TRIPLE STREAM

A WREATH FOR TEACHERS

Prof. I. V. Chalapati Rao

It is not enough if teachers tell the students what they know, deliver sermons, cover the syllabus and coach the students for the examination. It is not enough if they instruct them. They should inspire them and motivate them. Inspiration is influencing their thought. Motivation is influencing their action. Both are important. Robert Frost wrote the following poem on teachers:

‘There are two kinds of teachers;

the kind that fills you

with so much shot that

you cannot move

and the other kind

that just gives you a little prod

and you jump to the skies’

September 5th is celebrated all over India as ‘Teachers’ Day’ on the birth day of Dr. Sarvepalii Radhakrishnan who was an outstanding teacher reaching the mountain peak as the President of India. He proved Plato’s dream that Philosophers should become the kings to rule the world righteously. He also disproved the adage that Philosophy bakes no bread. It is interesting to know that he took philosophy as his elective subject because he had no sufficient money to pursue scientific studies! Such things are accidents of history.

It is a great thing that he was honoured and praised by Joseph Stalin who did not care to see ,his high profile predecessor Smt. Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and that his students in Mysore removed the horses and they themselves pulled the coach up to the Railway Station when he laid down his office at teacher. These incidents should boost up the morale of the teachers and up their antennas!

How many people know that 5th of September has additional significance on account of its association with Mother Teresa, another great soul? It was on this day that she died. Therefore the date is memorable as Dr. Radhakrishnan’s ‘Jayanti’ and Mother Teresa’s ‘Vardhanti’. She was also a teacher in the beginning, teaching geography and later became world - renowned social worker.

Crowther Committee on Education of United Kingdom defined education as ‘social service’. As such, education and social service are complimentary, if not synonymous. They should go hand in hand.

A teacher is a gardener of the heart. He tends the garden of the student’s heart by watering and weeding.Good thoughts are encouraged and evil thoughts are weeded out. He fertilizes the garden with his knowledge and wisdom. He pulls away the weeds and lops off the briars that stand in the way of the student’s appreciation of the abstract content. Teachers are sowers who sow the seed in fertile minds. They are harvesters who gather the good.

Information alone is not education. “If information is education, our encyclopaedias are our gurus and our libraries are our rishis”, said Swami Vivekananda. To be transformed into knowledge, Information should be screened, filtered and sifted by detached observation, experience, company of the wise and the reading of good books. Wisdom is how we use knowledge. As Gandhiji said, what does not relate to real life at every point is no education.

A teacher is a pearl fisher of the soul. Intellect is not enough. As Swami Vivekananda said: “What is there in intellect? It goes a few steps forward and stops there”. Heart and the soul are important. The right kind of teacher kindles the heart and ignites the soul.

A good teacher is the facilitator, the guiding fellow student and path-finding companion. As Alexander Pope said:

“Men should be taught as if you taught them not

And things new proposed as things forgot”

A good teacher gives life and meaning to the text book, which is otherwise cold print leaving the student untouched. The text is a pretext in the hands of the innovative teacher. It is not an end in itself but a means to transform the whole life of the student. It is the burgeoning of a new spirit under the fostering care of a friendly mentor, and the resurgence of a new spirit or awakening consisting of intellectual alertness, humane feeling and the finer impulses.

In those spacious olden days when I was not too green in judgment, the Vice- Chancellors used to be towering personalities and outstanding scholars, and universities were their lengthened shadows.

Sir Asutosh Mukherji of Calcutta University, Madan Mohan Malavia of Benaras University. Sir C.R.Reddi and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan of Andhra University, to quote a few samples, were names to onjure with. Even Principals were competent to hold the candle before them. We had a Miller in Madras, a Rudra in Delhi, a Wilson in Bombay and Raghupati Venkataratnam in Kakinada) top fruit in the basket. They were head and shoulders above their professors and icons to their students. Today’s cultural leaders are film stars of the showbiz and Cricketers.

