ANNOYANCE -III

 ANNOYANCE- III 

Continues

Being singled out ‘for what’ should guide our decisions of personal effort. Honestly no one takes delight at being branded ‘poor’ or bad as a teacher.

So, people take recourse to befriending students by appeasing them through liberal marks, kind words, winking at their obvious inadequacies in examinations, trying to maintain an uncalled for proximity to students by discussing about colleagues of every description and so on. Let us remember that youngsters know how to appease our ego by saying things ‘we would relish’ and achieve their end persisting with their academic inadequacy. The greatest irony is, the same students after their course of study would alert the new incumbents, about our profile, more precisely our idiosyncrasies and brief them as to how to exploit those to their advantage. Over the years we pick up all titles, nick names and other similar silent unwritten awards. Teachers who are not of academic value to the students will have to face these ignominies year after year. Why should we not be Royal icons to our students by our honest efforts? Daily convenience in leading an idle life as a teacher does not help any one. Quite often how one feels of self has an important bearing on profession. If by our own rating we are less, our attitude to perform stays low too. Thus a certain level of self esteem is necessary for a stimulus to do better. This is here that one has to contain the tendencies of ego. Tasting success in early career is an important factor to sustain enthusiasm. But, success has to be achieved by conscious effort. The route to success is methodic, requiring organized approaches to teaching/ learning. Besides what comes under the broad banner of preparation, several small strategies would help. Please make it a habit to discuss the subject matter in the company of your colleagues. There is nothing inferior about it. Many harbour their doubts and try their own ways of solving them. The process is less effective and time-consuming. A small interaction with a senior colleague would lend the right support and clarity to your requirement. These days, people are unhappy to follow these elementary practices. What is worse, any effort by well-meaning seniors is misconstrued as an infringement upon the dignity of the youngster. There is no dignity in being silently shallow and shabbily hollow. Several hours of taxing preparation of lessons can be fruitfully minimized from the interaction with colleagues. Our basic mistake has been, not to have learnt these in our earlier days. There is no point in sustaining mistakes under the garb of self esteem and non existent dignity. Gathering information from a live-interaction has not had any alternative so far. That is the very basis of organizing classes even under the distant mode or Correspondence. [I find many people calling it ‘corres’.

 Probably they imply that it is a programme with truncated syllabus, by down-sizing the name too.] The importance being so, class room teaching must receive serious attention.

All the regulatory parameters of work strategies have already been discussed under related captions earlier. All I need to reiterate here is that true understanding of textual message is the honest requirement for teachers/ learners. My earlier suggestion to avoid carrying text books to class room has been rather not understood well. Probably I have not made the idea clear. My suggestion was for technical subjects and not for languages. Obviously language teachers have to follow the text, syllable by syllable.

Teachers should realize that students can be properly trained to the process of learning by sincere efforts. Large scale indifference to the down trend can be reversed if teachers recognize that there is no further scope or time to allow deterioration. What matters in the final reckoning is that job seekers must be equipped. Teaching should address this issue.

Students: A lot depends on how the students desire equipping themselves. They should understand that they are at the stage of preparing for their life. We think of life only at the fag end of our studies. Even the courses of study chosen are not based on any specific criterion. Therefore students lack the requisite inclination for study. Too often they advance the pessimistic excuse that even if we study well where is the job? My reminder to them is, even if you study well there is a remote chance and what prospect do you imagine if you do not study well? Never try to equate study with jobs. The immediate concern should be to equip. Equipping is not getting a degree or a title. It does not matter what you study but it really matters as to how well you study. I mean, the world is large enough to “take in” any form of knowledge. I am very specific- “knowledge” in a domain is going to matter in any stage of the history of the planet. Never jump in to ‘made-believe’ notions that only some lines of study have a potential job market. It is another defeatist concept in the sense that it destroys any drive in us to pursue other areas of study. Please note that only the competent stand the occasion to compete. By choosing the most popular course, at best one can be among a large bulk of competitors since very many have opted for the same study. Fierce competition does not mean that all of them have made it to jobs. In the ultimate reckoning, only competence decides chances. Competence is a product of genuine efforts of understanding. It is the basis of comprehension. It is opportune for me to recall here that by the year 2001-2002, 180 Indian graduates in English and another 43 Mathematics graduates from our country were recruited to teach these subjects to   children in England.                          This was officially done through the Government of India, after a global search for talent in these domains by the recruiting country.

to continue                                                       Prof.K. Raman