September 5. The birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvapalli Radha Krishnan. Yes, that much for sure everyone would remember this year because circulating on every WhatsApp group was the reel of Queen Elizabeth II herself coming to the railway station to receive him. Where, when, why, the reel pushers would not know though.
Yes, despite the Eid holiday, the day was kinda celebrated online. Trendy, cutsie-coz-ready-made whatsapp greetings with those usual typical visuals got sent in abundance. More as a mere ritual, right?
No, no worries, I got extremely moving, because truly touching, messages from my students. Some of them were my students almost a decade ago. Most importantly, they did not push the usual visual, et al. They wrote extremely personalised individuated messages.
In other words, I am absolutely happy and contented. Yet I feel that now IS the time to take a stock, and honest and critical at that, of the societal attitude to teachers.
First and foremost, let us look at this fancy term, facilitator, supposedly a teacher's role currently. Eh, come again! Do you know what it actually means? Students would have absolutely half-baked, at times downright wrong, information from the internet sources, mostly the apps or even the AI these days. Like the society in general, they would hence think that they know all, while actually they would be unsure of even the basics.
The 'facilitator' is supposed to deal with this cocksure, quite bratty, 'attitude'. In fact, the classroom, like the reels, should be peppy, it seems. 'Amusing', right? Sure, there has to be a happy feel to the classroom. Sure, education must be student-centric, too. Yet why must the teacher, under the guise of being a facilitator, be a clown, missing from the non-existent circus these days? Why must education be entertainment in the first place? Anyways, it is available in abundance everywhere else, right?
Subtly but surely, there is an under-current which implies that teachers be like the RJ's and/or the anchors or the countless stand-up comedians who quite crazily chatter chatter chatter without any genuine sense/worth to their yak-yak. Better be a Kapil Sharma clone in the classroom, if you wanna be a 'popular' teacher, eh?!?
It is like this other, and equally empty, stance which maintains that a fifteen/sixteen year old, child actually, must decide his/her career, not the parents, and surely not anybody else, however well-meaning. Peer pressure and/or other such noisy opinionated vacuity is okay!
Have you realised that, as a result, there is an over-saturation in every field, and none of these "pass-out's" knows the chosen field in any depth. Their ignorance of EVERYTHING, the domain, good expression even in the mother tongue, the so-called soft/hard skills is abysmal. Their EQ, a very popular term bandied often these days, is lower than their IQ! How come their parents, the most important aspect of any student's universe, do not question their behaviour?
Yes, there has to be an industry-university tie-up. The constantly shifting corporate/ industry/business needs, however, cannot dictate the academic paradigms, right? Students must learn how to learn. Thus would they continue to upskill constantly, the need of the hour, given the AI era.
Why, in brief, is there very little genuine respect for education itself, forget teachers? Is it because teachers, quite well-paid, given the whatever pay commission, do not really deliver? In the autonomous institutes, the situation is absolutely grim. Lectures do not take place. Not even half of the so-called syllabi, often not in sync with the latest domain developments, get completed. Teachers' ppt's, equivalents of the erstwhile "Nirali's", students feel, are AI-made, while the question paper is indirectly leaked, eh, 'shared'.
Under the guise of "extra credit" courses, students consider themselves legally free to bunk subject lectures. If they do not attend lectures, how do they know even the basics? Who reads these days? Why do not people ever work on their communication? How can a senior college student, and worst of all, teachers, make basic mistakes of spelling and usage, when any number of apps and the AI exist for correction! Or is it the case that the much boasted/touted knowledge of computers and software applications is also equally shallow?
Said Hamlet, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark". Equally true is this quotation of education. Something sure stinks! Hope it is soon 'addressed', a favourite coinage these days, so that countless Hamlets are not sacrificed at the altar of empty convenience!
Pratima@"Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ the falcon cannot hear the falconer/Things fall apart, the center cannot hold/Mere anarchy is let loose upon the world," lamented W.B.Yeats at the millennial shift. The quote unfortunately holds true of the educational field today. Given such "horror!horror!horror!", the feel of respect for education, forget teachers, is wither(ed)!!!
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