Genuine
concern about their welfare and interests can get you a student’s loyalty. Once my colleague in the physics department
and I , took a bunch of junior college students for a picnic. That created a
sensation in the staff room. We were
considered heroines for taking such a risk and warned against dire
consequences. But we had nothing to worry about. The 45 boys and girls we
escorted, behaved themselves and lived up to our faith in them. I remember
another incident when I was supervising a preliminary examination of the second
year junior college students. There were thirty of them and when the question
papers were distributed, we were short of fifteen, this fiasco was repeated in
other classrooms and there was pandemonium. Supervisors had to write the
questions on the blackboard . I just explained the problem and requested two
students to share a question paper. I must appreciate their integrity. They did
not misuse their proximity to copy.
Mr.
Kundanani, the founder of KC and 14 other educational institutions was the
principal. Once, he was going on his rounds and walked into my class. Sanjeev,
my student who had been disturbing others, was standing and giving me an
explanation .The principal, without knowing the background , asked him to sit
down and walked away. The next day, I went to meet him and handed my resignation . I told him he
had undermined my authority in class. While he was the principal of the
college, I told him, I was the ‘boss’ in my class. I must give it to him for taking it well and
tearing up my letter .Thereafter, I was one of his favorite lecturers. I think many teachers are bullied by their
principals and vent their frustration on students. A good teacher has the
support of students so I concentrated on honing my teaching skills rather than
sucking up to the powers that be.
When Srivatsa was posted on a three year stint in
Bangalore, in 1976, I was a part-time lecturer in Vidya Vardaka Sangha, Junior
College .Though I had to put in only teaching hours. I stayed back and produced
youth programmes for the all India Radio, as part of student activity. The
management was appreciative of my commitment and the only reason they did not
induct me as full time staff was because I would not stay after college hours
for meetings! They frankly told me that
I was great for the students but troublesome for the management. That has been
the story of my life all along.
While
at KC , also taught short – story writing at the Bombay School of Journalism,
in the evenings . I must share an
interesting episode here. I was talking about a writer’s commitment to a reader
and illustrated this with an example. It
was of a film showing to packed houses, of a girl who takes revenge on her
rapist by shooting him in the courtroom I
felt that the story writer should give preventive solutions rather than drastic
ones. The next day , the class looked strange. All the girl students were
missing. The boys said it was because
they thought I was anti- woman and condoned the rapist’s action by blaming the woman! I ignored their baseless charge and went on
with my teaching. Three weeks later,
they all trooped back sheepishly and apologized for misjudging me. It seems the
boys had shared with them my detailed explanation of my statement .One of the
girls, Dilnavaz Shroff, became publisher/editor of Woman Executive Digest (she
invited me to be a columnist) . The International Correspondence School had a
course in Freelance Journalism for which I was a tutor. This involved assessing
answer sheets and giving guidelines to students. It was a rewarding experience
as many students would send me clippings of their published work following my
suggestions. That is what I like about this profession. Your performance
appraisal is the success of your student. I am happy I chose to give up a
lucrative bank assignment offer for a humble teacher’s job .
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