Stroking learning, Rocking lives

 

The class of ’13 has bid adieu. The exercise has added one more batch to the list of those who have moved off from the college. The ceremonial waving off which is a routine affair in the college, in all colleges. With all the customary trappings in place -  the setting, the food, the introductions of the students who been there all along, the feedback, the (outgoing) assessment of the teachers by the outgoing learners, the everything goes kind of liberalism which spreads in the setting, the exchange of gift, the light hearted rib-poking, the ironic leg-pulling and the occasion tear-jerkers too.

As a teacher, I often feel that we teachers, (well, just me, may be. It is a possibility) sometimes lose sight of the lives the students live in spite of the pressure we mount on them in terms of the academic requirements. The structure we try to impose on the students (is it just me, the imposer?! It is a possibility) and the schedule which is punishing for them, makes us (well, it could just me. It is a strong possibility) feel that the students are given little lee way for fun. A working day for a student which starts at 9.30 in the morning and grows to 4 in the evening, bricked evenly with six sessions of ‘instruction’ leaves little room for a life otherwise I feel (well, it could just be me. It is possible). One can’t but sympathize with the lot of the learners who are caught in this teaching / learning trap. In an age of awareness where the learners have learnt to learn much on their own, when the learners are also learning that they don’t have much to learn, it is a pity when we realize that they are being force-fed, morn to evening.

What comes as revelation is the experience they share at the end of the year. When we come to realize the amount of fun they have had, the amount of enthusiasm they have managed to share, the manner in which they have innovated interest, is pretty interesting.

 This comes as a big relief to me, because the parallel lives the students manage to run, in the gaps and crevices of the college time, is rich with happiness and cheer. These slices of cheer actualize within broken - unexpected and unforeseen contexts too. An absent teacher, a non-working projector, a power failure, a note carried by the attender, a colleague at the door with something which needs to be spoken to, a buzz of the (illegally) carried mobile phone in the teacher’s pocket, the abruptly issuing unbodied, oracular decrees over the  Public address system or even a cat which miaows loudly along the corridor, an ad-vehicle on the road, even an overcast sky. The lunch breaks need no mention as they are the legitimate hour of life at the college for the students.

And imagine the lives they create within these spaces! (Well, it could be just me wondering. It is a silly possibility). The myths and legends which the student community builds up interest me. 

The characters who people their non-academic world inside the world of their academics, the incidents, the politics, the drama, the little rivalries, the healthy competitions, the tease, the laughter and the good vibes. It is a life quite rich in depth of passions and breadth of experiences, a life as good as any other. these lives constitute the cause of their continued presence in the campus. What sincerely makes them turn up the next morning is not precisely the theory lecture on macroeconomics or the presentation of business ethics. Rather it is the promise of the meet under the trees, a corollary of the pious thought that the teacher may miss the bus.  And even the teacher who makes to the bus and hence to the class cant kill the fun which will be cooked behind his/ her back. The flourish of this other existence is what drives the learners. When they spill out the details of how they cooked it, the flavour relieves. The relief which I feel when they speak of the ‘unimaginable fun’ they have had is partly because of the sense of guilt I time and again experience when I think of what I do as a teacher. The incurable dissatisfaction which I experience on the one hand and the unbearable sense of ‘having held them in captivity’. If ‘interest’ is the key word in cognition, how interesting is much of what we as teachers do in the classrooms is what I find myself asking (well, it could be mere me. It is an interesting possibility). The answer is rather unconsoling. 

What the students take home after sitting through (sifting through!) years of ‘learning’ is the other lives they have lead. The paper flights behind the teachers’ back, the noon-break picnics, the sideways commentary, the canteen meets, the bus business, the exam-fun or bunking beauty. The story is not different when we revisit our past too (perhaps just me. It is more than a possibility). The classes, the teacher work, the examinations - everything what the education is supposed to be all about, is missing in the picture of pleasure we paint of the schools and colleges. But the second shows, protest marches, stolen posters, exits in-between lectures, pilfered attendances and lucky answers top the list of reasons which made college interesting. 

The real learning, if it ever happens, seems to have slipped through the pores of the skin. It has got in and has disappeared. The learning, if ever, has been internalized to such a level that it doesn’t seem to show itself up when the learner roll calls their achievements.  The strength which makes them stand up and talk, the language which gave us ability to enumerate the fun we enjoyed thanks to the missing code of the laptop comes via the learning which has happened through some kind of instruction. That we, the learners of yore and they, the learners of today, are happily and understandably oblivious of the fact that we /  they learnt. Is it not the best kind of learning, when one who has learnt still carry the feeling that learning has happened in spite of teachers? As they say, a true leader creates leaders, not followers. The best kind of learning is when the learner thinks that they have learnt on their own. 

End of the day, programme, course, it still is a matter of lot of delight that the students have enjoyed their stay in an institution of learning (sure, it could be just me. It is a possibility). The parallel lives they have led, their actual and pleasurable lives, behind the teachers back, during the instructors absence, gifted by the technical snags, lottery of a flash meeting with the principal, have made their learning enjoyable.

What do we teachers take home at the end of an academic year? The pleasure of having ‘covered’ lessons on time? The sheer joy of a session effectively ‘delivered’? The efficacy of the learning outcome ? The professional growth? Having got hold of some excellent students ? What are those other lives which define teacherly satisfaction? What will make us claim that we have ‘really rocked’ with our teaching assignment? (Well, it could just be me fishing for ‘rocking’ causes. Is it a distinct possibility?)