Skip to main content

Purity and Clarity

Taken during a trip to Meenmutti Falls (Wayanad, Kerala) with students

“There’s something that keeps us going because we know it’s right even when the whole world says it’s wrong.”  An 18 year-old student of mine wrote that in her FB status update a few minutes back.

There are more things I learn from my young students than from the wise adults.  That’s one of the blessings of the profession of teaching.  To be in touch with relatively uncontaminated minds is both a blessing and a hazard.  The hazard is the possibility of the teacher contaminating the young minds. 

Purity of heart and clarity of thought are quite likely to be perceived by the world as more dangerous than shades and shadows.  As an adult, I too feel burdened sometimes by such purity and clarity coming from my students.  But as a teacher I relish it because it’s a rare benediction.  


Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 4, 2017 at 1:22 AM

    The hazard you speak of is the biggest obstacle to the life to life transmission that teaching/mentoring is. When I was addressing my troubled self many years ago, my mentor advised me to stop standing in the way of my own happiness and success. Later, as I took up training and mentoring as a vocation, I realized that our conditioning, cynicism, idealism, motivations, are often projected in a very unconscious, unintended way and cloud the process of teaching. The socratic method of leaving students with "what do you think" seems to be a fairer, kinder way than to offer perspectives and answers.

    Watching my toddler grow and learn, I realize this problem of projecting our beliefs, desires, aspirations, all the more. It is hard to rein yourself in, but it is worth the reward as you see these young minds sort things out on their own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 4, 2017 at 8:27 AM

      As a teacher I go out of my way to avoid letting my cynicism, idealism, etc interfere with my classes. But as you say they do make their appearances even without our realisation. After all, as human beings we have our limits and limitations. I'm sure even students learn to adjust. Perhaps these are also part of their learning experiences.

      Delete
  2. Sapna DhyaniNovember 4, 2017 at 8:44 PM

    I really like this short write-up of your Sir. I related to to thoughts and words because I felt these same emotions during my innings as a teacher. Now I experience it with my children.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 5, 2017 at 8:39 AM

      Teaching is a difficult career especially these days when we are faced with a lot of students who have emotional problems. It's quite like bringing up your own children.

      Delete
  3. जितेन्द्र माथुरNovember 7, 2017 at 1:03 PM

    The hazard is the possibility of the teacher contaminating the young minds. You said it Sir. I am in complete agreement with the views expressed herein.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Art of Subjugation: A Case Study

Two Pulaya women, 1926 [Courtesy Mathrubhumi ] The Pulaya and Paraya communities were the original landowners in Kerala until the Brahmins arrived from the North with their religion and gods. They did not own the land individually; the lands belonged to the tribes. Then in the 8 th – 10 th centuries CE, the Brahmins known as Namboothiris in Kerala arrived and deceived the Pulayas and Parayas lock, stock, and barrel. With the help of religion. The Namboothiris proclaimed themselves the custodians of all wealth by divine mandate. They possessed the Vedic and Sanskrit mantras and tantras to prove their claims. The aboriginal people of Kerala couldn’t make head or tail of concepts such as Brahmadeya (land donated to Brahmins becoming sacred land) or Manu’s injunctions such as: “Land given to a Brahmin should never be taken back” [8.410] or “A king who confiscates land from Brahmins incurs sin” [8.394]. The Brahmins came, claimed certain powers given by the gods, and started exploi...
15 comments
Read more

The music of an ageing man

Having entered the latter half of my sixties, I view each day as a bonus. People much younger become obituaries these days around me. That awareness helps me to sober down in spite of the youthful rush of blood in my indignant veins. Age hasn’t withered my indignation against injustice, fraudulence, and blatant human folly, much as I would like to withdraw from the ringside and watch the pugilism from a balcony seat with mellowed amusement. But my genes rage against my will. The one who warned me in my folly-ridden youth to be wary of my (anyone’s, for that matter) destiny-shaping character was farsighted. I failed to subdue the rages of my veins. I still fail. That’s how some people are, I console myself. So, at the crossroads of my sixties, I confess to a dismal lack of emotional maturity that should rightfully belong to my age. The problem is that the sociopolitical reality around me doesn’t help anyway to soothe my nerves. On the contrary, that reality is almost entirely re...
14 comments
Read more

Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region. The peasant caste of Pulayas , for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans. Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits . What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali...
14 comments
Read more

Duryodhana Returns

Duryodhana was bored of his centuries-long exile in Mythland and decided to return to his former kingdom. Arnab Gau-Swami had declared Bihar the new Kurukshetra and so Duryodhana chose Bihar for his adventure. And Bihar did entertain him with its modern enactment of the Mahabharata. Alliances broke, cousins pulled down each other, kings switched sides without shame, and advisers looked like modern-day Shakunis with laptops. Duryodhana’s curiosity was more than piqued. There’s more masala here than in the old Hastinapura. He decided to make a deep study of this politics so that he could conclusively prove that he was not a villain but a misunderstood statesman ahead of his time. The first lesson he learns is that everyone should claim that they are the Pandavas, and portray everyone else as the Kauravas. Every party claims they stand for dharma, the people, and justice. And then plot to topple someone, eliminate someone else, distort history, fabricate expedient truths, manipulate...
14 comments
Read more