One teacher at a time

Ravi has been a school teacher at Indore since the last 5 years and is quite popular among the students for his lucid explanations and warm disposition. Though just in his late 20s, he exudes wisdom beyond his years while at the same time maintaining a boyish charm. When he enrolled for BSc in Physics at one of the most reputed college of India, his primary aim was to become a world-renowned scientist like CV Raman. However, interactions with some of the best teachers in college made him get seriously interested in teaching as a profession. Ravi thought that research is surely very attractive with the possibility of becoming world famous, but teaching could offer him a deeper level of satisfaction. Being able to positively impact the lives of young minds started looking very promising. Finally, in his final year of BSc, Ravi gave up the idea of research and decided to get into physics teaching. At first, he thought of doing a PhD and becoming a college teacher. But later, he started feeling that in order to groom students into becoming good citizens, one needs to start from the school level. Hence, he finally decided to do an MSc in Physics and then a B.Ed., so that he could become a school teacher. There was some reluctance shown by his parents initially, but they finally accepted their son’s idea after some discussions. Ravi was not just smart at studies but also good at convincing others, especially those he deeply cared about! 

Having had a wonderful academic record and a pleasing personality, finding a teaching job at a reputed school was not a big problem for Ravi. After having decided to take up teaching as a profession, Ravi had also invested considerable time and energy in planning his future classes. Hence, after joining the school as a teacher, it took him only a few months to establish a good rapport with the students. And within 2 years of joining the school, he became one of its most respected teachers, obviously to the dislike of some of his more experienced colleagues!

After a couple of years more, marriage proposals started trickling in through the internet and through relatives. Ravi also wanted to settle down and start a family, and so started seeing some of these proposals. After having carefully gone through the profiles of prospective brides, he shortlisted a few based on criteria which he had been developing for many years. His profile was also sent to several prospective brides, some of whom rejected his profile and some showed interest. The next step was obviously to start meeting the prospective brides and have a conversation to figure out mutual compatibility. The first one that Ravi decided to meet was Neha, a bright young woman living in Mumbai and a computer programmer by profession. Today is their first meeting.

This is Ravi’s first visit to Mumbai and he is feeling a bit nervous. Firstly, he is not very comfortable roaming around in big cities. Secondly, he is a bit shy by nature and not sure how the conversation would go. However, they have had a brief online chat earlier and so he has some idea of what to expect. The meeting is at a nice café near Neha’s office and she is already there by the time Ravi reaches the place. A conversation between working professionals usually begins with their job description, and that is what is happening. After a while, Ravi asks her, “Would you be comfortable in moving to Indore after our marriage?”, to which Neha replies, “I am not sure about that. I was hoping you would move to Mumbai.” Ravi is not sure how to answer that since he loves his school a lot and knows that it may not be easy to find an equally satisfying position in Mumbai for various reasons. But at the same time, he also knows that Neha will face the same problem since finding a good programming job at Tier II cities in India is not an easy thing. After taking a few silent sips of coffee, Ravi replies, “I am also not sure about moving to Mumbai. Lets see. Who knows? May be we will end up moving to a different city altogether!”

Neha likes the answer and Ravi’s attitude. Neither is he dominating nor submissive. The conversation then moves on to other topics about their personal lives, family and friends. After a while, when Neha feels that a certain comfort level has been reached between the two, she asks a question that has been on her mind since she first saw Ravi’s profile, “Please don’t mind, but don’t you think you could use your talents and abilities in ways better than being a school teacher? I do respect my teachers at school and they have surely played an important role in my upbringing. But are not things very different in today’s world of internet and Wikipedia? For example, in my job, I hardly use the things I learnt at college. And the real world is also so different from the school or college environment. Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. Would you not be making a better contribution to society by engaging in a job that is more suitable to your talents?” This is a googly that Ravi was not expecting, at least not in their first meeting! Ravi is very proud of his career choice and the reputation he has in his school. The above question has, of course, come up sometimes in meetings with colleagues and family members, but Ravi had always brushed it aside never thinking it to be of much importance. He wants to brush it aside again, but the intensity in Neha’s eyes does not allow him to do so. Neha seems to like many other things about him and is asking this question in all honesty without looking down on his profession. And honesty is something Ravi values a lot. Though he does not have much to say about this now, he promises to surely think about it. The conversation does not last much longer, however, they decide to keep in touch and perhaps meet again in the near future.

