A teacher’s bookshelf of inspiring reads

The life of a teacher has evolved phenomenally over the last two decades, ever since I immersed myself into the role of imparting knowledge to different grade levels. Arduous work hours, lesson plans desirous of best practice strategies and more importantly, ideas to reach the most reluctant of learners.

However, the basic tenets of teaching remain the same. Degrees in education are mandatory in order to teach in an organisation these days, but the lessons that I have derived from some amazing books, will forever hold me in good stead and go on to inspire till I breathe my last.

What do we do as teachers, when faced with the tribulations of teaching a grade comprising of students who challenge you with unruliness and adolescent obstinacy? Well, that’s when E.R. Braithwaite comes to ones rescue with his novel, To Sir, With Love.

“He shamed them, wrestled with them, enlightened them, and - ultimately - learned to love them.”

Mr Braithwaite, the new teacher, first had to fight the class bully. Then he taught defiant, hard-bitten delinquents to call him ‘sir’, and to address the girls who had grown up beside them in the gutter as ‘miss’. He taught them to wash their faces and to read Shakespeare. When he took all 46 to museums and to the opera, riots were predicted. But instead of a catastrophe, a miracle happened. A dedicated teacher had turned hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into consideration for others. A man’s own integrity - his concern and love for others - had won through. A modern classic about a dedicated teacher in a tough London school who slowly and painfully breaks down the barriers of racial prejudice, this is the story of a man’s integrity winning through against the odds.

The next is a novella that really inspires me: Good-bye, Mr Chips, by James Hilton. It tells the story of Mr Chipping, nicknamed Mr Chips, who becomes a teacher at an English all-boys boarding school called Brookfield. Mr Chips, as the boys call him, is initially conventional in his beliefs, and exercises firm discipline in the classroom. His views broaden and his pedagogical manner loosens after he marries Katherine, a young woman whom he meets on holiday in the Lake District.

Teachers today would relate to this novel, as corporal punishment really does more harm to the little ones’ psyche than one can imagine. Today’s lot is a more sensitive bunch, who can only be dealt in a more ‘Mr Chips’ way.

Mr Chips sinks into his armchair by the fire, happy in the peace and warmth. The first memory from his career sets him laughing. He came to teach at Brookfield in 1870, and in a kindly talk, old Wetherby, the acting headmaster, advised him to watch his disciplinary measures. Mr Wetherby heard that discipline was not one of Mr Chips’s strong points. When one of the boys dropped his desktop too loudly on the first day of class, Mr Chips assigned him a hundred lines and had no trouble after that. The boy’s name was Colley — Mr Chips seldom forgot a name or a face — and he remembered that years later, he would teach Colley’s son, and then his grandson, who, he would say pleasantly, was the biggest young nitwit of them all.

Mr Chips was fond of making little jokes about the boys, who took his jibes well and grew to love him for his honesty and friendliness. Indeed, Mr Chips’s jokes were regarded as the funniest anywhere, and the boys had great sport telling of his latest. On his deathbed, he hears a comment from one of his gathered colleagues that it was a pity he never had children. He corrects the person. He has had children — thousands and thousands of them. As he shuts his eyes for the final time, he is comforted by thoughts of his beloved students.

Times are a changing, and with each passing year, we need to be inspired as teachers, to continue on the path of our noble vocation without giving up mid-way… fatigued, disillusioned and sapped of all energy.

Here comes the next book that I read and re-read from time to time. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teacher Tales written by and for teachers, is filled with wonderful anecdotes that reflect the passion with which teachers have touched the lives of many students and vice versa. Perhaps reading the book will provide the ‘comfort soup’ that is needed to rejuvenate the lives of teachers, thus reiterating the virtues of being one.

What I am today is definitely a result of what my teachers have taught me. It speaks of a timeless bond, a bond that grows deeper and stronger with every passing day.

— The reader is a teacher, based in Dubai.

Are you a teacher? Which books have inspired you? Share them with us at readers@gulfnews.com