My Private Tutor...

I was having a tough time in mathematics class. I request the lecturer to help me out. He is hesitant in the beginning and finally helps me out with the statement that, these were the basics and I should have learnt it in the Eleventh standard. I finished my Eleventh in 1995, after that one year of Twelth, three years of college, one year as a designer and then finally 6 years of active service in the Armed Forces, and somehow he expected me to know all the basics of Integration, which he had just started teaching, a good ten years later for me!

This has not been the first time. Most of our teachers in our esteemed educational institutions take their jobs, well, just like a job. Their aim mainly has been to complete teaching what they have to for that period – Teach less and complete as much of the portions as possible. The end result? Failure of the learning process.

Now we must wonder what does the student do? He takes tuitions, most probably from a 'professional' institute, which are nothing less than mini colleges by themselves, or from the college lecturer himself – with the ruse that he will pass him. This.... is a vicious cycle. Ridiculous.

The question is who is at fault? The student? Who doesn't seem to understand in class but seems to really do well with tuitions, or is it the teacher, who is not giving his best in a college class but is an excellent tuition teacher?

Our culture is based on ancient texts like the Bhagavad-Gita, which is an offshoot of the epic Mahabharata. The same epic where the royal guru Acharya Drona and Arjuna live on for eternity. A teacher who refused and maimed a master archman Eklavya so that his student Arjuna would forever remain the best and unbeaten. The same Eklavya who made Drona's idol out of mud and took the same as his teacher and became comparable to Arjuna.

There is a lesson to be learnt here., not only for teachers and instructors of any kind, but for students too, that no matter what you do, only hardwork, dedication and steadfastness will pull anyone through. It would have been unimaginable if Arjun or Eklavya took tuitions.

The above text is only a generalisation. It is my personal experience with some of these teachers that prompted me to write this. All teachers are not bad. I do have my favorites, those who have molded me as an educated and morally right person. Taking tuitions is not bad too. I have taken tuitions myself. Sometimes you do need extra coaching to understand a subject better, like say literature and mathematics, in which case, the more practice you get, the better off you are. A teacher - student relationship, what i consider, is of an exchange of ideas, for the benefit of learning and should be as interactive as possible. But there are those who have turned this relationship to a money making scheme. My grouse is against those business minded instructors as well as those foolhardy students who encourage this failure of morals.