Being a Teacher: What It Means

Being a Teacher: What It Means

Sanjeev Kumar Nath

(This is not a comprehensive academic discussion on the subject. These are some random thoughts on teaching-learning, based on the author’s experience as a teacher, not on any text-book on teaching. Also, the personal pronoun “he” is used at many places in reference to a teacher, a student, or someone else, but “she” is also included in all those places. “He and she” has not been used simply to avoid clumsiness, not because of any gender bias.)

Teachers can have really lasting impact on the minds of their students, not merely by what they teach in the classroom, but also by what kind of human beings they are.

Little kids and young people are super learning machines. Parents and teachers often do not even realize how much the children imitate them or learn from them. Some people tend to think of teaching as a rather boring job : teaching the same stuff year after year!

Actually, this is not correct at all. A teacher does not teach the same thing year after year not only because the content of the syllabus changes from time to time, but if he is a really good teacher, every class is a new experience even if the subject/content taught is the same.

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Teaching is not dictating the same stuff from dog-eared notebooks year after year; teaching involves meditative reflection on the subject taught, and there is no end to finding new insights with repeated reflection. The meditative reflection often produces sparks of thought that can ignite new ideas in young minds. All this, and much more, happens in a dynamic classroom. Besides, every year there is the excitement of meeting new students, fresh young minds eager to learn.

It is sometimes falsely assumed that overhead projectors and powerpoint and all kinds of smart classroom devices make teaching dynamic. This is not to denounce the benefits of technology. Technology can help; but only if the teacher is passionate about teaching. Without the “power” of the presenter/teacher, powerpoint can be entirely powerless, drab. (Think for a moment: What technology did the greatest teachers of all times, such as the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus have?)

The firmer the teacher’s intellectual grasp of the subject taught, the better his teaching will be. The teacher must first have knowledge to be able to impart knowledge. Then what about the trained teacher?

If a teacher has adequate knowledge of the subject and is also trained to teach, would it be enough? Most teacher-trainers or people in the business of teaching teachers will perhaps say that knowledge and training are enough.

However, it is not impossible to meet a trained teacher who is a disaster in the classroom, or even a teacher-trainer who is a disaster in the classroom! In fact, such people are not too rare.

Obviously, the very fact that it is possible to be a bad teacher even after acquiring the required knowledge of the subject and also training on teaching, means that to be a truly good teacher, something more is needed. What is this something more? Some people have some innate qualities that make them superb teachers. It is as in artistic fields such as painting and music. One can train to be a good musician, but perhaps not a musical genius unless there is something innate.

There is a limit to which one can learn and be good at music. To be able to cross that limit, to excel beyond limits, one must first have an innate propensity for understanding, appreciating, making good music. We all have noticed that there are people who are quite good at practising a certain art without having had the opportunity to learn the art in the proper way.

If he is provided with the opportunity to learn the art systematically, he can really excel.

Teaching is also at least partially an art. That is why, one with an innate capability for teaching does better than one who may have received training but does not quite “have” it in him. I believe the best teachers are born (like the best artists), not made through training. Of course, everyone may not agree with what I have said here, but I have had my share of meeting trained disasters and untrained masters.

Teaching very little kids can be one of the most enjoyable occupations in the world. The little ones are so eager to learn! And they have such mind-boggling capacity for learning! George Bernard Shaw was known for making iconoclastic comments on many issues, but I think what he said about very early education is not merely a sign of his iconoclasm, but of his real grasp of what goes on in the mind of the little learner.

Shaw says that the most difficult part of our education is when we learn the alphabets, the numbers and such things in early childhood. This is because the little child has to put stupendous effort to understand all these things which are entirely new for him. In higher classes, he builds on what he has already acquired, but in the first class, he has to start from nothing. Psychologists also agree that we do most of our learning in infancy and early childhood, not in adulthood.

Thus, a PhD scholar does not have to put so much effort as a nursery student to understand the things he is learning. That is why teachers of little kids need to be extremely patient with their students. Patience, love and care can do wonders, not harsh words. Unfortunately, we still come across monsters in the shape of teachers who think that being angry with the little learners is a part of their job.

A part of this problem is that we have young men and women who want a job; it doesn’t matter if it is the job of a policeman or a teacher. We certainly can’t blame them for seeking appointment, especially because unemployment is such a huge problem in our country today.

