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.
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