September 5, 2024
It was July 2, 1981 that I started my profession as a teacher and continue to be one such in some form or another till date. How do I visualize my past years as a teacher? It is one of very strong mixed feelings filled with nostalgia of immense joy and negligible sadness-joy that I was able to interact with so many young vibrant boys and girls and sad that I was not able to make an impression in all those that I came in contact with.
Students of yesteryears were not the same as of today and it is unreasonable to expect so. Those were the years when students used to centre around you for any issues whether personal, social or anything that touched them. It may be because the means of distraction, rather to say, attraction was very limited without the availability of social media platforms as of now. Yet they were what they were.
The present day students need teachers only as much as when required, mainly academic and that too with what is not available in the media. The emotional bonding between the teacher and students was something what we always cherish and that is what makes us remember our students. I remember occasions that I made my way to my students when I heard that they were seriously not well or in hospitals, even to the extent of consulting doctors or suggesting alternative means and places of treatment.
As a teacher I was not much elated to pride myself in the academic achievements of my students when there was 100% pass in my subject or someone getting a rank, rather than their commitment to social causes and establishing themselves as exemplary individuals. Those were the years that students depended of the teachers entirely for their academic requirements even to the extent of spending hours in the company of their teachers either to update their knowledge or get rooted in the basics.
I still cherish the class photo with students of my first year of teaching II PUC I batch 1982 and maintain contact with a few even now. It was a blessing that I became a teacher and it is a blessing that I continue to be a teacher to some in some way or other.
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