35. “those whom the Gods hate, they make teachers”

William Lyon Phelps has rightly said ‘at a certain age some people’s minds close up: They live on their intellectual fat’. It’s not a serious matter.

What is serious is – Nothing is worse than a teacher who knows no more than the students ought to know, as Goethe said. However, the fact is most of our teachers stop expanding their horizon of knowledge and restrict themselves towards the ‘lecture-material’ and course books.

Gone are the days when we had scholar teachers. Teachers who loved to be a part of the process of making of the history. After all, when a student passes out of a school or college History is created. Every action of his shows the pain and anguish and struggle his teachers have undergone. 

Leave aside the ‘guru-shishya’ system which prevailed in this country. Even two decades ago we had dedicated teachers. Now the scene is entirely different. 

Who is to be blamed for this? Payment, facilities or other associated job-tails?

Now-a-days teachers are more interested in tuitions although they get a fat check every month unlike two decades back. In smaller towns sometimes going to the point of harassing students who have not joined their tuition classes. 

This frustration has led young and bright students not to prefer teaching as a preferred profession. Their criteria of choosing another profession might be subjective, however, the pathetic condition is certainly biggest reason that plays in their not choosing this once holy pursuit. It is the last recourse. The last window to jump out when all other doors are closed.

After all, a child’s memory is very analytical. One may try to cheat a child in many ways but as the poem goes, child is the father of man. So, one can’t cheat his father and should not try. 

Ancient Greek author, Lucian said that those whom the Gods hate, they make teachers. We have no idea behind his observation but certain instances have happened, which as a journalist I had reported long back, and I’m sure such instances do happen now also.

First: A girl student studying in 12th standard in Mahatma Phule College at Kandhar in Nanded district in Maharashtra was allegedly raped and subsequently murdered by her teacher. A mob of 5,000 people, which tried to attack the lock-up in which culprit was kept, was lathi charged. 

The matter was raised in the State Legislative Council. The demand was not so much to punish the guilty teacher but to suspend police official who had resorted to a brutal lathi charge on the mob of Matang community that was protesting against the crime. 

The members were certainly more interested about their ‘vote bank’. 

Second: A school teacher, posted at a government school in Teztoli village in Rohtak district of Haryana molested a girl student of the school. But he was not lucky enough as his counterpart in Maharashtra. He was presented before the village Panchayat which ordered that the culprit’s face be blackened and he be made to sit on a donkey and taken into Village Street. A fine of 50,000 was also imposed on the guilty teacher and he was asked to leave the school. 

Yes, the matter was resolved without referring it to the police to save the girl from disgrace. 

Third: At least 17 teachers including a lady teacher and a college manager were trapped by the flying squad on charges of helping the Uttar Pradesh board examinees in copying in Harchand Mal Inter College in Tikri and Gandhi Smarak Inter College in Meerut and Baghpat district. 

The poor supervisor was held responsible for failing to check copying in his center by officials from the education department. What he could do when the very teachers who were supposed to help him were performing this ‘noble job.’ 

Oscar Wilde certainly had faced an incident very similar to above three when he wrote: “O, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others.” 

Even Bernard Shaw had not spared this great and noble profession when he writes: “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.” 

But we must not forget Socrates, Bruno, Plato and Aristotle. In conventional sense they were all teachers. Believe me, my point is not to ridicule this profession because my father was also a teacher.

I remember a Radio Talk given by Mr. M.K Naik. He narrated the story of a primary school teacher whose favourite method of punishing his errant charges was to make them write out a sentence a hundred times. For instance, if a boy came late, he was made to write a hundred times, “I shall not be late again.” 

Years passed and this teacher was once caught by a traffic policeman, trying to cross the street at a busy city intersection, when actually the motorists had the right of way. When he stood in the dock, he suddenly noticed that the judge was a former pupil of his and naturally expected to go scot-free. 

But the pupil who had several impositions from this teacher during his school days suddenly realized that the time for vengeance had at long last arrived. 

He ordered his former teacher to sit down and write the sentence “I shall not cross the street against the wrong light” two hundred times. So, neither the teacher forgot his old student nor the student forgot his teacher. 

On a lighter note, let us enjoy a story which is true – 

Once a student was required to rise in class and tell what the University meant to them. He took minutes to figure out and at last nervously got up and announced “I owe a lot to this University; you see-my parents met here”.

(Top Photo Courtesy: https://ricardoberris.com, with thanks)