Fresher Challenges

Being a good teacher is as tough as walking on a razor’s edge

Being a teacher is the easiest of things we can do as many would think. They say teaching is the first thing to opt for when one is still not decided about his / her career path. There is an easy access to teaching and one needs to have just a willingness to do it. Want it, and it is available in schools that you find in every other street in your own community. This is partly true, especially for those who teach just for the shake of teaching or make it a stepping stone to make a bigger leap into the career of their choice. It is, however, not as easy as it sounds if you want to adopt it as the profession of your life.

Being a good teacher is increasingly becoming tough. It is even tougher when it comes to teaching the modern day teenagers. There are new confrontations in classrooms every day and most of these confrontations concern not projects and assignments but behavioral anomalies. Most of the modern day students are adamant and aggressive. Ranging from upper primary to undergraduate level, students are intolerant of teacher’s authority. They don’t entertain it when their teacher tells them what to do, and what not? They take it as interference in their freedom to learn. They prefer to be left free to do whatever they choose to even during the lectures. Some don’t even value the presence of teachers in their class and continue to display their disrespectful attitude towards the teachers. They don’t show any respect that their teachers ethically deserve.  Instead, they misbehave with them. They view teachers merely as people who have been hired to assist them, and who live on the money paid by them. Anything, as simple as inquiring about assignments or chiding for disturbing the class, can trigger a verbal exchange between the teacher and the student. Consequently, the teacher has to suffer insult and humiliation

Impatience and disobedience are the most visible behavioral deviations in modern day students. They have lost the patience of listening to their teachers. Time and again, they get diverted and you should keep reminding them.  Even a forty or forty-five-minute lecture is too long for them to sit through. They begin to show the signs of disinterest shortly after the teacher has started the delivery and it is clearly visible in their body language. Their facial expressions and emotive reactions clearly reveal that they are not enjoying what you are delivering to them. One of the most common and immediate reactions to this is they start dozing off right through the lecture. Some others react by creating distractions such as using their cell phones under their desks, whispering to each other and passing cheats to communicate with one another.

Today’s students want shortcuts. They have no patience in listening to hour long lectures to derive a short conclusion at the end. They don’t want to read the voluminous textbooks to find answers to a couple of questions they are confused about. They want readymade solutions to everything without having to work hard. Unlike students in the past who went to schools and colleges to gain knowledge, students in modern days go there to pass their tests. Even students pursuing their graduation courses want exam capsules. They are worried more about their grades than the amount of knowledge and skills their courses are likely to offer them. Self-studies and research oriented readings are rare even among university students.   

Amidst these odds and difficulties, being an effective teacher is challenging. As the saying goes “An mediocre teacher tells, a good teacher displays and a successful teacher motivates”, it’s even tougher to become a motivator. With the advent of new pedagogical dimensions, teaching has now gained a new definition. If a teacher fails to keep pace with these changing contexts, he/she is likely to fail. Unlike in the past, only being academically sound does not attribute to being a good and successful teacher today. Teaching has gone beyond the text books in terms of both form and content. Syllabus and the text books are now only the means but not the ends. So, only teachers who can transcend this traditional boundary and teach their students the values of life are likely to get better appreciation, and this is easier said than done.

Modern day classrooms are not merely the groups of passive listeners. They are neither the groups of inquisitive knowledge mongers and creative enthusiasts. They appear to be more like a group of troublemakers who care more about their rights than their duties. Having to cope up with such aggressive and irresponsible mass of youths, teaching has been as tough as walking on a razor’s edge. A modern day teacher, therefore, has to play a number of roles at the same time. He/she is a teacher, friend, psychiatrist, counselor, actor, joker and most importantly a good human being, the last of which is sometimes the most difficult of all.

Durga Gautam

Buddhanagar, Kathmandu

To The Haters

It is generally said that what people can’t achieve, they secretly hate it. Some display this abhorrence in their behavior and activities. The same goes to some people’s irritation with English language. They not only hate English but also show their disrespect to those who use English language to communicate with others.

