Curiosity killed the cat: Reflections at the beginning of a new academic year

'Curiosity killed the cat,' goes a popular adage but for a teacher, a wee bit of curiosity is required to keep their vocation live and throbbing. Standing at the threshold of a new academic year and the beginning of my fifth year in the college that I teach (M. E. S. College of Arts & Commerce), I am filled with a sense of excitement plus trepidation - new sets of students, new and old subjects, same subjects and new students, same students and new class, old students and new teaching methods. Curiosity about the new methods in teaching, curiosity to find out about the new students, curiosity to use crazy strategies and curiosity to understand my personality better is something the teaching fraternity should practice as a matter of principle. When the Principal addressed us (the staff) this morning, my takeaway from his speech was the word, ENGAGE. While referring to the usage of audio-visual equipment, he mentioned, "Don't just use the Power-point presentation, try to engage the students.' The word stirred me - I questioned myself abut the word, ENGAGE. Do I really engage my students or prattle off what is required and walk off? Do I effectively engage ALL the students or just a few vocal/smart/ambitious ones? How do I reach out to every single student present in the class? 

Many in the teaching fraternity would like to remain teaching the subjects that they have always taught. Reason: There is no much preparation required. But I beg to differ. Every single batch is a brand new one. I don't deny that the same types of students exist in every class but every individual has a different personality which requires a different strategy. I reckon that one cannot afford to be lethargic and lackadaisical either about the subject or the student. But I guess, it's easy to remain unaffected and plod on without any enthusiasm for many of them.

At the beginning of every academic year, I strive to introspect and reflect on my abilities to create a better version of myself, different from the previous year. This preparation gives me part enthusiasm and part trepidation at the commencing of every academic year. I look forward to the newness at various levels and the additional joy of the monsoon during the reopening time brings a spring to my step. And curiosity does not always kill, it does help us ENGAGE as well.

I do wish to ENGAGE and not merely complete what is assigned. May the force be with the teaching fraternity. 

IMAGE: Internet

Strange weather

Have you experienced strange weather? No, this is not a metaphor for emotional lows - it is really strange weather! Like rain in the midst of scorching summer or a sudden chill when it is not winter. Get the drift?

Yesterday was so - Strange strange weather. We are well into a time with sunny skies and light sweat but yesterday was different. The day mimicked a monsoon day with the sky grey and the mood gloomy; I had imagined that I woke up in the monsoon - only to realise that we were still in February - a  month that has all my students in a strange mood (call it Valentines' mood). And yesterday was 'Rose day.' Do you know dear reader about the 'Rose Day?' It is like a curtain-raiser to Valentine's Day which is still thankfully a week later. The students wish me - "Happy Rose Day ma'am." And I who belongs to another century asks naively, "What is Rose Day?" Giggles. Smiles. Oh! she does not know Rose Day looks and I am told what the day stands for. and I, belonging to another century starts prattling  about how in my day, there was no Rose Day and all, but roses, chocolates, cards, teddies, kisses were all wrapped up in one day i. e. Valentine's Day. I hear them sigh - I guess they were reminiscing how those days there was no expenditure by the day unlike these days when marketing companies came up with newer strategies by the minute to create effective and expensive ways of expressing love. Yesterday, I learnt something new about the Rose Day.

Yesterday was a strange day - I see myself nodding and spouting, "Global warming" to which the EVS teacher quips, "But today is cool, so it's not global warming but global cooling!" I smiled and walked away. I thought of the tsunamis, the cyclone in Chennai in 2015, and the floods of 2016 - perhaps a storm was brewing and cast its spell in Goa.

It then drizzled. Light showers. Didn't I tell you that the weather was strange? No, it wasn't the mango showers. Everyone was thinking and exclaiming about the strangeness of yesterday's weather.

Today it was a bright an sunny day - as perfect as it should be but the weather has cast its mark in me - My throat is sore and my voice is husky. Yesterday remains in me, today!

My taxi sojourns

S was our faithful taxi driver - We used his services whenever we were having guests or the husband was away and I needed to commute to and from College. There was a time when S was my mode of transportation for a whole two months. He would come in the morning at 8 and we would make our way through the highway and the narrow road commonly known as the junction. Our togetherness was brief, say a brief seven-minute in the morning and then another seven in the afternoon. But those minutes were an assortment of the weather forecast, politics, students of today, elders of yesterday, traffic defaulters, irresponsible animal owners and so on.