However, if one doesn’t really have aptitude for teaching and love for learning, then the job will not be enjoyable for the teacher, and learning will not be enjoyable for the student. Sri Ramakrishna used an analogy for such a situation. Although he spoke primarily about a spiritual teacher, a guru and his disciple, the analogy can perhaps be applied to any unsuitable teacher and his student. He said that if a small, non-poisonous snake caught a big frog, then it would be endless struggle for both. The snake won’t be able to swallow the frog, while the frog won’t be able to break free, and both would be tired by the struggle: one to swallow, the other to break free.

Teaching is also a life-long career for most people who join the profession. Some people seek other employment, such as jobs in the civil services, even after having been appointed. If the person does not have his heart in teaching, then it is good that he change his job. Remaining a reluctant or incompetent teacher for decades would mean doing disservice to the students year after year.

Again, the process of teacher-selection should ideally be such that only the deserving ones—not only in terms of educational qualification but also aptitude for teaching—get the job.

In Assam, for some years now, many young people with excellent aptitude for teaching and reasonably good academic qualification have not been successful in interviews for college teachers because the system of selection prioritizes examination marks over things like aptitude for teaching and other qualities that make a good teacher.

Unbiased and skilful interviewers can find out if the candidate has a flair for teaching, and if he is psychologically mature and sound enough to deal effectively with students. A marks-based system does not allow all this and consequently, someone with very high marks but no aptitude for teaching and without the required interpersonal communication skills, can get the job.

And there are specific institutions today known to give highly inflated marks to examinees, simply to be able to attract students seeking admission. Someone who has scored very high in examinations conducted by such institutions need not be a bright scholar at all. For senior teachers, it is very frustrating to see bright students remain unsuccessful in interviews because of a faulty system of selection.

Being a teacher means being concerned about the overall welfare of the students, not just their studies. It is not possible for a teacher to meddle in everyone’s affairs, but just as parents always wish the welfare of their children, teachers also seek the welfare of their students above everything else.

One of the major mistakes a teacher can make is to underestimate his students. I remember being invited by some people to teach spoken English to a group of school kids who were all from non-English medium schools. I was then working in a college in Upper Assam. When I was a school student like them, many years ago, I was trained in phonetically correct British English pronunciation, but later, as an adult, I outgrew my fascination with British English pronunciation, and switched to a more “homely” Indian way of speaking.

However, I still value the grounding in the exact sounds of the English language. I was told that the school kids in my “Spoken English” class could not pronounce many English sounds properly, and I soon found out that the kids were in fact producing the sounds of their mother tongues while trying to speak in English.

However, I did not feel that I was going to interact with kids who knew next to nothing about English pronunciation, but was impressed by their great eagerness to learn. This was not a normal class in their school, so they were all excited about the class. They belonged to different mother-tongue groups: Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Nepali.

As I began teaching the individual consonant and vowel sounds in English, I explained to them the way the organs of speech worked for each sound, and was so happy to observe that very soon, they began to produce perfectly correct English sounds. After all, they were children, and all children have immense capacity to imitate and learn. I merely showed them the exact way to produce the sounds, and very soon we were making wonderful progress.

For some reason best known to the organizers, the classes did not last too long, but these classes were a great learning experience for me. I learnt very well about the myth of Assamese or Bengali or Hindi medium school children not being able to pronounce English words well.

The teacher needs to have some patience, use some imagination, and be precise in his instructions, and there is no reason why these children cannot speak as fluently and as well as students from posh English-medium schools. This is just an example to illustrate my point that it is wrong to underestimate students, any students, and that it pays to believe in their capabilities.

Unfortunately, most of our educational institutions do not have adequate facilities for differently abled students. Often, it is the individual teacher who has to decide on strategies to teach the differently abled students, if any, in a classroom full of “normal” students. However, sometimes a so-called disability can even be a certain kind of advantage to a learner.

I once had the experience of teaching a blind student, and I found that she was extraordinarily good in picking up the exact sounds of the language. I am quite sure that her ears are much sharper than the ears of other “normal” students.

People who think that teaching is a very easy, comfortable job do not know much about what it takes to be a teacher. Teaching is actually one of the most stressful jobs, and is actually not for people who cannot handle stress properly and who think that the teacher’s work is restricted to what he does in the classroom.

Before he meets his students in the classroom, he has to plan his lessons properly. What is the subject/topic to be taught? What about the students: how many are they, from what kind of background? Are they bright or not so bright? All such questions have to be taken into consideration. The teacher cannot be of help only to the brighter kids; he must be able to address the needs of the not-so-bright ones, too. He must not make value judgements on the basis of the perceived brightness or dullness of the students. An individual may not be too good in one particular thing, but may excel in something else.

