When we entered college, among the many things that were new to us, one that caught my eye was a strange looking lecturer who was more like any of us than a teacher, in the way he looked, dressed, moved around and above all the way he took our classes. There was never an air of any authority or high brow-ness about him which most other teachers or Professors were quite infamous for and there was a friendly accessibility about him that made us even go frequently to his house those days and once after meeting his wife, even asked him how did he get to marry such a gorgeous looking woman to which he replied ever so casually - O, I picked her up from a railway station!. Beyond a teacher, he was a true friend, philosopher and guide, that even after so many years some of us still keep in touch with him. I am sure some of you would have had such interesting and cool teachers in your life, but what makes me wonder is, why are they not in plenty! Why would teachers be either so prosaic and uninteresting to make the whole class sleep, or be so distant and often devoid of any normal human attributes, and many a time affecting as though they belong to a different universe! Why cant they use the normal language that we speak, wear torn jeans, and just simply be friendly for students to feel a connect with them even before they start to feel like learning from them. I do understand the teaching profession is not a very lucrative one these days, let alone, even a respectable one for many! The reservations and quota for filling up the posts apart, often those who end up picking up this do so as the last resort rather than as a chosen one, the obvious effect of which is the continued deterioration in the quality of teachers even in such hyped up institutions like IITs and IIMs. Given that these are some of the challenges in getting good quality teachers, so much so that when we look back, we feel libraries would have taught us better than most of our teachers who took classes, what can definitely not be so difficult or challenging would be to have a friendly attitude and an easy way to teach, even more importantly to connect with the students! It is when they lose that connect, the learning is lost and teaching becomes in vain, notwithstanding the quantum of knowledge the teacher has. To those who are students, if you want to learn something, henceforth dont just depend on your teacher. Instead you teach your friends or learn from your friends, for the best way to learn is trying to teach the subject yourselves. As Bach said in Messiahs handbook - We teach best what we most need to learn And to all those who are teachers by profession, for Gods sake, be a friend to your students first! Even God was a friend more than a teacher, as he was to Arjuna. Kishore
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 07:58:23 +0000
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