What the media explosion hasn't managed to kill

“I know what you are doing, I am as media savvy as you,” I growl. Its insulting to my intelligence when girls think I don’t know what they are doing when I catch them staring at the insides of their bag with sudden interest or worse smiling at their crotches.  These days one cannot bear the urge to respond to a funny text. However everyone is silently texting and not jabbering loudly, sparing teachers from comparing them to ‘fish markets’ like they have done since time immemorial.

What is it like to be a teacher in the era of media explosion? Grey clouds hover over the Bangalore sky and a mild rain wets the windowpanes. Just as I cuddle further into the folds of my comforter, I am woken up by a string of beeps. Not the chiming of my alarm that I expect to hear but texts that read” Hello ma’am, do we have college today?” and other variants such as “Maaaaa’am, the road outside my house is flooded.” One kind soul throws in a “Good Morning”. N stirs in his covers, as he sees me furiously typing away, “If the government declares a holiday, it is.” An answer well known, but yet they badger thinking their 30-year-old mentor in pyjamas through some divine intervention will grant them one.

The more media savvy you are, the more accessible you are and therefore the cooler you are considered. With the death of text messaging, Whatsapp has changed the student –teacher dynamics. Classes have groups, so instead of laboriously texting every sleepy girl, I post on the group, to which they respond with beaming smileys or crying yellow faces. Now they catch me ‘online’ and clarify their doubts. Virtual tutor to the rescue.

Writing notes has now become passé. I’m either asked to mail the ppt or let them take pictures of my notes, to be posted on the group. While sitting at the library the other day, I caught one of the class nerds roaming around with an iPad. She was busy leafing through a book and taking photos. Bigger images and better resolution you see. Well, I am just happy she was visiting the library.

As exams draw closer, the Whatsapp messages become more frantic. Photos of the exam timetable are now circulated. As the clock ticks, answer papers are anxiously filled with feverish scribbles that I have to play detective to decipher.  Acronyms go on a rampage. Sry mam no time. Hv to rite ASAP.

Facebook cannot be far behind. Everyone waits for that one girl to test waters and send you a request. I quickly scan my profile, hunting for any unsavoury photos or tawdry conversation and contemplate if my dress could be a few inches longer in the display picture. For once you press ‘accept’, the floodgates open and there is no looking back. I get a sneak peak into their colourful lives, their vociferous rants and interesting alter egos, just as they do. The stalking becomes mutual.

Internet inter-connects and reconnects, especially after a class graduates. Come teacher’s day, the same Facebook wall is splattered with messages of love and fond memories, reassuring me of my love for the job. Students from various batches write in from diverse parts of the globe to say hello. Lines blur as we chat and exchange stories It’s always nice to hear the ping of an email, especially when it’s from an old student, who writes in to say that she is studying journalism from Columbia University. Strangely it invokes maternal feelings, seeing her fulfil what I couldn’t. Sentiments overload, computer crashes.

While I am revelling in this euphoria,I receive a tiny envelope by post that reads “Dear Shakti Ma’am’” in beautiful calligraphic handwriting. From Shreya it says.Shreya was one of the quietest girls in class.She sat in the left corner,made eye contact at times, and rarely smiled.  But her assignments oozed of creativity and a very rare mind. She hardly spoke in class and I barely interacted with her too.

 A little handmade card emerges and reads “ Dear Shakti Ma’am, Thank you very much for your classes. I  really miss them.”

Media be damned.This feeling is unparalleled

-Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri' The New Indian Express, Bangalore on 26th Sept 2015.

Epiphany

-->

It was time to say bye. One of those customs I hated doing even when it was bidding adieu to something that was good while it lasted and I was moving on to greener and perhaps more promising pastures. In that bubbling melting pot of nostalgia, sadness and strange optimism, there was also an easy calm that gnawed my insides. As I cleaned my table of all the books, it dug deeper into my chest.

I had been teaching for 2 years now. I had established myself as a teacher noted for her passion. I dabbled in different subjects and widened my horizons. My personality and my teaching gradually evolved into a more confident and mature role. I shared a lovely relationship with all my students.

 Everything was fine. Except one class.

They were not a bunch of hooligans who would disrupt the class at every possible juncture, and bring the roof down. They certainly didn’t bully me or participate in mass bunking.  They just did not care.

The attendance was good, the class performance was fine. But they did not care. I taught them a subject that didn’t require to be studied; advertising. My classes were infused with many videos, analysis of ads, interaction and assignments that demanded only creativity, yet they were unperturbed. They stonewalled all my attempts to motivate them. Even then, they did not do so with a dramatic walk out or even a snigger, but with a wry smile.

It was at that point that I realized that indifference was more powerful than hate.  Even if a person hated me, it meant that somewhere I was part of their thought process and thereby there was scope for change. When they don’t care, when you don’t really ‘exist’ nothing can change.  Up until then, that was the biggest disappointment of my career, that I could not fathom why this class behaved this way. Feedback sessions with the students were futile. My attempts to make the classes more interesting didn’t help. I was alone, introspecting, again and again.

As I was packing, one of the students from that class, peered into the staff room, hesitantly, and asked if I had a minute to spare.  She thrust a tiny envelope into my hand that read “Dear Shakti Ma’am’” in her beautiful calligraphic handwriting. “ I heard you are leaving, I just wanted to give you this “she mumbled under her breath and disappeared before I could complete the thank you.  I hadn’t told the class that I was leaving. I didn’t feel like.

