Friday 19 October 2012

Teacher, Student and Punishment

I often ask myself: where I would be at this very instant of time, If I wasn't at the first hand admitted  to school?  If I hadn't meet the teachers I met? Of course I can also frame the answers. Parents have given me two legs to walk, taught me to crawl and step on the floor, but teachers have not only shown me the right path but also how to reach that path. Parents have given me two eyes, but it is the teacher who taught me what is but a real beauty.
All in all, if  it is the parents who brings seed of a flowering plant in the open field; it is the teacher, who actually makes it grow to a beautiful flowering plant.

Most of our life is also spent with teachers. It is only in the early age and during the breaks that we spent our life with our parents. As a little kid, parents admit us to school, and for me particularly, I was admitted to school at the age of 6 and from class II (aged eight) I was kept as hosteler. So, I pretty well know what a life really is as a teacher, who apart from teachings (their job), and their family at home ends up becoming another to huge number of untrained and raw (so to say) students in the hostel.

At the same time, as a student, I  (we all though!) also know what it means to be away from our little home, from our beloved parents. No matter how much good teachers are, we always find reasons to blame them. And even more bitter is when we knowingly bunk the school for the parents at home and as a consequence, get punishments from teachers.

It is one thing to get punished due to our mischievous acts, failure to do home assignments, or as a result of indiscipline, but another to punish because of the failure to understand the concepts taught in the class, although hardly are the students being punished for not knowing what is taught (bookish knowledge) in the class.

I did get punishments ranging from tiny push ups to as severe as oozing blood from my forehead because of a hit with a bell ringer by a teacher. The later one was though way back at primary school. I don;t exactly remember why I was being hit with. I only remember the kind of funny cry I made and how vehemently complained my parents, only to know now, that they didn't dare! May be it was the reason behind all the escapes of punishment since then, because after that I hardly remember myself getting punished either because of mischievous acts or owing to studies.

Well, I personally feel it is always a good thing to have some kind of punishment in schools, as long as it is accepted by the social norms and ethics, after all what we learn most is through mistakes  and the if there aren't certain things to guide and control, we never know where we headed. I am, as a matter of fact proud for what I came through.

However, I feel the recent news  by 'The Bhutanese paper' http://www.thebhutanese.bt/teacher-plays-doctor-injects-students-with-unsterilized-syringe-as-punishment/ if ever true is beyond the social acceptance. There are so many other ways and means to grooming a student, to instill a discipline in students and to make student more proactive. Such kind of punishment will only instill a fear and a sense of inferiority in the young budding minds which will only do more harm than good. For a moment, or day or two, the teacher may be satisfied  by the students obedience, yet in the long run, I feel it won't serve the purpose. It is rather torture to the students, which will only hamper their growth, and which is contrary to the very concept of  Teaching- Learning.
It will only lead us to so many questions without answers.

At the same time our teachers should never be discouraged with such incidents. It should rather come as an extra lesson. It is just one out of thousand. All our teachers are human too and they know what is right or wrong, The incident is unfortunate.

(PS: The post is never to criticize all the teachers of our country. I am indebted to my teachers for their valuable job, more than as a mere teacher.)

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