Three challenges of my teaching career
Of the 31 years of my teaching career, for 27 years I’ve taught in girls’ colleges. There were a number of challenges that I faced; or maybe I created them in my mind to give a positive pattern to my interactions and dealings with students.
The three challenges were: Teaching in college, teaching girls and teaching English.
Of the three stages of education, namely school, college and university; in school, as they say, the kids are like soft clay, and the teacher can shape them the way she/he wants. When these youngsters enter the university, they are mature people; confident and self-assured individuals with their future course of life almost decided.
But the college stage is the most crucial and challenging. The adolescents, undergoing physical, mental and emotional changes; self-conscious; reeling under pressures from family and peers; confused about what their future will be like; are the people that the college teachers have to handle; and their first challenge is to calm them; to make them feel important, and capable of handling their life with aplomb. Secondly, these youngsters don’t know how to handle the new-found freedom that the college system provides them. Some misuse it and go astray, while the others feel lost like Alice in Wonderland. It takes a lot of love and compassion on the part of the teachers to make them understand that this freedom is a training period for them to become self-reliant and confident enough to take control of their lives.
As far as teaching girls is concerned, one incident changed my perspective. When a bright girl with about 80% marks, came on the last day of admission; and the sobbing mother said that it was only after one of the relatives had agreed to give financial help that they had rushed to the college, as the father was much against her education; it made me realise that education for most of the girls is not a privilege or a luxury; but a path fraught with difficulties and uncertainty.
After this incident, whenever my students came late for my class, particularly in the first period, the story-writer in me would weave different stories; maybe the father creates a scene every morning; maybe she has to beg for the bus fare every day; maybe she has to finish household chores. I could never bring myself to refuse them entry in the class. My instructions would be to quietly come and sit inside, without disturbing me by seeking permission. I believed that even if she attended the class for 10-15 minutes, she would at least feel connected with the class, with the subject, and with the teacher. That was more important for me.
Teaching English in itself is a challenge, because of a big flaw in our education system. At the school level, different education boards; the state school education board for government and small private schools on one hand and CBSE and ISCE on the other hand for public and convent schools have different syllabi and teaching methodology, as far as English is concerned; thus, creating two groups with different knowledge and understanding of the subject.
But in college, they all come and sit in the same class, study the same course content and are to be attended to by the same teacher. The first challenge, at least in the first-year class, is allaying the doubts and fears of one group about the subject, thus bringing them in the mainstream of the class. How the teacher addresses these divergent groups is not so easy. In the same breath, you converse in chaste English with one group; whereas use a little bit of vernacular for the other, in order to make your point clear to the whole class.
Then things start getting better in the second and third years.
I tried to take these challenges head on and believe I could handle them somewhat successfully. Nevertheless, I loved teaching English to college girls.
IT MADE ME REALISE THAT EDUCATION FOR MOST OF THE GIRLS IS NOT A PRIVILEGE OR A LUXURY; BUT A PATH FRAUGHT WITH DIFFICULTIES AND UNCERTAINTY