Besides, a student being bright or dull may not be an indication of the student’s brain power, but his family background and the earlier teachers he has had. Even our policy-makers often forget the big ground realities: the socio-economic strata from which the students come, and the connectedness of primary, secondary and tertiary stages of education. Just as we have poor families, we have poor schools, often government ones.

It is a shame that no one seems to be particularly concerned about the huge difference in the environments, infrastructure, other facilities, and teacher-quality that students studying in different schools (and other institutions) may experience in our democratic country. Have we all agreed that a worker’s son must be a worker, a poor farmer’s son must remain a poor a farmer, and that a business tycoon’s kids must study in posh private schools here or abroad?

But the point about the teacher’s job being stressful and difficult needs to be elaborated. Taking into consideration the facilities that are there at his disposal, considering the nature of the class he is to teach, the subject or topic to be taught, the teacher has to make his preparations before he enters the class.

A teacher must be absolutely punctual, entering and leaving the classroom at the exact correct time.

A teacher who goes to class late, is immediately perceived as weak or uninterested in his work, because students assess every movement of the teacher, and respond accordingly. They know with whom they may take certain liberties and with whom they have to be on their toes. Also, no teacher has the right to eat away the class-time of the next teacher by lingering and not leaving the class on time.

The teacher must be able to manage the class in such a manner that he gets full attention from the students. He may need to repeatedly explain certain difficult points. He should be able to make the class interactive, encouraging the students to ask questions, debate and discuss. The use of teaching aids can be very helpful, but the teacher should know which, what and how much of these aids to use.

A teacher needs to be friendly with his students, and yet maintain a certain distance, which can be different for different age groups. One can hug a tiny tot, but not a grown student.

Teaching is a stressful job because it involves work before, during and after the class. After the class, he might have to check assignments and prepare examination questions. He will also need to prepare for the future classes. A lot of reading and researching is required to be really confident as a teacher. In a way, a teacher’s job is a 24-hour job.

One of the frustrating things a teacher may have to face is that there may be certain policy decisions taken by the authorities about which he can do nothing. Usually, a teacher doesn’t have the power to formulate policy decisions, but has to merely follow them.

Thus, he may not agree with the curtailment of certain topics from a syllabus or the inclusion of certain others, but he has to abide with the decisions taken by those who have the power to make such decisions but not the goodwill to work for the welfare of all, and sometimes not even the ability to understand the implications of the decisions. Thus, there can be moments when the teacher feels rather helpless, but perhaps that is true for many other professions, too.

A teacher needs to appreciate the sincere efforts of his students. When a student is appreciated for what he has done, he gets inspired to do more, to put more effort to achieve excellence. Small improvements, tiny efforts, should be noticed and appreciated; the teacher need not wait for the student to come first in the class to find an occasion to appreciate him.

With small kids we can easily notice how they crave for appreciation, because the innocent little ones have not yet learned to hide the basic human yearning for appreciation. We all like to be appreciated, but with age, we tend to learn to hide our desire for appreciation. A teacher can get the best out of a student by showing appreciation for his efforts. It can work wonders.

The very fact that we remember other people’s appreciation of our talents or achievements (however small or big) is an indication of how much we value appreciation. It may be a kind word or a smile of approval from an elder or a teacher, and we carry it in our memory for ever.

Decades ago, there was this boy who was in the final year of the pre-university class (class XII), when one day, one of the English teachers asked the students how many of them could recite an English poem from memory.

This boy, who had just fallen in love with a collection of English poems called The Golden Treasury, raised his hand, and the teacher asked him to recite his poem. The boy started reciting Wordsworth’s poem “The Daffodils”:

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils…”

He recited the poem in the correct rhythm, pausing at the required places, but some of his fellow students mistook the pauses as signs of his weak memory, and tried to fill the pauses with their suggestions when the teacher told them to keep quiet: “Just keep quiet. His recitation is perfect.”

That boy went on to do English major, and MA and PhD later, and became a teacher. One of the reasons why he chose to pursue his studies in English Literature is the appreciation of teachers as indicated in the “true story” above.

Human beings hunger for appreciation. We can’t help it; it’s in our nature. A good teacher makes use of this psychological fact, and brings out the best in his students. 

(Sanjeev Kumar Nath, English Department, Gauhati University, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com)

[Images from different sources; headline image-‘ Uttam Teron started teaching underprivileged children with just Rs 800. Today, he runs Parijat Academy — a non-profit school that teaches nearly 400 kids from 20 villages for free’.]

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