Art of Teaching

The word "Teacher" instills different kind of emotions in people - and the emotions depend on the subject the teacher used to take. For example - I used to "adore and respect" my "Maths" teacher, was "scared" of my Sanskrit teacher (his cane used to be like a sword in the hands of a samurai - brr...), mixture of both for my Physics professor at IIT coaching class...

Null Hypothesis: The inclination of a student to the subject is inversely proportional to his fear and respect quotient for his teacher :)

But can the teacher make a difference - Can I disprove my Null hypothesis?

To disprove I have to take a case of a person who hated a subject and still liked and respected the teacher of the subject.

I decided to look into my school days and I remember a teacher from high-school days - my Biology teacher who also was my class teacher

I took to Biology like an Ostrich to flying - basically I never took off!! And the teacher used to keep asking me questions in the class and I used to have a blank disinterested expression and a readymade answer - I don't know Ma'am.

But the difference between her and the other teachers was that she never ever taunted me saying that I was going to be a failure in life or something like that. She just used to ask me "Why don't you study despite being an above average student (me and above average - ahem...she must be kidding - not after my stellar Bio knowledge surely).

I told her bluntly - "I don't like Bio, Ma'am - I don't have the time and patience to study volumes of Bio. I want to get into IIT for which I am preparing and the sole reason I came to Chennai - I dont care about my CBSE results as they do not matter in IIT"

She took it pretty well - she used to even sanction my half day leaves on pretext of headaches, stomach pains etc.... (our school was really strict about it) and she would smile and say "some test in your IIT class, is it?"

Since she was so understanding - I never had the heart to not to listen to her during her classes - she was a fabulous teacher - was very clear in explaining Bio - which to me was always Greek and Latin otherwise...

I realised that I was one of her favourite students - not because I was good in Biology - it was far from that.. There was a strange bond of understanding - which is what made me respect her a lot - Even though I disliked her subject, she understood that different students have different preferences to different subjects and it is not necessary that everyone has a same passion to the subject as she had...

To date, I have not seen one person say that she was not a nice teacher or a nice person - everyone used to like her and she was the most popular teacher in the school for years... and I guess she still is!!

In conclusion though I have disproved my Null hypothesis, I would say that - For an average teacher the relationship still holds good... but the person who can make his/her students respect him/her irrespective of the student's inclination is what makes a truly Outstanding teacher...