My experiences on the other side of the bench !!

We all, for at least one point in our lifetime have been students. We just enter the classroom, attend lectures, ignore if it is boring and leave the campus. But do we ever stop to ponder over or to think over and perceive what the other side is like. How is it being a teacher, a lecturer, a professor? For most of the part we are ignorant of that person whom we meet and stay in contact for hours together. We may just shrug off the thought with an assumption that it is a just a plain Job, an easy one at that. Is it completely true?

My rendezvous with the pedagogical side came along when I was offered to teach 2 batches of students for an undergraduate program. Sooner the acuity of not turning into one of those “dreary” “boring” Teacher clouted my thoughts.
But in a little while the experience made me realise how tedious, demanding and noble is this profession. It needs all that a manager would require while making a quarterly presentation to his supervisor. The confidence, the pitch in ones voice, the decorum of subject in discussion, making of the PowerPoint slides, et all are the series of mix that go into making you a decent, bearable teacher to your students.

One misconception we have during our days as a student was that it is a no hassle profession, no admin tasks involved and a pretty steady one. I was especially wronged when I joined the visionary institute which is striving for its growth and student development. The deadlines, meetings, interactions, inter departmental affairs gave me a real time corporate like experience. Scope lied in unfulfilled plans, opportunities lie aplenty to be used and newer challenges just pop up every moment.

Mentoring is one aspect of my teaching profile. It is a new kind of role which ensures that a leadership eminence evolves in you. It covers the facet of Academic, Career and Emotional dilemmas that students today face. It keeps me up to date with the current social wave of change that a lot of teachers from old school of thought could not address or failed to even see.

As part of my profile, I frequently counsel parents, discuss things about their wards and concerns thereof. It helped me comprehend that being a parent is no easy job either. Their sincere concerns and the zest, to work harder towards the betterment of their child amaze me. The fact that even I during my teenage days failed to appreciate or even observe my parent’s concern, makes me respect and revere my parents even more, today. What does it actually feel like being a parent? It is been just too obvious to encounter it first hand when one starts counselling and equally difficult to fully appreciate and value those years of hardship and rainy days of the parenthood.

My tryst with the other side of the bench, the didactic one, has enriched and increased the horizons of my thoughts and feeling.

Memories come back and now I clearly value and respect those people who helped me carve out my moral fibre and are the second best people to my parents.

Note : The account related above is truly personal and there are general views otherwise. There have been cases wherein this dignified profession has faced shortcomings of its own; government apathy towards them has aggravated the outlook of people wanting to enter this field. Every rule has an exception and so is true for every area of work.