The journey would begin with, "Good morning S ji. Looks like it will rain today." To which, I would receive, "maybe yes or maybe not." Then the topic would skirt around the current trending news and our opinions. S ji would thrillingly use MC, BC and other colourful words which would shake me out of my reverie but then when feelings have to be expressed, why would a sieve be used. And then without much ado, we would fall silent only to puncture it with something else that catches his or my eye.

Together we used to count the days of the husband's return and mark his duty days with me. Our mornings were clouded with the urge to rush to College and our afternoons with the urgency to go home and rest. S would have stories of his customers and how each one was different from the other - some made him wait for hours while some were stingy; some wanted only his taxi services with low prices, of course, and some called him when their friends were in town. There was a fare for regulars and there was a fare for regulars' friends.

S was well versed with the kind of people after experiencing them as his customers. He could spot a rotten apple in a basket of many. He could advise on traffic timing and low prices in shops. He was an encyclopedia of the common man. I knew what he ate and what his children were up to and when he woke up, offered puja and bathed. Nonchalantly, he would talk about the area's councillors, police personnel, customs officer and their stories of greed and power. Everyone had been his customer one time or the other.

He used to understand my measly bank balance mid-month and lament how it is impossible to earn enough in a straightforward service. He used to say, "dho number ka kam se khoob paisa kama sakthey" (Illegal work only could earn more money).

I look forward to those mornings and afternoons when S and I chat endlessly and merrily about all and sundry. Then one day the journeys with S stopped with the husband coming back and my knowledge bank of 'local' stories became scarce and limited.

I then wondered, "What stories would I tell my students?" But then there is a story everywhere!

Missing trepidation

A new academic year is on the threshold but this time, I seem to be calm and collected in starting the new year. Usually, I feel anxious and jittery but this time it is a different feeling altogether. I don't know whether it is the familiarity, or a sense of belonging or something else. Last year around the same time, I wrote about how I feel anxious and a sense of butterflies taking flight at the deep end; I guess I have passed that stage but that also makes me wonder whether it's the age - ageing does that to you! Nothing seems to surprise or shock you and you have the uncanny ability to anticipate and foresee happenings, reactions, responses and everything else. For example, I can exactly predict what my colleague will say when I ask him/her something; I know what response a student will give when asked some inane question. So much so, I can even predict how meetings and exams will go. Hmmm. No place for novelty, it spells out loud!

But wait, there are moments, tiny ones, which take you by surprise and in some cases, extreme surprise, which make you feel alive and reassure you that yes! moments like these are also there - invisible but there and that they needed to be provoked. Now, it does seem that I am contradicting my self - perhaps so, you have to give some credit to my thought process which is getting rusty and mellow with age! No, before you even start thinking, "Ah! No, you are not so old," let me assure you that this has nothing to do with ageing but ageing of the mind and experience.

That said and done, I await moments - moments that make people engage to their utmost levels devoid of compulsion, marks, people-pleasing and doing-things-for-the-sake-of-doing. You get the drift, right. I just hope and pray that the forthcoming year gives me moments to cherish and job done sans procrastination.

New semester, here I come! Are you ready? 

Ruminations before the beginning of a new academic year

My college on a rainy day

My college reopens in three days. It will be my third year in this college and after spending two years with the various departments and people, one feels that one has seen it all. In spite of my two years here, I feel a certain anxiety coupled with anticipation when I look forward to the coming year. I will be teaching the same subjects albeit one and more or less familiar with the students as well. The introduction to new energy levels and slightly different goals and aspirations gives me the feeling that a thousand butterflies are preparing to take flight from the pit of my stomach.

I wonder whether every teacher has this feeling of an anxious anticipation. Perhaps they might or they would have become comfortably numb carrying on their business like a robot which is devoid of any tingly pre-academic year sensation.

The path leading to the main entrance again, on a rainy day

Alongside, I also wonder whether I will be like this after ten years. Will a new academic year make me feel giddy with excitement and anxiety. Will I look forward to the raging adrenalines of young students as they burst forth with tireless hormones and shiny smart phones. Will I be able to cope with the information overload that my students seem to possess, challenging me with news of the latest gadget or the selling price of an IPL team. Will I smirk at them when they say that FC Goa has won over Chennaiyin even without me having watched a single match.

