To all teachers

To all teachers

"For everyone of us that succeeds, it's because there's somebody there to show you the way out. The light doesn't always necessarily have to be in your family; for me it was teachers and school." (Oprah Winfrey)
I suppose this is true for a lot of us in the 40s and 50s where teachers played a major role in shaping our values and inspiring us. They took their job very seriously be it in preparing for the classes or in helping a laggard get over her/his learning troubles or in guiding us when we needed it. I went to a school where a lot of poor and lower middle class children studied. They came from backgrounds where their parents were not highly educated or aware of the world. For these children a whole new perspective and vision of the world was opened up by our teachers - a history teacher who would bring her daily newspaper to make us read about what was going on in the world, a science teacher who would ask a failed student to stay back after school to counsel her to help her cope with a problem father, an English teacher who would write our speeches for the competitions and train us for elocution competitions. Many of us put in extra work to please a teacher who was our favourite. My whole interest in English language started with the English teacher in class 9. I am sure there was such an inspiration for many of us - a teacher who was an example, a teacher who saw the innate talent and made you see it and nurture it, a teacher for whom we took that extra interest in a subject which became a lifelong passion. And the best part is that they did it out of genuine interest and not with any expectations. Their pride and satisfaction came from seeing their students reach great heights while they themselves stayed where they were.
There have been many moments when I have remembered my teachers with overwhelming gratitude. I wonder where they are today and feel sad at not being able to trace them until finally I realise they are there right within me having left apart of them in me while shaping me become the person I am today.

Albert Camus, the nobel prize winning Algerian writer dedicated his prize to his teacher and wrote a letter to him after winning it. He said:
Dear M. Germain,When I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you,without the hand that you held out to the poor boy who I was, without your teaching and example,none of this would have taken place. I will not aggrandise this honour. But it is a chance to tell you,what you have been and still are for me and to assure you that your efforts, your work and the generous heart you put into it are still living within the small pupil, who, despite his age, has not ceased being your grateful disciple."

What a touching gesture and each of us can think of at least one teacher who has done to this to us and shaped us become what we are today.

It is sad to see that today teaching is probably the last choice for most people. They are so poorly paid, their working conditions are hard and their work is hardly recognised and rewarded. It has always been so for teachers but then the average salary levels were not very high and a teacher could still make both ends meet. But in today's level of salaries and consequent price rise, how can we expect them to stay motivated when a fresh graduate in other sectors gets more salary than a post graduate teacher with 10 years experience? Even if they were to resist all such temptations and become teachers out of their passion they are eventually disillusioned by the quality of students and the respect they have for their teachers.I met a chemistry professor from a reputed college in Chennai who shared his sadness over the kind of students who opt for science courses today and it was pathetic. He says that the core of his students are those who have not managed to get seats in any professional courses and are there just to get a degree and no higher ambitions. He says that it is impossible to attract his best students towards research in the subject as they are recruited for domain expertise by IT firms.I worry about who is going to teach our future generations English and history and chemistry and mathematics.If this is the case in private institutions, I shudder to even begin to think of the government colleges.
I think it is time we woke up to the extent of the problem and implemented steps to make teaching an attractive career option.

And my salutes to all teachers on the eve of Teachers' day.May your tribe increase and continue to inspire future generations.