai yaar - yeh thodi exam mein aayega".
Compare that to what happenned yesterday when a student came to see me for some doubts. i said if she really couldn't understand the concept she shouldn't worry so much because it's "not going to come for the exam". She just looked at me and said "yes, but i still want to understand it". Felt fairly ashamed.
Was that student Indian...I think we have this exam focused tutoring that just promotes mugging up and learning by rote....!