Teachers’ Day: From a Teacher’s Perspective

Coinciding with the Teachers’ Day today, I would like to write something about teaching and what it means to me. The best way I have learned to be a teacher is by looking at the way in which others teach me. Teachers are lifelong learners who relish the chance to grow and evolve. Moreover, the innocent enthusiasm of young students keep teachers young as they remind you to smile through.

In many ways, learning and teaching are ties to each other. Teaching means helping people to learn something. Teaching is learning, enriching and growing. Teaching is caring, motivating and inspiring. Teaching is collaborating/ equalizing, energizing and exhilarating. Teaching is dividing, equalizing and loving.

I gain fondness by seeing a person who learns and changes and gain understanding about the meanings of life and the world they live in and having the ability to be unselfish and worthy contributors to society. I help them to grow into what they want to be.

I have encountered many best students in my life who have in turn shaped my life better. They are Monu Tamang, Mahindra, Yangchen, Sonam3s, Susan, Karma to name a few.

A novice child comes into class not able to read. When he leaves in December, he will have become independent and understand the way of things and potential and creative solver.  I have to say, seeing the progression of a child and making a difference in a child's life from February to December is invigorating. That's what will make teaching mean the most to me.

Teaching to me means caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It is about passion as it is about the reason. It's about not only motivating students to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful, and memorable. It is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and pushing students to excel; at the same time, it's about being human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.

Teaching is more than just a job. It's a calling. It's an ever-surprising mix of grueling hard work and ecstatic successes, both big and small. To constantly improve teaching capabilities and to be there for the student, and to help with any problems they have, in or out of the class, to teach and delight are my motto of being in teaching.

There are many different learning styles as there are many ways to solve the problems. The ability to look at life in a different way and to explain a topic in a different way is one way.  Not everyone gets a subject as taught by every teacher. Images, pictures, trips, etc are some ways.

 

As a teacher I think, we need to have the ability to change, but it is also important to be able to keep hold of the good things. Some teachers may fear change, as change is uncertain, but it is not necessary for teachers to change everything they currently do in the classroom, but to change some things to make improvements. Change is a slow and difficult process, so should be taken step by step.

As teachers we should always remember the ‘Wise Old Owl:’

The wise old owl lived in an oak

The more he saw, the less he spoke

The less he spoke, the more he heard

Why can’t we all be like that bird?

The work of the teacher will not end. Its a continuous ripple effects on are always there somehow somewhere. We teachers must remember that if a student fails then: the teacher has failed; the examination system has failed; the evaluation system has failed and by and large the education system as a whole has failed.

Something

Everybody is doing something;

Working, talking, staring, and sitting,

Sleeping, standing, and waiting

Peeing…

I am doing nothing

Just watching

In a boulevard depot

A minute bus stop

I, looking

Doing nothing.

Everybody is doing something;

Driving, climbing, jerking, and crying

Reading, writing,and playing

Peeing…

I am doing nothing

But my mind is occupied by all these something.

A minute watch

Catch a touch

Of wall painting

And wall washing.

Everybody is doing something;

Selling, buying, tweaking, and pulling

Some happy, some sad, and eating

Some angry, some disturbing

A minute: Three people peeing

Wall painting or wall washing!

I am doing nothing

But my mind is occupied by all these something

And still feels like I’m doing nothing.

Note: The poem describes a minute bus stop in one of the terminals in Bangalore metropolitan city. Indian peeing on the wall is the most prominent thing one could see anywhere in India – in front of the crowd. Very embarrassing!

Being Bad Boys

Boys are boys. Girls are girls. Nicely said.  Boys will remain boys, be in Bhutan, India, Arab countries, Africa, and whichever community that they belong to, boys are always boys.  There are no bars, no religions, no conformities when it comes to doing something. They are damned bad birds. They sleep the whole day and enjoy the whole night. They talk about sex and the only sex, no love, no affection of sorts. They watch ridiculous movies. They play loud music. They never go to class. They never wash dishes, etc and etc.

Very recently, a group of boys rented the upper floor flat. Four boys stayed there in three BHK. And it is very much the same with them. The same behavior, the same loud music, the same. They sometimes throw buckets of water down on the staircases. Crazy. Fully maniacs are those boys, and because of these, I feel boys are different species. They have no such thing as forbearance. They are animals sometimes. They have all qualities of donkeys, monkeys, horses, pigs.

In my class, we have one very mannered, up-to-date, perfectly well-disciplined boy, a kind of very studious boy. He was more than me. But when time ran, he has changed. We told him that he behaved like a girl. He changed now. He has now become crazier than any other fellow mates from the class. He bunks from the class, sleeps in the class, and fights with teachers. He has simply become a hopeless, mannerless person. He simply doesn’t have a future, I feel. In the distant land, there was a king. He wanted to find out where the language comes from. He worked for many many years. The crazy king asked all his ministries to do some research about it. He concluded and laughed himself declaring, “Language comes from the society.” So, it’s society-made. Boys aren’t made by society, I guess. They are borne tough and crazy by nature. And the polarity of boys is girls. Bet it, some girls are not that polar. They, however, are equally crazy or quite a lot than boys. Despite this, I do have not much knowledge of ducky’s world. We are in drake’s world.

I have encountered many boys belonging to different sets of religious groups. From the surface, these boys would look religiously inclined and would look at everything forbade by moral and ethical values or conformities of the society. They are not. They say something and do the opposite right away. For example, Muslims are so much bounded by a confirmed set of beliefs that they are not allowed to make any kind of adultery. But they do. I have seen, they drink, make girlfriends, sleep like pigs, and hardly ever prays. Because they are boys.

Me, I am a middle person, a kind of GNH follower. Not a fanatic in everything, and not so indifferent. I am on my way; doing all to assimilate and conform in life. That’s me.