There are a thousand of moments in our lives. Some of these become etched in our hearts as memories. They are for keepsakes and become a part of a larger moral framework, a reference point for our being forever.
I have fond memories of my school days. I still remember my classroom vividly and especially a long line of ovens that used to keep our lunch boxes warm. I realised how much the teachers cared for us, and what all the school did to make its students comfortable. As the years passed by, I came across the most caring, loving and concerned lot of teachers whom I can proudly call my second mothers. It is for these memories that I hold the teachers and teaching profession in high regard.
In sharp contrast, college was a much bigger canvas. Bollywood had romanticised the idea of being in college. It evoked a sense of individuality and independence. Sadly, the idea was short-lived.
It was not because college was boring but because of the people who were supposed to prepare us for life ahead that shattered the image. That sense of commitment on their part was lacking.
Unlike school, I found teachers in college behave like aliens. I felt that it was not an educational institute set up by the government for the students, but it was more ‘of the teachers, by the teachers, and for the teachers.’
The government and students do not frame the rules and regulations in college, but the teachers do. They tend to run it like their kingdom.
I hail from a family of teachers, and I dream to be a teacher someday if I end up being good enough. But I am appalled with the quality of teachers today. They deserve all the comforts and a lot more, but don’t we matter in the larger scheme of things? Why is that it feels as if we are bound by their laws, suffocated by our views, strangled by the freedom to express for the fear of consequences that may follow?
The reason is beyond my comprehension. It could be quite simple actually. The human nature when at the peak of power changes quite drastically, and never for the best. The government needs to step in and pave a middle path to bridge the gap between the students and teachers. So that the students can repose faith in the nobility of teaching as a profession and teachers as second mothers.
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