Teaching

Teaching is one of the most selfless, and thankless job. A teacher ignites the dream, vision, and powers in his students. It requires being forgiving, joyful, and loving to the students. One of the big task for a teacher is to how to change the mindset of students? How to ignite that dream to achieve something? How to make them understand the importance of discipline? How to motivate them to pursue excellence?

The foundation of any teaching process is contingent on the teacher-tort relation. The recent innovations and development in the technology space have changed this relation. Now the offline classroom model is being replaced by the offline classroom model. The one-way information delivery has changed to a two-way exchange of the communication. Now the relation is of a friend rather than of a hierarchy. Classrooms have become more interactive and inquisitive.

People raise the question over the traditional model of brick and mortar universities. The online classrooms and courses have changed the entire landscape. In such scenario, the relevance of universities and classrooms have changed. The course material which teachers teach is also oftentimes available over the internet. Hence, students essentially pay for the culture, peer group and brand of the college rather than classroom content.

The culture of the university is defined by club activities, kind of discussions, quality of peer group and in-class conduct of the people. For example, whether classes are being conducted on time or not, whether college timetable is followed rigorously or not, the culture of copy-paste or plagiarism etc. in totality define the culture of the college. Thus the focus of teachers and college administrators should not be entirely teaching. Rather it should be to build the culture of the college.

Now comes the big question of how to build the culture of a place? Or how to change the culture of a place? Solutions of most of our day to day problems lie in this basic construct. Be it at the level of government or at the level of institution/office or even at home. Cultural reorientation will solve our many problems. For example, 'Chalta Hai' and 'Jugaad' culture of India has become anathema to our social system. Similarly, the culture of corruption has created a wide gulf in India's economic profile of people.

The first step of changing the culture of any organization is to identify the ills and goods. The immediate second step is to develop an alternate style of cultural behavior. For instance, if we wish to change the culture of cleanliness then we develop a cultural behavior of throwing the waste in the dustbin. Similarly, if we wish to change the culture of class punctuality then we develop an alternate behavior of coming to class on time. The third step in this direction is to develop some incentives for the new behavior and set some punishment mechanism for old behavior. However, this requires the change in the status quo which oftentimes result in criticism and resistance. Thus, it requires institutional and individual level leadership skills.

Therefore, today a teacher should not only be a content deliverer or content provider rather he should be a leader, a trend-setter and change-oriented person. In the process, he may face criticism, rebuke or ridicule. But that's what makes the teaching a thankless, faceless or selfless job. It is with this perspective, the students can gain the maximum from the relation of teacher-tort.