The trend is more common in academic field. In schools and colleges, English is often viewed as an unimportant subject. It is considered as a subject which students can pass easily without having to work hard in it. From the early days of school, students are advised to allocate more time to Mathematics, Science and other technical subjects. Some non-English teachers even tell students that studying, practicing, and revising English at home is a total wastage of time. This gradually demotivates students to learn English and they start taking it lightly. Some even start hating it secretly while many others, especially those who are seeking to build their career in science and technology, begin to question its usefulness.

In the first place, schools and colleges are responsible for this sort of discriminatory treatment of English and English teachers. Many academic institutions treat English teachers unequally. They don’t give the same respect and value to them as they do to mathematics and science teachers. English teachers in these academic institutions are discriminated in salary and incentives. They are not paid as much as science or Math teachers even though they are equally qualified and teach in the same level. English teachers can hardly bargain about time and facilities while the others are allowed to use these privileges.

Most of those who hate English are usually the ones who don’t have good English language bases themselves. They know they lack good communication skills in English.  They have bitter experiences to have missed many good opportunities because of their poor performance in English language ability tests. I know some friends who had to give up their dreams of pursuing their studies in foreign universities simply because they failed to get a good score in TOEFL or IELTS. Some appear in these tests repeatedly but give up finally as they can’t improve the score. So they don’t feel   comfortable when they find others using English without much difficulty. It makes them feel inferior and they show their deep rooted frustration with English by advocating on its uselessness.

In the contrary, people with good English always respect and value English language no matter what subject areas or profession they belong to. We can see a good number of non-English teachers who speak and write excellent English. They use English regularly and are eager to learn new things every day. We have heard about people who never attended any formal English courses in universities but are good writers of English now. People with no formal degrees in English are English language instructors. It is not necessary that you must have studied English or must be an English teacher or instructor to know English. English is not only a subject that people opt to take up. It is a language that everyone needs to learn in this globalized world. So, dear haters, you’d better improve your English and see how it can benefit you rather than hate it.

Durga Gautam

Buddhanagar, Kathmandu

The Fear of Writing

Many of my friends and colleagues ask me how I write. Their questions are mainly related to how I select the topic and generate the ideas to be expressed. Some even say and admit that not everyone can do it. They argue that everyone is not meant for it, and only those who have been gifted with this talent can write. In this short article, I, therefore, try to address this misconception about writing.

Writing, as many of us think, is not an inborn trait. It is acquired. It requires a consistent effort and a rigorous practice, which no advice or instruction can substitute. Anyone can write if he/she is ready to take it up. Most of us don’t write because we think we can’t do it. We have a negative attitude towards it. We consider it a risky undertaking and secretly fear it. Some of us even take it to be a nuisance and try to avoid it if it comes to us by chance. We fear it for the reason that we may not do the justice to whatever subject we are handling. Even if we do some of it, our writing is often poor. There are various reasons regarding the causes of this.

The first and agreeably the crucial reason behind most of the poor writing is wrong schooling. A large majority of people are given wrong ideas of writing at school. Good English is often associated with flowery language. So, during English lessons, students are encouraged to use long words and flowery expressions, rather than using language to communicate information. Common words and straight forward sentences are discouraged. The rules such as ‘don’t repeat the same word in a sentence’ or ‘long and unusual words are more elegant and impressive’ still persist in school.  As a result, many students are left with the conviction that English is not meant for them. They give up English and choose their careers in fields where they have to do very little with it. Due to this, they fear writing if they have to do it in their professional life later.

Secondly, our tendency to maintain authority results in poor writing. As writers, we don’t want our writing to be easily understood by everyone. We think it puts us in the rank of average or even poor writers. Therefore, we intentionally embrace verbose writing. We rely heavily on words to express our thoughts and ideas. We forget that this verbosity stands as a major barrier between us and the readers. The primary purpose of any writing is to communicate. If writing fails to communicate the writer’s intended message, it is considered poor writing. Verbose writing rarely communicates as it is loaded with vagueness and pomposity.

Thirdly, writers create the problem for themselves by facing the task of writing in a wrong way. They sit down; take a clean white sheet of paper and a pen and then only start to think. This tendency lands them in trouble. They find getting the words flowing difficult, and this obstruction discourages them from moving ahead. As a result, they give up the task thinking that they can’t do it.

