GODSPEED A Nostalgic Musing on the Art of Teaching
GODSPEED
A Nostalgic Musing
A teacher is a trustee. It is
just like the birds. You take a flock of young students under your wings,
nurture them, teach them to “fly”, and when they are ready, you release them
into the world, set them free, watch them with pride as they fly into the sky,
soar high above you, knowing that they will never come back, wishing that they
reach great heights which you could never reach, for nothing gives a teacher
more happiness than when his student excels and surpasses the teacher himself.
I have learned from
experience that teaching has got less to do with knowledge and more to do with
communication. Teaching is about relationships as well as pedagogy – it is more
about feeling than facts.
It is all a question of vibes.
Once you establish positive vibes with your students, you can feel the
delightful chemistry between you and your students, it is like perfect
impedance matching, the maximum power transfer theorem, and you can experience
the classroom rocking with resonance, when all the resistance to the flow of
knowledge disappears, the intellectual friction vanishes, the barriers melt
away and seamless effortless learning is achieved.
It is not important how much
a teacher knows. What is important is how much the student learns.
Like I said, communication
skills are far more important than qualifications. Teaching is about
relationships as well as pedagogy – it is more about feeling than facts. Soft
Skills outweigh Hard Skills as far as the art of teaching is concerned.
A highly qualified Ph.D. who
does not know the art of teaching and fails to establish good vibes with his
students cannot make his lectures engrossing which may result in students
losing interest in the subject and in some cases an insensitive teacher may
even end up making his students hate and despise that subject.
It is easy to make simple
things difficult but it requires good teaching, communication and soft skills
to make difficult things easy and enjoyable to learn.
Today I feel a sense of pride
tinged with nostalgic sadness as my protégés “fly” off to conquer great heights
of success in their careers. It was a delightful experience to mentor young
bright minds, to see them flower, blossom, bloom and flourish before your own
eyes, observe them metamorphose from students into professionals.
I love being in the company
of young people, full of zeal and enthusiasm, with a zest for living and a
passion for learning. It makes me feel good and, as always, I “learn” more than
I “teach”.
I feel sad, wanting to hold
them back, not wanting to part, but I know I have to let them go to their
destinies.
My dear students, as I watch
you with pride in my heart, swiftly fly away, soaring high above me in the sky,
vanish into the distance, to all my dear students, I sincerely wish you from
the bottom of my heart: GODSPEED.
Godspeed – a wish for a
prosperous journey and good fortune, my dear young friends, as you embark upon
your first career, a new phase of your life.
VIKRAM KARVE
Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
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