Saturday 8 March 2014

The Real and Wannabe Teacher…

There are good teachers and there are bad teachers. There are funny teachers and there are serious teachers. There are engaging teachers and there are simply boring ones. There are humble teachers and there are those who are those whose pride cannot be accommodated within the classroom.

It is this last category of teachers that have the most influence on the students’ capacity to learn in class. This is an opinion of a student and has not been verified by researchers or experts in the field of teaching psychology or whatever it is called. Even though it is so, a little credibility is affordable in this case since it comes from the experience of those who are guinea pigs to different methods of teaching.

I've been meaning to write on this for the past one week but work has kept me away from my blog. However, now that I've finally managed to get to it, allow me to expound on the type of teacher who is well received and one who is scorned at by his/her students.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

I have come to believe from my most recent experiences that it is all about attitudes here. If a teacher can manage to build a rapport with the students; forfeiting all egotistical problems, delusions of superiority and manage to gain the trust of the students not with politics but with good teaching, they tend to become almost some kind of idols in the hearts of the ones they have undertaken to impart education to.

As a post graduation student, I can safely say that I have seen more teachers in my life than have most Indians, and by that right I comment now that those who think themselves above those whom they have deigned to teach only manage to lose the long-instilled respect that students hold for their ‘Gurus’.

For example, if a ‘teacher’ keeps drilling the fact that he/she is better than the students (the fact they already know) the students kind of tend to lose interest altogether in the subject and instead choose to leave the classroom for better activities like drinking tea, watching a movie, playing a mobile game or just sleep with their eyes wide open (I’m glad to report that I've now mastered that art). There develops an undercurrent of discontent and some order of dissatisfaction with the person who is teaching. However smart or experienced that person may be, the moment he/she loses the student’s respect, they cease to be a teacher.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

In contrast, a person who engages with the students, allows them their little freedoms, makes them comfortable in class and tries to make them take an interest in the most boring of subjects with the help of humour, dialogue and practical understanding; in short one who puts in the effort to understand the audience and is willing to meet them halfway, gains the benefit of trust and a good ear. That person may, in my opinion, be called a teacher.

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