For Indians, the fifth of September is celebrated as Teacher’s Day. In most schools, there are activities that have now become customary on this day. The older students take over the classes and present entertainment programmes for teachers, while the younger ones make cards and bring flowers and do their bit and everyone has fun. Praising teachers. Taking the place of teachers. Giving teachers a break.
Without fail, newspapers and magazines write about celebrations at various places, cover the felicitation of teachers where it happens and for that one day at least, they exalt the profession and hopefully succeed in making those in it feel good about their choice.
Like almost everyone else in my family, I started my working life as a teacher. That period was too short for me to remember any of the lessons I learnt when in close proximity with young minds. All I can recall is that my patience (practically nonexistent at the time and not in abundant supply even now) was sorely tried until I confirmed that it was not the job for me!
Other people considered teaching a “safe” and relatively “stress-free” profession. You could be a teacher at any time of your life and in any place, I was told. You never ceased to be employable. You could pack up and move to another school in another corner of the country and your experience counted wherever you went.
Then there was the great bonus of holidays. You could relax through the summer months; you could devote yourself to preparing for festivals because the semesters and terms were strategically planned around them.
In other words — you could have a life!
All this didn’t matter to me then. It was only much later that I understood why I had balked at facing a classroom of children / young adults. It didn’t make a difference whether those faces started out as eager or bored or hopeful: what was really scary was that expectations from a teacher were endless. Whether it was the student or the parent or the management — expectations never ceased and someone was bound to be unhappy at any given time, no matter how hard a teacher tried! When my own child started school, I, probably — no, certainly — gave his teachers a hard time. I longed to tell the teachers into whose care I sent my child (and quite likely did tell them) that they were not merely the font of learning during his school hours, but also the temporary keepers of his precious psyche and impressionable heart. They couldn’t erase mistakes, wipe the hard drive clean and start all over again with my child.
I wanted him to have his “wonder years” for as long as he could. He should have time to explore, imagine, create — and if he spent hours doing rote homework, how could he do all those idealistic things I had in mind for him? I also believed that his home was the primary source of everything — learning, discipline, challenge, enjoyment — and the hours at school should be the icing on the cake. Ergo: sweet, appealing, entertaining.
Those ideas were very different from the ideas of the parents of many of his classmates who felt that a child should get accustomed to the “real” world as early as possible, should learn that practice makes perfect, rote is required and school is the place to get all that done!
Looking back today, I marvel at the skill with which those teachers juggled such diametrically opposite views — and all the in-between ones — when handling the 40-plus students in their care.
A “safe” job? “Stress-free”? Perhaps that of a tightrope walker would be comparable.
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
