Random Rantings

It happened just like that last Friday. No heartrending BGM, no deafening thunderclaps, no flashes of lightning…not even a whimper!!! I just walked out of the school campus on the last day of my teaching service (atleast for now that’s what I think it is!). WTH!!! Man, leave alone the multimedia fx of nature’s elements…am ‘I’ feeling any different? That’s the trouble! The irony was that even I didn’t feel any different! I walked up to my car and went through the routine movements of plunking on the seat and looking out of the window..what was I hoping to see? Gray clouds and the gloomy patter of raindrops against my window? Mmmhmmm..why does reality s***? >:( Why can’t things get a bit more dramatic and give me the consolation of having covered another significant milestone in my life?

Its now five days since that fateful evening and still I don’t feel anything significantly amiss. Maybe I’d mentally prepared myself for it through the year. Teaching was so much a part of me for the past seventeen years that to be without it seemed very daunting. I won’t say that teaching in school has always been pleasurable. It does come with a fair share of irritation and fatigue..but the tradeoff has always been profitable. Sticking to the lesson plan and meeting the deadline being the major dampeners. There have been many occasions when I had wanted to freak out and do something out-of-subject as much as my students wanted to..though they must’ve been much more desperate than I ever was!! ;) :D and this desperation is what makes people like me innovate loopholes to escape boredom. For instance in the pretext of teaching Inheritance in C+ +, I could lapse into types of vehicles and spin yarns about types of cars and have the cheap thrill of mouthing fancy brands like Lamborghini, Mustang, Beetle etc etc.

Another big pain in the ****(wondering what? Naaah..its something as harmless and decent as NECK!!) is the assessment. Any teacher who is even of mediocre intelligence can easily gauge the understanding level of students..but no… our education system will not have it. The student has to be put through the hell of filling up some twenty odd pages of his so-called knowledge on the subject which happens to be the exact copy of whats in the text book and the teacher has to read through 50 odd such scripts before the much awaited( I wonder who wants them) results are out!!

All these irritants are more than compensated by innumerable blessings - the biggest one being the students themselves. Being amidst a bunch of youngsters is like experiencing youthfulness in virtual reality!! 0:) Their permanent state of euphoria gets on to you…sometimes it borders on sheer lunacy..but the experience is extremely enjoyable. Especially so with the plus 2 students who always seem to be keen on making the most of even simplest excuse to have fun. They are bent on enjoying each day as if it was their last!! A teacher’s smallest move incites laughter..so much so that she starts wondering if she is turning into a Mr. Bean clone!! So what if I’m Ms. Bean? I’m okay as far as I’m laughing too.

It is said that education is what you retain after middle age and I’m sure a good majority of the students remember not even 0.1% of what they read from the text books. The learning process is what they imbibe by observing their teachers or what comes out of the most informal moments like jokes cracked in the class or the games played or the competitions and cultural programs they attended. Surprisingly the same holds good for a teacher! I enjoyed teaching the most under the same conditions. It is the many pleasure trips that I accompanied them on or the quizzes I conducted for them or the small games that we played in the classroom that endeared them to me. Of course there’s a great deal of satisfaction when a student scores a centum or the class performs well but more gratifying is knowing that one’s students have grown up into men and women of substance!

Why have I turned all preachy, emotional and serious all of a sudden? Am I really getting that old? I realize that it is because I take teaching seriously. It is something I shall cherish forever. It is something I think of highly. Can I ever take the teacher out of me? I wonder if I’ll exist after that! A BIG THANKS to all my students for making me feel this way!!!

P.S: If the whole thing sounds like the ranting of a madwoman, that credit too goes to you students!! ;)

Statutory Warning: Reading my blogs can be fatally boring!! I write solely for my pleasure and only mine!!! And BEWARE facebook friends…I’m UNLEASHED…here I come FULL THROTTLE…and U r my TARGET!!! ;) :P :D