Ravi is now back at Indore and has resumed his classes. However, the students can feel that his energy and enthusiasm are a bit down. They think it might be due to some temporary illness, but the problem persists. A month has passed by and Ravi has not shown any signs of being back to his older self. Among other things that Neha said that day, the one that is bothering him the most is : Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. How could school possibly prepare students for such a life outside its confines? Ravi can feel deep inside that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. The world has changed a lot since the time he was in school, and methods that were once considered to be great may no longer be relevant. Ravi now realizes that just because his students like him a lot does not imply that he is preparing them well for the future. In order to find solutions to this problem, he has discussions with few other reputed teachers of his school. Though most of them recognize the problem and understand its importance, none of them has any solutions. Ravi soon realizes that the solution has to come from outside the confines of academics. He has to go to the outside world and seek inputs from people who are working in various fields. Of course, the first one to talk to would be the same person who planted the idea in his head!

Ravi calls up Neha and requests her for a second meeting. This time the meeting would not be about their marriage proposal but about school education. Neha never really liked school very much and is not very keen to get into this discussion, but finally agrees to meet Ravi. After all, he satisfied most of her criteria of being a good match! This is Ravi’s second visit to Mumbai and they meet in the same café.

R: “I have been thinking a lot about the question you asked me last time and now do realize that it is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But I don’t really know how to go about it. Do you have any ideas?”

N: “Not really! I don’t think much about school education nowadays. Actually, I have never even liked school very much to begin with. Not sure if I can help.”

R: “I can understand that. Let me ask you a different question. Lets assume that we get married and have children. Just an assumption! Don’t take it seriously!! Suppose this happens and you had the option to design our child’s school with full freedom, what would be the kind of things you would like this school to teach?”

N: “I am not really sure what your intentions are here, but taking your situation to be genuinely an assumption, I think the first thing I would like this school to teach our kids is how to think about a given problem.”

R: “What a minute! Don’t our schools already do that? We do so much of problem solving in all subjects!”

N: “Not really. What our schools teach is how to solve certain kinds of problems with pre-determined answers in certain specific domains. It is like providing fixed recipes for making certain kinds of foods. But the outside world does not operate like that. Most people nowadays have to deal with new situations on a daily basis. What I am suggesting is to teach students the art of thinking about new problems in general, which may or may not have a well-known solution.”

R: “Your point is well taken. But is that not very difficult to do at the school level? Critical thinking requires one to have lot or prior knowledge, which students surely do not have at the school level.”

N: “Yeah, I agree, but a version of critical thinking can surely be implemented at the school level. I was recently watching a set of amazing sessions on justice by Prof. Michael Sandel of Harvard University, and he adopts an amazing teaching strategy, which proceeds through discussions instead of lecturing. This encourages critical thinking without expecting too much knowledge from the students. I do think that this can be implemented at the school level too. I strongly recommend you to watch these sessions.”

R: “Sounds interesting! I will surely take a look at it. But I am not sure if that is a scalable model. I mean, how many professors around the world teach the way Prof. Sandel does?”

N: “That I don’t know about. But scalability is a question that comes later. It is more important to demonstrate that this model can work well at the school level in India. Whether other people follow it or not should perhaps be left for them to decide.”

Ravi smiles and feels he has got his answer, at least for the time being. They both slowly finish their coffee and there is a certain sense of ease developing between the two that was neither there during the earlier meeting, nor so far during the present meeting. Finally, they get up to leave, shake their hands and give each other a very warm look. Life is not certain, but they both know in their heart of hearts that they will perhaps not have to look at another marriage proposal again.