Writing requires a plan. Rather than panicking over an empty sheet of paper, a writer has to be carefully prepared before. Writing is the last thing we do, and is one of the easiest of the tasks. But, without a careful and precise plan beforehand, it proves to be very tough. The flow of thought breaks every now and then and writing can’t move forward smoothly and coherently. A well formulated plan, on the other hand, provides us with a clear direction to move and gives us an organized sequence of ideas to be discussed.

The initial step of a writing plan is to gather the needed information. Without adequate information about the subject in hand, we can’t expect good writing to occur. It’s much like preparing a dish, which first requires the availability of the ingredients. Only then come the matters such as how skillful and experienced the cook is and so on. Information is the basic ingredient of writing, and writing is the process of dishing up information.  Many of us end up without writing a single good paragraph because we start with an empty brain. 

The failure to write also results from our inability to identify the aim and audience. Writing tactics, information included and the language used are different according to our purpose and audience. For instance, when we write at school or college, our writing is to be read by people who already know the information. We write in order to be assessed. So our primary aim is to impress the examiners with the sophistication of the language use and the display of knowledge. But when we write in our profession, especially as technical people and IT professionals, we write for people who don’t know the information. So, the primary purpose of writing at this time is to communicate information. Similarly, when people do literary writing, they generally write to express themselves.

Thus, writing is not meant to be done only by people who have the flair for it. Everyone can do it if he/she clears the misconception about it and takes it up positively.

Durga Gautam

Buddhanagar, Kathmandu

Digital Divide

            A widening generation gap in the technocratic Societies

Many parents complain their children are not responsible. They are self centered and don’t listen to them. They want freedom. Some parents even share that their children are hostile to them. On the other hand, children say their parents are not considerate. They are always vindictive and unnecessarily strict. They say parents never understand them, and are rarely loving and cooperative. This has resulted into an unwanted tension in families, with both parents and children involved in unsolicited blame games. This is leading to an ever-widening generation gap, and it is more conspicuous in urban families.

Owing to their busy schedule, parents in industrialized world don’t have enough time for their children. Working mothers leave their infants in day-care centers and go to office. Many others hire nurses and babysitters to take care of their children while they are busy with their jobs or business. Children, who grow up under institutional care or receive hired help this way, grow up to be different from those who receive family care. They don’t have an emotional attachment with their parents. Their relationship with parents is a formal one, not bound by love and affection. They don’t have a sense of responsibility towards their family too.

Many parents don’t spend time with their children even when they are free. On weekends and vacations, children expect their parents to be around them.  They want them to listen to and show interest in what they want to share with their parents.  They don’t want their parents to do big things for them. They have some little demands, as simple as being taken to the cinema or fun parks for a day out so that they can have a quality time together.  But parents hardly manage this time for their children. They have their own plans and programmes, and the whims of their children are just insignificant compared to their plans. When this persists, children gradually develop a negative attitude towards their parents.  They feel a lack of love and care and feel that they have been neglected. This ultimately leads to a situation where children begin to distance themselves from their parents.

 Even in mornings and evenings, some parents don’t take time to care for their children. Many parents work overtime and are exhausted after work. Some others are psychologically stressed due to their work load and inevitable pressures in their workplaces. Sometimes, they have a pressure of projects and assignments to be completed, and they have to spare extra hours at home to meet the deadlines. Even when they aren’t busy, some parents don’t bother to look after their children. They can’t entertain their mischiefs or don’t have the patience to answer their queries. So, they either switch the TV onto a cartoon channel and leave the child watching it or let it play games in the cell phones. For a time being, it proves to be a good solution as it gives them a respite from having to take care of the child. The television or cell phone engages the child while parents take time to complete their work. But in the long run, it turns to be counterproductive. The child gets addicted to the gadget and begins to be hostile to the parents.

 Children who grow up with little family care tend to be reserved and hesitant. They can’t open up with their family and relatives. Many of them feel low and inferior, and thus prefer to live in isolation. They feel freer and more comfortable in the company of their friends. But while at home, they lock themselves up in their room and enjoy in the virtual world that they have created through the social networking sites. They laugh, cry, frown or do anything there to release their frustration and resentments. They avoid family functions and social gatherings. This creates a gap between them and their parents, and parents think their children are anti social. This vicious cycle continues.

