Three questions for my child’s teacher

Anjana Nayar

My sister was awarded her PhD last month. The examiners were all praise for her academic rigour and the excellence of her thesis. There were several agonising years of hard work and perseverance behind her achievement. Being a teacher of some repute at a leading academic institution herself, I am sure she would never say this aloud – but in my mind, I know for a fact that if she were ever asked what prodded her to push herself so much, it would all go back to the math teacher who once called her worthless and told her she would never make anything of her life. Behind every success and every struggle in her adult life, there has somehow been the shadow of that teacher whose words egged her on to ensure she made something of herself. I am not sure that is how that teacher would want to be remembered but the truth is, it is impossible for a teacher to be fully aware of the exact impact her words or actions may have on each of her students. Because so much more happens in a classroom than the mere imparting of prescribed portions out of prescribed textbooks.

It is a given that a teacher is expected to be well-versed in the subject she is teaching and that she has prepared for her role as a teacher with adequate training and academic qualifications. But that is only a starting point. For a third of each working day, we entrust our children to teachers who play a huge part in consciously and subconsciously moulding their thoughts, feelings and attitudes and thereby their destinies – a far more complex involvement than preparing them for the mandatory Board exams. For a child, the greatest argument they can use against a parent’s strictures is ‘because my teacher said so.’ Culturally we are conditioned to accept the authority – the primacy – of a teacher’s words and we rarely tell our children that a teacher is or can be wrong. There is a lot of trust and responsibility that is put on teachers, whether they like it or not; whether they accept it or not. And that is why, as a mother of two children, aged 8 and 3, I have three questions I would like to put to teachers everywhere, on behalf of parents everywhere. Of course there are a lot more, but for me, these three are the most important in as much as they could make or break my children’s future.

Can you tell me something about my child that I don’t know?
My daughter, Mia, loves to draw and write stories. She is soft spoken and shy. What I did not know is that she is a loner who prefers to play by herself rather than make friends. This I learnt from her kindergarten teacher. And knowing this helped me understand better why she was uncomfortable in public play areas. I stopped pushing her to go and talk to other children. In her own good time, I saw her open up and adapt. If I had arrived at the conclusion that she was diffident or socially inept and tried to work on that aspect of her personality, I would probably have ended up confusing her. Thanks to one perceptive teacher, I could relax and let her be. Teachers are the objective observers of the children before them and can point out things that parents, blinded by love, anxiety and the urge to ‘do the right thing’ tend to get wrong about their children. Like the teacher who correctly pointed out to my mother that my brother’s poor performance in school was probably due to short sight than wilfulness and the one who told my mother-in-law that my husband was probably better off in a State Board school when he was unable to cope with the pressures of an elite ICSE school, teachers should be able to see more about their students than their readiness with homework and the grades in their report cards.

Are you in any way prejudiced against her?
My daughter gets lost in her thoughts sometimes. She would rather read than do her homework. She may be the last to finish her meal and may hold up the line for the school bus with her slow movements. Can you deal with that? Can you deal with the fact that every child is not proactive and forthcoming and competitive? Would you decry her as a ‘delicate darling’ if she is not doing well at sports? (As I was at age 7 thereafter leaving me with a fear of failure at anything physically demanding for the rest of my life.) Will you tell her it is alright if she is not the best at everything and remind her there are things she is good at and ultimately what matters is that she grows up to be a confident, self-reliant, responsible adult? Because there are times she will put more faith in your words than mine. And occasions where her shortcomings are more evident – or more prominently displayed – to you than me. And just a word from you could make or mar her confidence for life. So it will be a great relief to know you don’t let your personal prejudices stand in the way of picking a child up when she is down.

Are you keeping yourself updated on all that’s happening around us and how that would likely impact your wards in the future?
Teaching is a stressful job, I get that. On the one hand there are lesson plans, tests and evaluations, school cultural events and a host of other details you are trying to keep ahead of while at the same time having some semblance of control over your own life. On top of that are the new-age parents – like me – who want to know everything and have an opinion about everything that happens in the classroom. In the midst of all that, I hope you won’t find it unfair that I am asking you how much time you spend in a day (or a week at the very least) updating yourself – not just on current affairs but all the changes that are happening around us that are going to make a huge impact on the children of today when they step out of the cloistered walls of academia and into the real world where they are expected to not just make a living but also adapt, merge and live. I recently happened to come across a viral blog post by an Indian official at the UN where he talks about how adaptability is going to be the greatest skill in the future where the whole concept of a ‘career’ will be obsolete and people will go through several different ‘careers’ or simply work-options in the course of their working life. As a consequence of the times where technology that is cutting edge today is made redundant by the end of working hours, everyone will need to be able to react and respond to the changes around them rather than sit back on ‘what I have been trained for.’ This was a huge eye opener for me. I am sure this idea is not exclusive to that one author and I hope such discussions have adequate resonance in the teaching community. And that each teacher is invested in keeping abreast of such thinking that is going to have a massive impact on the future of their wards.

Not everyone may have a favourite teacher in their memory but everyone would surely have a favourite anecdote about a teacher – some may be like my sister’s but usually are far more positive – a word or timely gesture or perceptive bit of advice that stayed with them for ever. Most likely this is less about what or how the teacher taught and more about how they engaged with the student at an interpersonal level. From a parent’s perspective, the questions I have asked here are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The more important questions are the ones I hope you are constantly asking yourself about the power you wield over impressionable young minds and how best to harness and utilize it for the benefit of every student who passes through your classroom.

Anjana Nayar is an ex-lawyer, ex-media professional, and currently full-time mother and part time freelance writer. She has a blog, https://www.facebook.com/anjananayar.blog/, on which she comments about issues that she feels strongly about or thinks could be worthy of a conversation and children tend to figure hugely in her writing. She can be reached at nayar.anjana@gmail.com.