Teachers and angels

Playing the role of a teacher can be very tiring sometimes. It’s just not teaching pupils, it demands a lot of energy to keep the children disciplined and create an ambiance in the classroom to make them take interest in the topic at hand, make them respond both orally and in writing, convince them that whatever you are teaching is worth learning and earn their trust. It’s really important for a teacher to earn the trust of the students. It not only puts a lot of pressure on your vocal cord, it requires a lot of tact and thinking to save the teaching process from sinking into monotony. Sometimes children don’t listen, they remain lost in their own world and it happens so that you are seventy five percent in to your lesson and a child doesn’t open the book. Either he or she is talking to her friend or playing some prank while you are engaged in blackboard work. At the end of a working day full of seven or eight periods the teacher is left tired, exhausted, and fatigued. But a teacher’s life is not always full of din and hard work. It does have its moments of joy.

One particular day when I entered the class, the children were in their usual state. Some promptly got up and shouted ‘good morning’, some rose reluctantly as if they didn’t want to come out of their indolence. As I started to speak on that day’s topic, a girl, who always wants to dominate the proceedings in the class came up to me and pointing to a boy, told loudly, 'Ma’am, that Asambhab ( name changed) entered the girls’ toilet today, opened each cubicle and peeped into it'. I made the boy stand and started to ask why he thought of doing such an insane thing. The girl came closer to me and told in aloud,’ Ma’am, he also tries to hold girls.’ The children were of sixth standard only, so I couldn’t believe that the boy had the awareness of some boy-girl thing. Besides, the boy who was the target of this complaint was a clumsy boy, always fumbling with his books and note-books and never regular in his class work or home work. He would never sit steadily in his class and was often reprimanded for that. Students always dismissed him as a dull boy. The whole class heard the complaint and four, five girls shouted in support. I couldn’t contain my laughter looking at the bespectacled, guilty-looking Asambhab who, visibly embarrassed, refused to admit the charge and started to explain. If it had been another day, I would have shouted at him because he was already in my bad book. But, just the day before, while teaching, I was checking out if all the children were writing or not and I found a very accurate drawing of our solar system under Asambhab’s language note-book. I was quite surprised. On being asked about the drawing, he told that, Ma’am, I want to be a space scientist. At that very moment something stirred within me and I understood how wrong we are in understanding our children. He never did language work in the class properly, because his interest lay in space science! I felt terribly guilty and thanked God for teaching me a lesson. I understood what goodness lay hidden within the boy who seemed so clumsy.

I asked Asambhav why he went to the girls’ toilet and opened the door of each cubicle. He, still embarrassed and red-face, told that another Boyd had told him to chase that particular girl and he was just doing that. I had a good laugh and I told the girls to excuse him because he was just an innocent boy following another’s command and young scientists are generally mad. The whole class, including me was in splits. It was a moment we all enjoyed together. I told the boy not to worry and asked him to sit. He looked grateful and tears welled up in my eyes thinking how innocent young children can be. They don’t understand the critical world of the grown ups.

Very small moments teach us so many things! That day I understood that we teachers would have to be very careful and loving in our dealings with young minds. They are immensely talented citizens in the making and one wrong deed can affect them in a big way. Yes, we teach almost seven to eight periods each day and it saps our energy, we tend to get irritable if children don’t listen to us or don’t do class work, but we have to listen to both sides with patience when we deal with a complaint. We cannot afford to take decisions just on the basis of hearsay. A teacher’s role is very important in a student’s life, so we must give a chance to each child to express him or her and narrate their stories. Otherwise, we will, without our knowledge, be committing the sin of being unfair and unjust. We have to treat them all equally or we will not be able to stand with our head erect, in God’s court.