It was said that when the Principalship of Pitthapur Rajah’s College at Kakinada fell vacantr, there were several applicants to the prestigious post. After screening the applications, there remained two names - Raghupati Venkataratnam Naidu and Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Sastry, the silver-tongued orator of Guild Hall fame whose speeches had cast a spell over the London audiences. The selection committee was divided fifty fifty. The donor- President of the College, the Maharajah of Pithapuram did not like to exercise his casting vote arbitrarily. He consulted Pandit Kandukuri Veereshalingam and finally cast his vote in favour of Venkataratnam Naidu on the reasoned Plea that it is not enough if the principal is merely a scholar, he should be an agent for social change. I had the privilege of attending his lecture. I remember him immaculatelv dressed in spotless white, speaking to a spell bound audience against a picturesque background. Turner should have painted the back-ground and Elgreco should have painted the man. Every sentence rolled out with the perfection of a Greek Cameo. Sentences were long, slow, slow. The words fell like the drops of water from a faucet and sank in the minds of the listeners and went deep into their hearts.

To speak the truth, it is the school teachers but not the Vice-Chancellors, Professors and Principals, who build the personalities and mould the character of the children, when they were saplings, not trees! It is they that lay the foundations. But they are like the unknown soldiers whose silent work has no high visibility. Henry Van Dyke says in a poem

‘I sing the praise

of the unknown teacher

Great generals win campaigns,

but it is the unknown solider

who wins the war.

Famous educators plan

new systems of pedagogy

but it is the unknown teacher

who delivers and guides the young’.

He lives in obscurity

And faces hardship.

For him no trumpets blare

No chariots wait.

No golden decorations are decreed

He lights many candles

Which in later years

Will shine back to cheer him;

This is his reward’.

In the Hindu dated 5.9.2003, children’s tributes to their teachers are printed. The following are a few samples:

‘Dear teachers, you stepped in when I ducked in fear.

And guided me when my thoughts were not clear

‘Teacher, God cannot be every where so He created the teacher’.

‘Teacher is a candle, who burns himself and gives light’.

‘My teachers are my second God’.

‘I love my teacher. She changed my life’.

‘East or West, my teacher is the best’,

‘Roses are red, violet and blue.

But teachers like you are very few.’

The last comment is significant. As a species good teachers have become obsolete but not yet extinct. Like wild life specimens their numbers are reduced. In the case of wild life, we have game parks, sanctuaries and other mechanisms to protect them. Are there any such agencies for teachers? It is not too late. The grace period is still there. The point of no-return has not yet been reached.

Writing about the unwanted niceties of the use of past participle etc. in grammar, a student wrote the following:

‘When I die, bury me deep

Bury my grammar at my feet

Tell the teacher I’ve gone to rest

And won’t be back for the grammar test’

When Sal Bellow, the famous writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for his novel , ‘HERZOG’, an American linguist wrote to the ‘New York Times’ pointing out grammar mistakes. Sal Bellow wrote a letter to the Editor defending his usage. In response to this the linguist wrote his own letter again finding fault with certain grammar lapses in the authors letter of defence. Finally, the Editor of the New York Times declared that further correspondence on the subject is closed in view of the fact that Sal Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and not for language or grammar”.

Readers know that a great writer like Shakespeare wrote in his own style and language which was in defiance of the conventional grammar and the Dictionarie& Abbot wrote a book ‘Shakespearian Grammar’ and Cunliffe wrote a special ‘Dictionary’’ of Shakespeare’s words.

It does not mean that there should be grammar mistakes! Only poetry is defined as organised violation of established grammar. A writer like Shakespeare could flout the mandate with impurity. But, we ordinary writers should be careful. What is important is, it is the business of teacher to make teaching interesting. As Lord Chesterfield said “There are no uninteresting subjects. There are only uninteresting speakers” It applies to teachers as well.

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