ENLIGHTENED?
Teacher’s Day brings joy to the hearts of
a community whom the entire nation bows down to with reverence, love and
devotion and befittingly calls them nation builders. Business houses cash on
these sentiments and markets swell with goodies, beautifully crafted gifts,
loudly proclaiming colorful cards, holding in their bosom some carefully penned
verses, accolading the person called TEACHER. Children try to outshine each
other by bringing richly arranged bouquets or roses for their favorite teachers
and the receivers are overwhelmed at this touching gesture. The twinkle in the
eyes of the students and their genuine emotions for once make you proud of
yourself and you walk the dull grey roads feeling no less than an uncrowned
monarch.
But…..there is something that bothers
this monarch.
A
conscience which is the echo of God’s voice. As the students worship us as the
gods of the day, a question gains dimensions,-“Am I a true teacher, a
foundation layer ,a nation builder, a candle which burns itself to enlighten
the world,?”
The self assessment and self analysis
darts more such questions and the honesty this profession engrains in us, does
not let us give ourselves a flattering grade.
Some of us, rather many of us are in this
profession ,not by choice. Either this profession has been opted by us due to
the convenient time frame, as many see this as a non demanding half day job
which gives us enough number of hours to devote to our families; or this has
been chosen because we were not skilled/ qualified enough to take up other jobs.
If a survey is conducted, results will be highly astonishing. Quite a a large
number land in this job as a way out,
And the irony is, we are the so called
`educators’, the ` nation builders’!
This is not the complete picture though.
There is a section of teachers who really wanted to be one-who pursued their
B.EDs or NTTs sincerely because they
visualized themselves as sculptor of characters , facilitators for
learners or shapers of the clay, called children. They are a part of the large
group but they manage to carve a niche
for themselves in the hearts of their students. To them , teaching is the best
experience and the hours spent with their students, the most rewarding ones.
They jubilate when their students bring
laurels but their aim lies in bringing the weaker one to the surface. In their
hands lies the magic called ` enlightening’ because teaching is their passion.
When they break away from the trodden path they are envied and advised- not to
try innovations, “ At the end of the day the students will forget you and the
salary will remain the same anyway” they are told. It is feared by others that
if one does , they might be asked to follow suit, hence the crab mentality. But
a true teacher doesn’t rest and
constantly tries to improve and outshine himself, in order to weave the magic , called`enlghtening’.He
dares , cares and shares.
A wise man was asked once, ‘Why don’t
students respect their teachers as they did in olden times?’The learned man
answered, “They were not mere teachers, they were gurus; who were sincerely engaged
in the task of character building. They didn’t have students, they had
disciples.”A child becomes a student as he is admitted to school in his tender
years and he has to study from whosoever is deputed for the job but a disciple
is one who follows his guru willingly after the guru has accepted him as his
torch bearer. Not all could join the
gurukul.
Those days are gone and so has that
twenty four carat dedication. A teacher teaches because he has to, not always
because he wants to. Hence the he gets students and not disciples who would
prove worthy of all that he stands for- the values, the principles, the tenets
of life that will make him a man.
When Lincoln wrote to his son’s teacher,
he requested him to “ teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.
Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone
tells him they are wrong.”
He believed and rightly so, that only a teacher could sculpt
out a masterpiece from a formless chaos.
With another
TEACHER’S DAY round the corner, it’s time to retrospect, analyze and assess
ourselves. The nation has had a new teacher who translated the high ideals of
Gandhism into action by being the father of a most unique revolution hitherto
unwitnessed by independent India .Vivekananda’s cry” Arise, awake,/sleep no more;/within
each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries”
was resurrected like phoenix from its ashes and transformed onto a defiant
tricolor, so befittingly and unfailingly firm in the hands of the nation’s
awakened youth. The non violent war cry resonated in the historical hall of the
parliament which had witnessed debates as ‘dreary sand of dead habit’ [
Tagore].The voice of Anna became the roar of youth and the nation learnt a new
lesson of peaceful Civil Disobedience and Satyagraha.
May we, the teachers, learn something too?
The simple lesson of `rasri aawat jaat te/ sil par parat nisaan’; that miracles
are possible and the most headstrong opponents can be won over by consistent
and unflinching efforts; that one should remain humble even at the dizzy
heights of victory. If thousands listened and obeyed him, it was not due to any
strict discipline imposed on them but due to the deep rooted respect they had
for the strict self discipline he imposed on himself. He role modeled to the nation,
that lessons could be taught with honesty, of honesty, for honesty. Couldn’t we
sow the seeds of honesty in the students in their school life itself? If the
saplings are well taken care of, won’t they grow into a majestically tall and
shady trees, benefitting one and all and strengthening the roots of their nation
in future? Because-
`If winter comes, can spring be far
behind?’
We live in a country where students
respect their teacher and the society holds
the profession in high esteem. Our path is not paved with golden gravel,
nor are the benefits so luring but nothing can surpass the joy of a teacher
when the students excel in their efforts, when they challenge us to debates and
when they pour out their hearts which they haven’t done even before their
parents. Children are our perennial source of youth and teachers never age with this ever flowing
fountain of joy and happiness in their lives.
So come another TEACHER’S DAY and
remind us of our wows and our pledges.As Frost said-
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to
keep,
And miles to go before I
sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Sunita Rajiv
