Quo Vadis- The road to and from a classroom

The search for self

When T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruellest month of the year…“ (The Wasteland), he certainly did not have the Indian education system in mind. With due apologies to a beloved poet, countless teachers across India, I think, would agree about the gruelling toll that April extracts.

As someone who meandered into teaching (like I did for most other aspects of my life), April is the season I turn genocidal (cautionary notices are usually declared in advance to family and friends) and find myself in the throes of professional existential angst, asking myself, “What am I doing?” and the even more dangerous, “Why am I doing this?”

So, after 31 years of teaching, I decided this April would be different; I decided to confront these particular annual lamentations in my head (I fear it will take me far longer than 31 years to confront the permanent babble that lives in chaotic residency) and attempt to find some answers.

To start with, there is a select-chosen minority who enjoy the privilege of having found their vocation in all walks of life, whatever that may be – and teaching is, of course, no exception.

Every student deserves this kind of teacher at least once in their lifetime. Most of us (I want to believe all of us) have encountered this teacher, the one who, in the classroom, believes that teaching is a calling and not merely a profession. This is the teacher who transforms the classroom and inspires learning. The alchemist of student life, whose scholarship and love for learning are worthy of emulation. Tall order? Foolish naivety? Unrealistic? Maybe all of these and more.

I confess, my worldview is through a deeply biased lens. For me, I count myself lucky; I have encountered this rare form of teachers (in the happy plural) throughout my life. Let me go further and add that some of my teachers are inextricably woven into the fabric of my life. This is no credit to me; I owe it entirely to the generosity of their hearts. While this may sound like an ode to those who cast their influence on my impressionable mind, I am merely guilty of admiration and a complete lack of objectivity.

Let me reiterate what this piece of writing is definitely NOT – it is not a rant against the many ills (and we all know that list is endless) that plague education and its related systems; it is not about the all too pervasive role of AI or the possible spectre of the redundancy of teachers in the future, near or distant. While these are of urgent relevance, I am not qualified to comment or offer a learned opinion on any of these.

Returning to April, that’s when I feel like Atlas and Sisyphus caught in Dr Strange’s infinity loop world. With this analogy, I suspect, I have come perilously close to blasphemy (of sorts).

Every single person remotely involved with education in any form would justifiably have their litany of woes (as is expected in any profession); I am no exception. Despite everything, why do I then return to the classroom with hope? Over the years I have succumbed to jaded cynicism, exasperated by systems and protocols far beyond my limited understanding, and every year finds me drifting farther away from my expected outcomes.

Overwhelmed as I then am, I frantically search for whatever may appear like a glimmer of hope. And hope has always, always, unfailingly appeared in human form, in many cases, a student.

It is, of course, common knowledge that all teachers have stories to share – from the hilarious to the inane, the profound to the inspiring, classrooms provide the entire gamut. If ever the young invite you to witness a vulnerability and you go on to share interests, then over the years some students become a part of your life (if you are lucky).

Many years ago a promise was extracted from me by a student with these sombre words, “You are never to talk about this. Ever.” Like the statute of limitations on crimes, the passage of the many, many years, I think, permits me to share the event that was presented to me shrouded in elaborate secrecy. A fellow classmate, bright with strong academic records could not afford to pay the term fees and was toying with the idea of quitting studies because he did not want to burden his family. A group of friends got together and pooled in the fees from the pocket money they received.

Pocket money. Average Indian middle-class families. Let the weight of those words sink in. Do I need to repeat these are children from ordinary families? Not affluent by any standards.

Not surprisingly, the concerned student went on to complete his studies. Successfully. Success in life too, I am told.

And this was the great oath of secrecy I was sworn to. Not to reveal this act of generous solidarity. No applause, no recognition, no fanfare for those involved in this feat. Undergraduate kids – 19-20-year-olds. I stand humbled to this day. Does not take any acumen to figure out that the student who masterminded the entire operation was destined to go places and succeed. And he did. And to this day, I revel in his success and triumphs.

Let’s be brutally frank: can any one of us as teachers stake a claim in the success stories of our students? I don’t.

Every young person that I have been privileged to know who has struggled against adversity, fought restrictive environments – the brilliant, quiet girl who cleared cut-throat competitive exams with effortless ease, the polite, soft-spoken, charming young boy who battles personal hell thanks to a dysfunctional family, the dreamer who loves literature with a rare passion and writes with soulful beauty tormented by her inability to fulfil material worldly aspirations – the seventeen-year-old first rank holder who, when asked, “What does freedom mean to you?” answered, “My life has been classes and home for as long as I can remember. For me, freedom means a day where I do what I want, when I take my single working mother to a shop and say, buy anything you want, everything you want, and don’t think about money.” – ALL of them have one common feature. They achieved inspite of and despite their circumstances. On their own. With grit. Determination. A host of other factors thrown in.

It is for them that I endure April (or atleast try valiantly to).

It is I who learn.