Introverts, extroverts and my classes...

Let me start off by saying that the ‘introvert/extrovert’ binary is not as simple as it sounds. Take my own case. When I was a boy, two very opposite things were true about me – I loved to talk, I almost always had lots of things to talk about (one primary schoolteacher dubbed me a chatterbox), and at the same time, I was morbidly shy in strange company, especially when they were adults. With my friends (and when I was young I had quite a few) I could be chummy enough, but circumstances dictated that I was thrown upon my own resources most of the time, so most of my time was spent reading and daydreaming and swimming and watching movies and cycling around all by myself around the town. So where would you put me on the introvert-extovert continuum? As I grew up, I discovered even better that I could talk well when I wanted to, even among large groups, even on stage, and obviously as a teacher – anyone who has tried to coach people of his own age while still a teenager will know just how difficult that is. At the same time, I began to abhor adults already, not because I was actually shy any more, but I was discovering with ever growing disdain how ignorant, foolish yet opinionated and patronizing the average adult was (this included everyone from parents’ friends to professors and my nominal superiors at the newspaper office, and as I grew older, my contemporaries and increasingly people far junior), how quick to take offence if their silliness and ignorance and crudeness was exposed even accidentally (and more and more, I began to do it very deliberately, because I was touchy, and getting sick of such presumptuousness, and enjoyed rubbing their noses in the dirt). That applied very strongly to parties – before I was in my late twenties I began to hate having to rub shoulders with people whose average IQ, GK as well as manners (courtesy, consideration and dislike of noisiness, to name just three things that were becoming more and more essential to me) were vastly inferior, whose taste in jokes was poor at best and vulgar at worst, who were only constantly measuring one another in material terms and either preening or burning with envy, whose smiles were quite apparently plastic, who scorned my success and scoffed at my failure, who would never be of any use to me, material, intellectual or spiritual, many of whom, I knew, were speaking falsehood and ill behind my back even while uttering oily platitudes to my face if they thought their ‘interests’ required it. So I began to avoid socialization as a matter of principle – the last party I went to in a hotel was in 1993, I can count on one finger how many weddings I have attended in the last twelve years, and I never invite people in any significant number to dinner.

Classic introvert? Well, how does that explain my success as a teacher, then? Thousands who have been through my classes will remember fondly how much they enjoyed themselves here. Some of that was indeed due to the fact that they found me to be a far more attentive, understanding and sympathetic listener than most teachers are (again, sign of a typical introvert – but then, are such people so rare in this country?), but some of it was certainly because I entertained them so much in so many ways, and no teacher can be like that without being at least a very successful pseudo-extrovert, which I mentioned in the previous post. So I am proof that it can be done. People who have seen me holding classes in thrall for years and years will find it hard to believe that I am an introvert at all. So all those introverts out there who are reading this, take heart: if you badly want to do it for the sake of some specific purpose, you can do it with sufficient resolution and practice, over time, though your essential character won’t change. I will always like both large numbers (but only when they are ready to listen to me) and small, intimate one-on-ones, but I will never be the life and soul of any party, nor do I want to be.

As for what happens in my classes. Ever since I started teaching large batches (by which I mean any number more than ten) I have seen two things going on simultaneously. You must remember that pupils come to me after they have already had nine or ten years of schooling at least, so some bad habits are, alas, too deeply set for me to do much about it. I keep telling them you cannot learn a language without speaking it, and most of them have pathetic speaking skills, despite the fact that they go to so-called English-medium schools, fundamentally because oral exams have never been given seriously in school, and because most teachers themselves speak at best a pidgin English these days, and do nothing to encourage English speaking in class. I want them to answer questions and ask them – the more the merrier – but most of them are desperately averse, either because they are too lazy to listen to lectures or do homework (so where will the questions come from?) and too uninterested in any kind of serious learning, or because they are morbidly shy of being laughed at by their peers: which happens only too frequently, even though the peers themselves are no better, and have no right to jeer and titter. Try to hold any kind of elocution session, or debate, or extempore speaking class, and they are desperate to hide behind one another; very, very few participate eagerly. Telling them how important a skill public speaking will prove to be in later life is like beating your head against a wall.

Juxtapose this with the fact that left to themselves (and often even while a class is in session) they chatter loudly or in whispers, incessantly, compulsively, and most of their chatter is pointless drivel – they don’t even listen to themselves, and don’t remember what they themselves said five minutes ago. I know, I have checked a thousand times. So what are these kids, introverts, extroverts, or something else entirely? Simply creatures who lost their minds and sense of direction and purpose a long time ago? I know too, now teaching kids whose previous generation was in my class, that most of them will stay that way for the rest of their lives…

There are a few genuine introverts, always – quiet, observant, thoughtful, interested young people – and it is for them that I feel bad, because, given the large numbers, and the distraction caused by the too numerous other type (I have to waste far too much time keeping them on a tight leash), I cannot reach out to them as well as I would have liked to, though God knows I have tried very hard. I know some of them wish to get closer, be better attended to, and learn more, but leave a little disappointed. I wish, though, that they too would do their bit, try a little harder to communicate with me. A few have, over the years; they are the ones who remember thoughtfully and gratefully, and keep in touch even though decades roll by. The rest forget within days or weeks of the classes being dissolved. My only consolation is that they pay their fees, and the numbers keep coming year after year. Maybe a time will come soon when I will be able to sort and sieve, and retain only the former type in my class after the first three months… for again and again, a thousand times over, it is this type that has made it all feel worthwhile.

I wish Susan Cain had seen some classes in Indian schools and colleges before writing that chapter. And on Teachers’ Day, after 38 years of it, I cannot, alas, convey a general love, benevolence and admiration for the student community any more. It has been too long.