The Teaching DNA

When I was in first grade, my teacher once asked the class what we wanted to become when we grew up. As she went around asking each student, my heart started pounding. The only far-sightedness I had at the time was to remember what time my favourite TV show came on, and so I blanked out completely. The other students answered things like doctor, engineer, pilot, etc. and I stared at them in awe, cursing at my lack of knowledge in professions. And so, when my turn came, I gave the most obvious and clichéd answer ever-‘teacher’-and hurriedly sat down. Not surprisingly, twenty years later, none of my classmates had stuck to their words, except me.

Life is a really funny thing, and the punch line of my life was becoming a teacher. When I had finally finished school and college, I had promised myself not to have anything to do with schools again. But promises are meant to be broken, and after my marriage and relocating to another city, I wanted to gain a little experience in the work sphere, and the first job I ever got was as a teacher. When I went for the interview, I was convinced that I would be rejected since I was out of touch with math and science, and so I did not have much hope. Imagine my shock when I found myself standing in front of a class of thirty children, looking fresh as a daisy, ready to start their first class of the year.

Now I might add here that I was not entirely without experience. My mother had been teaching at my school for the past fifteen years, although she never taught me, and my sister too joined the same school as an assistant teacher. Even though I had never actually entered her classroom, I did have a working knowledge as to what was required of teachers and what kind of work they did. They would come home every day and tell me all kinds of stories regarding what some child had said, or some of the dirty politics of the staffroom, and I listened patiently. So when I got the same job, albeit, in a different city, people used to tell me that teaching was in my DNA. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but now that I had landed the job I decided to do it justice. And so there I was, all prepped up and ready, staring at the eager faces of children, waiting for me to slip up so they could laugh. 

Oh yes, trust me when I say that teaching is the hardest job in the world. People think that doctors and engineers have it the hardest, but no, they do not. Imagine a situation where a person calls customer service about a problem on their computer and the executive explains to the customer how to solve it. Now imagine that same thing, but with a five-year-old hyperactive customer who doesn’t know what a computer is, or the difference between the mouse and the keyboard. And then multiply that by thirty. The ability to learn and reproducing something on paper or applying it in real life is easy, but learning something and then having to explain that same thing in such a way that anyone between the ages of five to fifteen would understand it and then be able to write about it is a Herculean task. 

In the beginning, I was like, now I’ll finally be able to take revenge for the tortures that I suffered as a student by transferring it to these young innocent people. But when I got to it, it turned out to be a completely different ballgame. You see, as a student, I had always perceived my teachers to be my sworn enemies, especially in math and science, and I hated having to do homework or studying for exams when I could be playing or watching TV. Stepping into the shoes of a teacher brought everything into a new light. Suddenly I began to appreciate how much hard work a teacher does to make sure that every child understands her perfectly. He/she has to take care of so many aspects of life as a teacher. 

It’s not just about entering a classroom, writing stuff on the board, saying what you got to say and just leaving. You see, for a teacher, a classroom is not just made up of four walls; it is made of the living breathing creatures sitting in front of her, waiting to learn something new. The classroom represents a dynamic organism, a micro-society as it were, where children do not just learn about sums and stories but gain a deeper understanding of life. In my time as a student, my favourite teacher was Mrs Moushumi Das, and the reason that she was my favourite was not that she taught history well (which is partly why I love history), but also because she was the most fun person to be around. And I realized that I had to do the same thing.

To become a good teacher, I had to not only be thorough in my subject, but I also had to be a friend, a mother, a guide, and a well-wisher. If I wanted my children to behave and speak properly, I had to do the same thing first myself. I had to go down to their level of understanding and make them connect their experiences with their syllabus. I had to patiently listen to all their problems, resolve their conflicts, laugh at their jokes, care about their health, teach them about important things of life, appreciate their achievements, and reprimand their mistakes. I was not just responsible for making them better students, but making them better human beings. I had to know about the psyche of every individual before me to make sure that my point got across. I had to think of them as my children, and not just students.

And imagine my delight when, after two years of teaching, when I told my children that I would be leaving the school, some of them had tears in their eyes. They came to me and told me that I was their favourite, and then hugged me and even touched my feet. At that moment I realized that this was the greatest achievement any teacher could wish for, and I knew we teachers would have been proud. Maybe teaching was in my DNA, after all.