GOOD LUCK, TEACHERS!

It’s that time of the year again!
Yes…since New Year the familiar comments heard in the corridors of schools will be “ Exams are round the corner…start getting serious!” And by mid February the feverish pitch has set in. Worried parents of underachievers will start visiting the school regularly, suddenly concerned about their wards’ progress. Teachers often wonder how they manage to hibernate from June to Jan.
The scenario is grimmer if your child is in the so-called ‘Board Class’ ie, appearing for the crucial grade X or XII exams. The two or sometimes three pre-board exams normally get dismal results leaving, students dejected and anxious, parents worried and demanding and the teachers frustrated and helpless. The whole year one has been teaching… testing, revising…yet there seems to be a cul de sac ahead you.
The arrival of the Hall Tickets somehow brings a flurry of activity all around. Now the kids know there is no way out. Time to pull the proverbial socks up, burn the midnight oil and seek help from all quarters…
Suddenly God seems to be the right counselor. The next fortnight is spent not eating enough…not sleeping enough…walking around with a book in the hand… and calling up friends and empathetic teachers for clearing doubts…
Once, the first paper is done, a sigh of relief is let out. Not as bad as I thought… is the reaction. CBSE gives enough gap between papers for some of those ‘indolent –throughout- the- year’ students to cram in at the last minute and end up scoring well… so that the parents can thumb their noses at the teachers who had been sending warning letters home or calling up parents about their kids’ performance all rendered cruel and insensitive… ‘See my child has done so well… All the time you people were demoralizing her/ him…!’
What they don’t know or care to know is the effort put in by those who teach these classes. The teachers have accountability too. No one chooses the thankless job of teaching for the monetary benefit it offers (which is peanuts for all the strain they go through) nor for the glamour. They are teachers because they choose to be. They are responsible for the good result of the school and ultimately the image of the school. But generally, they are accountable to their own conscience! I know teachers who force underachievers’ parents to drop their kids home so that they can revise at the teacher’s residence till 9 or 10 pm. They don’t get overtime for such acts…if anything, they get dark looks from their family! There are teachers who wake their students up at 4 or 5 a m and coax them to study. But no one, including the student who passes with decent marks, cares to remember these efforts.

For the student, it is newer, greener pastures… for the teacher, it is the same scene…with a different set of students. Who will remember that they wield the four expedients, Sama ( conciliation) Dhana ( gifts) Bheda ( separation) and Dhanda, the last resort ( punishment) for the sheer benefit of the students?

I am sure all kids will do well, ultimately. My best wishes to them. Yet, having been one, I would like to express my best wishes to the teachers, for they really deserve it!