ANNOYING OUR TEACHERS (09-Jan-2021)

 “Gurubrahma…guruvishnu” and “Acharya devobhava” – are engraved values with high reverence in our dharma for our gurus right from our student days.  Several instances stand as a testament to the ‘marked respect’ – an inoculation by Indian birth.  Are there situations, as students where we disrespect our teachers to the extent, we annoy them?

Many like me hesitate to pass a judgement about our teacher who stands in front of a classroom to impart knowledge, leave alone annoy but well circumstances can be different!  Propensity to exploit the inadequacies of some who pose they have abundant subject knowledge or who do not show empathy towards their students or do not fit a ‘teacher’ stereotype, is but natural.  Lack of grip on subject matter and inability to answer precocious students’ questions is a common ‘root cause’ for many a pandemonium in the classroom!  A mishmash of a few anecdotal incidents but from my student days…

Idiosyncrasy was a stand-out feature for this math teacher from our high-school days. He ‘showered’ knowledge – literally, on the frontbenchers; was good in his subject but also displayed an ‘atypical’ dress-sense.  A rectangular-framed spectacle sat almost always at a 45-degree angle on his round face and you could not help but pose a smirk.  His strange movement of the arms to set right the spectacles – a semi-circular jerky arm movement bringing his two thumbs together to adjust the nose-bridge, proved instantaneously futile since it would settle back to its skewed position and would ignite gales of mass-scale laughter!  In a few instances his innerwear brief secured with a string was visible with an end seen dangling out of his trousers.  A book held close pressed against his paunch, he neither cared nor witnessed when the mischievous frontbencher deftly used his pencil to yank the string into a pendulum-like movement.  Visualize this and we will understand that subject matter expertise is no substitute while few other aspects create annoyance.

Another teacher who sported a thick-beard paid a spot-check to our class and found almost all indulged in mischievous acts except my bench-mate and I, a rare scenario!  Once near us he pushed the hockey stick in his hand in mid-air in our direction as if to break our spell and announce his disbelief.  The stick wobbled to hit my nose-bridge and injured me.  Exasperated “I will have his beard shaved off” …is what I whispered into my friend.  Lo behold, a sheer coincidence on the next day at the morning assembly when we noticed the teacher clean-shaven; news spread like a wildfire in our assembly line that sent gales of laughter across our friends.  The teacher stood annoyed at this commotion.

A newcomer biology teacher failed to make a good first impression; we complicated the situation for her with smart questions for which she fumbled for answers.  Students booed and further misbehaved; one day in the mayhem my ‘chappal’ flew like a misdirected scud-missile and landed next to her.  This unintentional act put me in a state of confusion; ensuing scenario bailed me out.  She picked the ‘single chappal’ with a foot-long scale and attempted to match the other pair to identify the ‘culprit!’  The entire class erupted in laughter and staged a walk out, which prompted her to toss the chappal aside.  In the pandemonium I lost no time and found my way to the chappal and quietly slipped out.

Strange are the situations and stranger are the ways it morphs into episodes for annoying our teachers!  I bet you have your own collection to narrate….