Being a teacher....

Yesterday morning, in one of my whatssap groups, I got a forward-message evangelising the greatness of a teacher. Many of you may have seen the note about a money-making CEO asking a school teacher ‘what do you make in a month?’, and the teacher humbly and firmly replying straight onto his face. Apart from this also, there is no dearth of messages about being a teacher, starting from the sanskrit sloka of “gurur brahma, gurur vishnu, ...” etc.

I too believe that being a teacher, is among the most noble, and among the most rewarding professions in this world. Though I can't claim to be a great teacher, I have enjoyed a lot of my teachings, and have not been branded bad generally. Occassionally when you bump into someone, and they remember you saying “sir, you taught us AI/DS/etc”, and that tool 10-20 years back, you feel a sense of pride and joy, which nothing in this world can beat. But not all those who do teaching, can be called a 'teacher'....

There are many ifs and buts from different perspectives of this view point. In the olden days, a teacher in a village was a symbol of balance and fairness, and one would approach them for advise on many of life’s problems. In many of the stories of those times, this image can be seen vividly. When I was in UK for a while in the late 80s, I sensed the value of being a ‘professor’ there. No, it was not me then – too ignorant and inexperienced then. If you say, you are ‘c/o Prof xyz’, it carried weight at many places, not just academic places. On the other hand, becoming a professor was a great step in your career and academic life. You need to show significant research output (not just papers), and be judged by a committee of scholars. It could come when you are young or old; age and number of years spent were irrelevant. I remember being a part of the celebrations when a faculty member got this tag, almost near 60!

We have come a long way, sadly. Anyone who stands facing a class is, today, a professor. A 20+ something who just scraped through his/her BE, and joins as ‘faculty’ in a college, immediately is called a ‘professor’. And many of these people without any reservation, would introduce themselves as ‘Sir, I am professor Raman’. And if you somehow get hold of a PhD degree, you attain even the official tag of a ‘professor’. And given the standards of usual PhDs these days, the resulting status is scary.

When I completed my degree, the last thing I wanted was to be a teacher. It was not hatred for the job, but the feeling that I can’t do it. My professor told me many times to stay back, and finish my PhD. But I declined, and joined NCST (now CDAC Mumbai). Over time, I also started taking classes in our flagship PGDST, CCST and APGDST. Though initially uncomfortable, over time, it became something I enjoyed. My teaching received good feedback. I always made my own slides – almost never borrowing any slides from anywhere. That helped me to relate to the subject better, and to own my lectures; I was not at the mercy of someone's outline or detail. I noticed the many benefits teaching brought to me. And when the time came, I never hesitated to advise my juniors to do some teaching. It takes time to grow up into being a ‘good teacher’, but the journey is well worth it. Most of those who heeded my advice, are now happy to repeat the same to their subordinates.

Teaching has many attributes. You don’t need to be a know-all in the subject. It is not necessary that you answer all questions within seconds of them reaching you. But at the same time, you can’t go unprepared. And you have to carry your brain with you, unlike some of the other professions! You need to put in effort to ‘understand’ the topic, so that you can go beyond the words, and present lessons and insights. When you can’t explain your own slides, you are not being a good teacher. As I remarked elsewhere, it is not good slides that you make you a good teacher. Slides must remain optional – just an aid. If you can’t teach without the slides, you don’t know the subject.

What is particularly nice about teaching a subject is that it exposes your own ignorance to you. Teaching when done properly is a thoroughly reflective activity, unless you are a slide-reading-teacher. You create stories, and connections to explain to the learners, and then you realise the gaps in your knowledge which prevents you from being able to make good connections. They are the ‘todo’ for you, to fill in later. And hence the saying that ‘the best way to learn a subject is to either teach the subject, or write a book about it’.

Teaching needs to be student centric. Putting things in the right perspective which they can relate to. One needs to make attempts to understand things from that perspective. Otherwise, your world never meets their world. Spending time on their assignments and writings is one way of getting this done – not just for grading, but to see how they relate to and how they approach things. Every wrong answer is a window to their world. Reading through student answers in detail – atleast some of them, if there is time pressure – is, hence, a good input.

A good performer can keep an audience in good mood, and many may like your performance. But for a teacher, this is only a part of the job. You cant teach, a sleeping audience. But just because they are awake, and they are laughing at your humour, does not mean they are learning anything. This learning is your destination – everything else are just steps to get you closer there. Recently I attended an invited talk. The speaker was great, a great story teller. Audience was all laughter all the way. But the stories did not convey anything more. I dont think the audience was any wiser after the talk, than before.

From a totally different angle, we are all teachers in some way or other, at many times. You teach your subordinates, your friends, your children, etc. Sometimes you, like Dronacharya to Eklavya, you may also be an invisible guru to some. May be there are no formal classes, and you dont award marks. But the teacher in you has an important role to play. And all what I said above are important in that type of teacher too.

So, be a good teacher. Not just a teacher. And never a bad teacher.

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