Although I complain to others and the students themselves that the ought to shake off their susegaad attitude, I like their company better than the whiny adults who lose no time in making lives miserable for those around them. Well, this is not a sweeping generalisation and all students/adults do not fit into that description. There is a lot of trust and sense of belonging when I am in the company of students. To cite an example, once a senior member of faculty happened to be a bit rude with me and immediately the students started showing their solidarity by vocally stating their position on the rudeness. Even though that incident warmed my insides, I am careful not to take sides or even show a minute iota of affirming their actions. Well, sometimes I tend to romanticise the student-teacher relationship.

The lovely triangle campus with glistening rain

Now, standing at the threshold of a brand new academic year, I cannot wait to find out what kind of students I will be meeting for each class and how they will respond to my theatrics and eccentricities -- They will either take to it or brush me aside as another old soul who tries to be in line with the young minds of this generation.

Ah, well! I hear the pitter-patter of the raindrops as I write, diverting my attention to the beautiful weather. I shall pause to revel in the rain and leave ruminations of my new academic year to be soaked by the smell of red earth and pouring rain :)

Picture credits: Author's own

Summer days and pepsicolas

Summer is like the post-coital feeling - not everyone takes to it after the lovely splash of spring and the bygone chilly days. Though the post-coital session evokes warmth and a sense of fulfilment, it cannot compare to coitus itself. Period. The sweat and the addendum to it makes it a tad difficult for me but then there are some bright spots (literally and metaphorically) to summer. The appearance of water/musk melons, pepsi-colas and other summery delights alleviate the problem of post-spring/winter melancholia partially. Summer also signals the end of the semester and examination blues. I thought after becoming a teacher, I would be free from the end-of-term low tide but looks like the end always comes with a sting of boredom, a sense of forlornness and loneliness of having to bid adieu to a set of students with whom the year was spend in wanton abandon, endless gossip, conniving moments and of course some lessons. I will miss them and that feeling makes me a bit morose.

The beach which beckons during warm summer evenings is a welcome relief

The weather is synonymous with my mood and talk. It reflects on my actions and words. Though I try to avoid wearing the weather on me, I seldom succeed. All and sundry realise or eventually come to know of my disdain for summer which is quite conspicuous through my behaviour. I yearn for the sunniness to pass - give way to cool monsoons and sweat-free bodies. And yes, the summer also brings the smell - full throttle! Sweat from the body sans any deo which is feral and raw and often overpowering. I am someone who has heightened olfactory system which oft works against me, conspiring to outdo the summer's already raw nerve.


But summers also bring along the promise of a monsoon which is just two months away and without a summer, there is no relief of the rain. So, I rest my case and await the monsoon eventhough I know that it will be a long wait. Waiting is a way of life in India, you see. I am not complaining.

Image courtesy: Blogger's own picture

The temperamental biometric

In the College where I teach, teachers have to do a biometric identification when they come in and again do it while leaving. A teacher has to stay for five hours in College and the only witness of this five-hour stay is the biometric machine. The records are then submitted to the University at the end of each month.

 

 

For the past three days or so, the biometric machine is not working. Yay! It seems that the machine is protesting and has violent mood swings and as a result it is celebration time for most of us. It is not everyday that we break the five-hour mandatory stay but the lack of the biometric identification seems to give a strange feeling of freedom.

I can imagine students getting happy and jumpy when they are freed from the shackles of attendance and all that jazz but teachers! Well, sometimes when there are rules which one is forced to bow down to, even if the tyrant is the biometric machine, it is a forced sort of discipline.

The childlike aspects of teachers come to the fore when there is a break in the regular routine - I don't see them hurrying to record their identification and fulfill the five hour jail stay! Of course, we don't rush earlier than before but still the chains of mandatory five hours stay is temporarily suspended.

I wonder about the different shackles of forced discipline that exists in my life and unless they are suspended, we will never know their bearing in our lives.

Inspite of everything, life goes on

 

What are your shackles (read discipline enforcement) dear reader?

Image: Internet