Shreya.She was one of the quietest girls in the class. One of the prettiest too. She sat in the left corner, second bench and took copious notes. She made eye contact at times, but rarely smiled. The first thing that struck about me was her beautiful handwriting. But when the class projects came, I was floored. She oozed of creativity; one of those rare minds that you feel would be a crime if it ever went to waste. She hardly spoke in class and I barely interacted with her as well.

 A tiny little card emerged from the handmade paper envelope and read “ Dear Shakti Ma’am, Thank you very much for your classes. We will really miss you.”

Those were the most eloquent words that I had ever read.

And the best compliment I had ever received.

Perhaps I was also too pre-occupied with the big picture that I failed to look at the finer details. Lots of students have waxed poetic about my classes. Many of which I would take with a pinch of salt.

But Shreya had, in her own soft, inconspicuous style done more than that. She silently reaffirmed the faith in myself.

She was probably speaking for the class out of politeness. But the tiny drop in the big ocean was enough and was all that mattered.

 I was ready to say Goodbye.

PS: Shreya Chakravathy now a budding Graphic Designer from NID designed this blog for me. Its been a pleasure to see her grow, and to see our relationship grow in more ways than one. Thank you Shreya for everything.

Musings of a first time Ma'am

So what do you want to be when you grow up?

Life has doled me this question at different stages of my life and I have answered it with childish enthusiasm, early adult cynicism and the nervousness of a 21-year old. However, surprisingly the answer has always been the same. “ I want to be a teacher.”

After a brief vacillation over a penchant for writing and a passion for teaching, I decided to step in to the same college that I had graduated from, but now as a ‘dignified’ lecturer.

 First began weeks of untiring sari shopping expeditions. Followed by frustrating but relentless practice sessions in front of the mirror. Old books and older notes were fished out and dusted clean from the bookshelf. Days were spent in making copious notes and nights in imaginary sessions of teaching where my quick thinking and smart rebuttals fended off students’ questions and pranks successfully. It was a whole new world. There I was, faculty in charge of fifty 19 year olds. The stuff that any parent’s nightmares are made off. There were 100 pairs of teeming eyes, some smiling, some with disdain, some looking skeptically, some sleeping but still open, but all scanning me from top to bottom.

I was a ‘ma’am’, and my stomach churned. The first time a girl wished me “good morning ma’am” I almost laughed on her face. The second time an entire class stood up and chanted it I wanted to duck for cover.

However, the previously irritating 5 1/2 yards of cloth did have some magic, finally. It clothed me with some degree of poise and a gait. It gave a young girl who dragged her feet in a pair of jeans, a sudden grace and a quiet respect. Some would say it made me a woman!

Yet the sari created only early magic.  As classes rolled by, I slowly tried to break the really frigid ice with my interactive classes, presented in a style and manner that they could relate to; keeping in mind that the average college student’s attention span is 30 minutes. Curiosity and questions soon paved way to interest and liking for the subject. However, the other girls who I bumped into, on the corridor, down the stairs jeered, and gesticulated to their friends. A teacher always seemed to have a readymade prototype- middle aged, spectacled and therefore venerable. But when a teacher who was friendly, who hated shouting and looked like one of them, sashayed into the class, she was always received with stunned silence. A young teacher was always treated with suspect both by students and family (mine, theirs), at least initially. Does she know her subject? Can she control the class? Doesn’t she look too small?  Questions were raised. It probably takes us years to realize that sometimes age, and education have nothing to do with the way we think and how good we are at something. The most educated of people can also have the narrowest of thought.  Looking at my students I realized that to be good at something, and to do that something good consistently well, one only needs passion.

Though my Ma’am avatar was accepted and maybe even respected in a month’s time, the same ‘ma’am’ could not be spotted in Coffee Day, in a mall in ‘normal clothes’, and surely not with guy. While some giggled, and some disappeared behind the nearest pillar, the naughty ones would come up and chant “Good evening Ma’am’ at their loudest and ‘sincere’ best! Well according to them, ‘All Ma’ams are boring’ and ’All ma’ams don’t have a life.’ 

My version of the teacher-teacher game did not have the imposing authoritarian adult figure with a stick in her hand and loud booming voice that everyone was afraid off. She was smart, sweet and well spoken. She was not the noble all sacrificing teacher or the commanding and knowledgeable one. She was passionate and wanted to make a difference.

Everything is a matter of getting used to. The bunch of notorious, warm, but also ‘I-know-it-all’ girls had warmed up and we lapped up the joys of teaching and being taught. The students and I grew a comfort level that went beyond the boundaries of age and hierarchy. Personal stories, favorite movies and plans after college were discussed with me, and I enjoyed it, without treading the invisible line that we had drawn. I realized that being a good teacher was about being attentive to the students’ responses and needs, and establishing a communication style that allowed the student to be herself. Instilling obedience or demanding respect never worked.

Students were very smart; whether young or old, they could identify the various types of teachers- The unprepared one, the one who gives unsubstantiated stories, the one who is scared of them, and the one who know her subject but cannot teach and the one who has both.

As for me, the friendly atmosphere made it easier to hold a class in attention. Win the over and hold them there. The foundation was laid.

Teachers are a child’s first brush with the outside world, and it would be an understatement to say that they have tremendous responsibility. We are all molded by our school, and refined by our colleges. To make education work, there must be good teachers.

My favorite teacher was the one who narrated E.B White’s classic “Charlotte’s Web’ every morning, back in second grade. Her simple storytelling pulled me into the magical world of books, and I started to read. The story kindled my imagination and inspired me to write my own.

As a student once told me, “If we like the teacher, we want to do well in her subject”. Good education can be that simple.

The Indian social system may project education as the only stepping stone to success, but it taught me to be original and to contribute something meaningful to life.

 Education is indeed that which remains after we forget what we’ve studied.