As I wrote at about this time last year, I don't feel much like writing a goodbye post for every outgoing batch any more these days. They can easily look up the several such posts I have written in the past, like this one, which haven't aged. That is not to say I did not enjoy my time with the latest batch: many of them were a genuine pleasure to teach, and show some promise as I understand promise, so while I live and still have my wits about me, I shall be glad to see them again and again. Meanwhile, as I have said already on my Whatsapp group, they might want to keep in touch especially through this blog, which I have always called an extension of my classroom.
I have been saying for donkey's years that I have always tried to hold on to some very idealistic, very old-fashioned notions about what education and teaching mean. Part of it relates to what I hope from my students: that they will see fit to keep in touch for ages, because they feel a) they got something of deep and lasting value here, and b) they still enjoy and benefit from my company. Quite a large number do, between ages 17 and 50: Abhishek Das, ICSE 2003, happily attended one of the last classes this year. The number, I am sure, could have been much larger if most parents did not drill into their children's minds that a teacher (or rather, tutor/instructor) loses his value as soon as their wards have sailed through some particular examination - and it does not help that most tutors are indeed worth nothing more - and if the children were not kept so permanently infantilized that even in late teenage or early adulthood they cannot dream of keeping in touch with someone without their parents' active encouragement and support. What a world we have made!
And that brings me to my greatest hope: that some of my students, when they have grown up and become parents and teachers themselves, will remember, if only because of a few people like me, what true education should consist of, and how it should be imparted. These days education, from pre-school to B-school level, has become one giant money spinning gig which packages learning in homogenized, merely utilitarian, easily digestible nuggets, to be swallowed, thrown up in exam halls and quickly forgotten. Those who 'succeed', it has been well said, are no better than circus animals trained to jump through hoops, good at nothing except taking examinations. It can at best produce only obedient, docile, unthinking herds in the name of good citizens (it makes me shudder to recall Auden's poem, The Unknown Citizen, written generations ago), and technical people who can only blindly follow standard operating protocols, whether they become teachers or surgeons, pilots or engineers. Even as fancy schools advertise not knowledge and reason and emotional training but air conditioned classrooms and swimming pools and CCTV equipped buses, and scream about how they are encouraging innovation and creativity, what they are actually doing is indoctrinating millions in utterly trivial and forgettable rote-learning, usually at vast expense, ensuring that genuinely bright, brave, original and experimental-minded people, the kind of people who take civilization forward, will become vanishingly rare. They will all be labelled as brilliant, and turn out to be conformist drudges; even tomorrow's 'talents' will be pygmies compared to the giants of yesteryears. Let a few children grow up to claim boldly that they know better, because they have had the good fortune to know some real teachers. I am grateful to quite a few such teachers myself, if mostly through books.
My love and best wishes to all who want and deserve it.
5 comments:
An extension of your classroom, if you say , I , since my regime, have been the first to enter, and the same do I like to happen , so "GOOD AFTERNOON SIR ! "
Sir, we already know that a few rotten apples in the basket make the fresh ones rotten as well! As the centuries and years proceeded, one generation passed only the significance of money and cheating
and degrees to the next generation. That is why we get to see all of these institutes and the lavish advertisements of the schools we get to see today. Still, I would ask you not to worry too much because some of us would be surely carrying forward your messages and teachings and at least claim that "amra ekjon prokrito Sir er kache porechi"! (If you have read this comment, I would expect a reply)
Sir , reading this blog really feels like I have returned in your class , sitting on top of the bed listening to every word that you use. I am truly feel like all emotions rushing into me realising that it was rather short time that I had spent in your class . It feels like the 2 years just flew as fast as a Jet plane soaring through the skies.
The words you told in our last class and the proverbs, the list' s points will be remembered by me. And truly amazing and an inspiration for me ,to become like you .
Thank you sir,
Subhodip Mondal
(ICSE 2024)
[after 2 days of being an ex-student]
Dear Sir,
Amen to everything you wrote.
On a side note, I recently reread Auden's Unknown Citizen (I remember you mentioning it at some point long back) and then went down on a rabbit hole of more of his writings. And these lines from 'The More Loving One' stuck with me-
"If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.".
Though the ending of the above poem seemed dark and reminded me of Primo Levi's 'The Black Stars'.
With regards,
Saikat.
Thank you all for commenting.
Baba 'Silent Sniper', ingriji ta thik kore lekh, noile je amar lojja dhakar jayga thakbe na.
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