Although children too are partly guilty, parents have a larger share in inviting such unwanted tensions and gaps. Lack of real communication with children and basically their tendency to take the help of gadgets in parenting their children has proved costly for them. Parents sometimes fail to understand what their children really want from them. By providing for all their monetary needs, some parents think they have done everything for their children.  But this is a misconception. What children need from their parents is time and attention.

Besides busy work schedules, our own craze for technology has further widened the gap.  Our obsession with smart phones, tablets, internet, emails, and all the social media apps has distanced us from our children further apart. We ourselves tend to live in our digital lives rather than the physical one, and sharing stuff in the social media is more important than sharing with our family and children. For instance, instead of making mealtimes fun, we keep busy with our phones, checking out the latest updates from our friends and replying to chats and emails.

Therefore, rather than complaining about our children, we, as parents, ought to find ways to maintain a balance between our family and work. Most importantly, we ought to realize that a little time communicating and listening to our children is more worth than many extra hours that we spend earning for our children.

Durga Gautam

Buddhanagar, Kathmandu

Undisciplined DI's

On the first day of your college, if you see a muscular man (usually with a stick or a piece of rubber or plastic pipe in his hand) standing at the college gate, don’t be confused. He is your discipline In-charge (DI). He is the person who will monitor your activities and discipline you during your stay in the college.

Most of the colleges in Kathmandu have DI’s, who are hired for maintaining the discipline of students. These DI’s are often muscular men who frighten students with their physique. Some are bouncers who, at night, work in restaurants, dance bars and nightclubs, helping to stop drinking brawls and other unwanted tensions. Barring some few cases, most of these people are illiterate or semiliterate, and are rarely friendly to students.

Early in the morning they stand at the college gate screening every individual student about whether or not he/she is in proper college uniform, with fingernails properly manicured, hair trimmed short(for boys) and many other things. If not up to the mark, you are not going to be spared. If your hair is a few millimeters longer than they want it to be, they have got scissors in their hands. No matter what you say and how you try to plead to them that you will manage to have it cut the next day, they are not going to listen to you. They cut your hair. You may be regular and punctual on the other days but if you happen to come late just one day, they don’t spare you. You may have a genuine reason for your coming late, but it does not work. You have to face the punishment, which is often harsh and humiliating.

They are rarely polite to students. Many of them don’t even use decent language. It seems as if they have no soft corner in their heart. They often address students in disrespectful ways. Some are heard using abusive and derogatory words, which modern day students are not exposed to even at home and in their surroundings.  They never counsel students positively to improve their behavior. Instead, they provoke students by being harsh and indecent to them.

 In fact, we don’t need DI’s in colleges if we view discipline with a new perspective. We can build a well functioning system, which automatically trains an individual to behave in the way we want. There are many colleges which have been doing well without DI’s. We never hear anything about the misbehaviors of students in these colleges.

Durga Gautam

Buddhanagar, Kathmandu 

Narcissism

Narcissism is a complex where an individual is obsessed with self praise. Narcissistic people never get tired of singing in their own praise and expect the same from others too. They find themselves elated when they hear the words of praise from others. narcissism often results from an individual's inferiority complex. People who view themselves as inferior to others in one way or the other find narcissism as way of  wish fulfillment. such people are always aware of the fact that they lack something and try to hide it by creating environment where they are praised by others.
we have got a number of such people around us. Everyday they try to wear the same arrogant look behind which lies a helplessly defeated self. we like to pity such people who live a fake life with one of a huge personality disorders.       

nothing.....

sometimes nothing....just nothing strikes your mind..an absolute blankness...a void, a big void scary and dark...everything, every idea submerges beneath the floorboards of emptiness..just a myriad of undefined senses or senselessness ...swirling up like a twister, rising up with tumults....a state of  thoughtlessness.

out of this gestation are then born pure thoughts, worthy to be expressed ...a flow of ideas a chain of feelings....