...........Teacher's Day: Some Reflections............

           It has been more than twenty years I am in the teaching profession but strangely enough I find it hard to be professional in approach.  I haven’t been able to get my emotions out of it. It becomes even more surprising to remember that I wanted to be anybody but teacher. But then accidents do happen in life and looking back I can say with a smile that this particular accident has been an enriching experience.  In spite of a disastrous first year in college I hung on. In next year I warmed up to my role as a teacher. Slowly, silently twenty years just went by, simply unknowingly but making me richer every year not monetarily but by emotional bonds, bonds of mutual trust and appreciation. 

          We have a tendency to glorify nostalgia but against its reflections we condemn present. We teachers often reflect on past batches with a kind of acceptance but find it difficult to give approval to present batch. For us every previous batch is better than the current one. I don’t know how many would buy this observation but that’s what I genuinely feel.  In tune with my observations, for me the past certainly remained glorious. I got great affection from my students. I was never short of ideas and interestingly many could generate curiosity in students. Every year I tried to learn to be a better teacher, succeeded partially as I felt every year that I need to improve. I honestly feel I evolved as a teacher, as a human being, gained maturity, committed mistakes, learned to learn and the process is not finished yet. I don’t think it will reach the end till I retire. 

          Once I realized I could teach well I started enjoying teaching. Students bore the brunt of my way of teaching for I always needed extra classes. Fortunately I never found such extra classes deserted but rather I remember once they even came on the day of Ganesh Visarjan. I finished the lecture earlier so that nobody is trapped in the blocked roads. All the students reached home without any hurdle but not I. I stayed in the college discussing some concepts with some hostel students, found myself searching for passage and only after great maneuvering and trouble I finally reached home. Somehow such extra classes, finishing the syllabus in this way had grown into my psyche. It gave me satisfaction of doing my best while teaching. The sense of being able to give justice to my course always remained a source of peace for me. In last two- three years that peace eluded me.

          That rhythm of teaching seemed to just slip out of hand. I felt students were less interested causing me to lose interest; I am sure for them it may have been other way round. That vicious cycle of negativity ruptured my peace. It forced me to contemplate, look inwards. There definitely is a growing feeling that the students are losing interest in classroom teaching. As I have been observing for last couple of years the students are reluctant to occupy front benches. Seats are occupied from last row. I myself being a perpetual backbencher leaves no room for me to complain but there always were eager few, desperate for front benches rescuing members of my fraternity. The trend we are observing is different. They seemed to have lost interest in teacher as well as teaching. There must be a mismatch of what they want and what we are providing. May be we are unable to fulfill the expectations. But the truth is the class I find filled with discouraging negativity. 

          At personal level I find myself guilty of not being able to generate interest. My honest analysis revealed to me that I was lost in the indifferent atmosphere. Why did it happen? Is it that I was experiencing a kind of saturation where I lost the vigour to start afresh every year? The fact is there always were students indifferent to my class but I kept my interest in teaching alive. Yes there certainly were reasons I cannot share, not now, may be at an opportune time in future but still I should not have allowed apathy to circle around me.  But in spite of such atmosphere I could manage some nice initiatives with the help of students. As usual some students did break into my close proximity. The common thread was they loved being intellectually adventurous. 

       All those who liked my teaching, liked my ideas, found a friend in me to confide with and all those who came close through intellectual interaction remained in contact even after passing out. The activities I initiated to challenge the imagination, intellectual capacity could not always penetrate the masses but all those who got involved never severed link. Fortunately this link remained intact in these years of difficulty. It was not that I taught badly but somewhere I felt internally that I missed that sense of attachment with my teaching. This was the internal   turmoil I was finding it hard to deal with. Lack of interest of students reflecting in my losing interest was difficult for me to digest for my job was essentially to generate interest in students. A thought came to me that why I could not be proactive. I tried it. What I don’t know is how much interest I have been able to generate in them but at least they seemed to be responding positively. More importantly I am at peace with myself trying to teach to the best of my ability, ever eager to improve.

     Once one of my students asked what motivated me, my response was even if only ten students out of hundred show interest in my teaching it was enough for me to do my best. It goes to the credit of my students that they were always more than ten out of less than hundred. This frame of mind left me in last couple of years but I feel I got hold of it. I just hope the bad patch is over. As a matter of fact the feedback from students reveal that it was not really a bad patch but from the standards I want to set for myself it was not to the best of my satisfaction, something only I know. All I hope this time is to turn the table. They still occupy from the last row but to counter the gap now I try to reach to them. They create the gap but why can’t I bridge it, why can’t I go to them? I don’t know how far it will succeed but at least it will insulate me from negativity. 

          I believe students-teacher relationship has now become a victim of time, the time that is enforcing changes faster than ever before. This is similar to what Alvin Toffler has mentioned in his fantastic book Future Shock. Our relationships with everything from objects to humans are becoming shorter and shorter in time. The world around us is changing faster than our imagination, the reason we find it difficult to understand and hence we settle down to impermanence. We are always in search of change but what escapes our imagination is that to change means to unsettle meaning disturbance and anybody who wants peace, satisfaction has to search for stability that can come only through permanence. Students-teacher relations cannot escape this impermanence. Students focus on marks which they can get even without assistance of teacher in shortest possible time but they lose on learning which is beyond the scope of syllabus. Teachers attend to finishing the syllabus in whatever short time available in planner but find it too hard to focus on the process of learning. This course of mutual omission has killed teacher-students relationship, plunged it in spiral of indifference. What has now been called as professional approach adopted by number of students and teachers, in my opinion is driven by narrow academic interests executed in shortest time, the casualty obviously is the emotional bonding. Where is the time and necessity to settle down to a mature, ever evolving association which is one of the most beautiful relationships humans can get into, of mutual admiration, which crosses all barriers man made or natural,  which also defies time and which is called teacher-student bonding?

                When oblivious to what he needs and what he actually seeks student blames teacher and cut off from aspirations of him then teacher blames student. Neither is happy, satisfied, just caught in endless game of blaming, searching for excuses to justify each others’ stand. What should have been on the foundation of mutual trust is in the whirlwind of distrust, indifference. This situation apart many teachers and students  break this shell of apathy and find themselves in the ever blossoming association that stands test of time. Their life goes through an enriching experience. The whole idea of Teacher's day then gets new meaning, the formal programme gets the attention it deserves but its dryness fails to affect the psyche. Years pass but time leaves no impact on the association of a teacher and students who find in him a close confident, an advisor and above all a friend. It lasts longer than a day called Teacher's day. As for me I feel blessed to have lot of students who showered on me the love, affection and respect far more than I deserved. No wonder Teacher's day then, for me, is a day engulfed in blissful nostalgia. Shouldn’t I then thank all my students? 

Thank you dear all. Take care.