Teacher’s Day: Forty Years in the Classroom

 

My First Colleagues in the Profession - Me back row 2nd from left

A few months back, I received a phone call from a student whom I taught at St Joseph’s Convent School in Shillong in the early 1990s. She’s now mother of a grownup boy who works in Kerala. When she came to Kochi to visit him, she remembered me. I was quite excited when she recalled certain happy moments from her schooldays of which I was a part too. A teacher’s true reward is such remembrance by former students.

I became a teacher purely by chance. Because I couldn’t find a better job, to put it bluntly. I had failed even as a hotel management trainee. A friend helped me find the teaching post at St Joe, as the girls called their school fondly. Having majored in math with physics and stats as subs, I took up the job of teaching math and science to high school students.

The fact that my first students were all girls helped. My immature and egotistic nature was reined in by the charming smiles all over. I grew to love teaching sooner than I would have expected.

I spent my free time reading since Shillong didn’t have any worthwhile entertainment whatsoever. That’s how I decided to do postgraduation in English literature. After eight years of my stint at St Joe, I became a lecturer of English in a college in the same place. That was a tragedy. Many things went wrong – due partly to my intrinsic flaws and partly to the society’s delight in accelerating an individual’s downfall – and I finally quit the place. And became a schoolteacher again, in Delhi, where I taught for a decade and a half. My last ten years of teaching were in my own home-state of Kerala.

Over 40 years, I made my share of mistakes. There were students I dealt with harshly. There were occasions when I lost patience with behaviour that irritated me. With the wisdom of hindsight, I sometimes wonder whether certain incidents could have been averted if I had been more patient or had taken the trouble to understand what lay behind a student’s behaviour.

Whenever I tried to understand a student personally, it was a tremendous learning experience for me. I learnt that every student carries an epic within them. Some of those stories are a lot painful too.

The most important lesson I learnt as a teacher was that teaching is not about imparting knowledge. Teaching is a relationship that evolves in the classroom. A classroom is a space where trust is built, personalities meet, and human beings influence one another. A student learns not only from what a teacher says, but also from the teacher’s patience, fairness, enthusiasm and concern. In turn, teachers are shaped by their students: their questions, struggles, aspirations and even mischief.

Knowledge is the visible part of education. The invisible bond that develops between teacher and student is what gives learning its meaning. The lessons taught in a classroom may fade with time, but the memory of a caring teacher, a word of encouragement or a moment of understanding can remain a lifetime. That is why teaching is more than a profession. Teaching is a mission.

When I left teaching at the age of 65, I knew that it was becoming difficult for me to hold on to this view of mine about the missionary nature of teaching. The generation had changed drastically. I would have continued to teach otherwise. That’s different story, however.

I wish HAPPY TEACHER’S DAY to all teachers in India, especially my colleagues in the last school with whom I’m still in touch.

The Last School

PS. India observes Sept 5 as Teacher’s Day in honour of its first President, Dr S Radhakrishnan, who was a teacher and philosopher. He said, “The true teachers are those who help us think for ourselves.”