The volume of my expectations of you being my didact is proportionately enormous. Resuming from where I left off.
My ninth expectation is that you don’t discriminate against students based on favouritism. Maybe in my class sits a child of any of your acquaintances or even your own; you will treat him like me or me like him. Once, a teacher’s son was my classmate. He was given a special status. His mischief was ignored as a mark of his intelligence. He would drink cool water from the staff room and use the teachers’ hygienic washrooms. Even our principal never objected to his taking liberties with the school discipline. I envied being a teacher’s son.
My tenth expectation is actually the expression of my anguish when you don’t address me by my name. I request you to never dart any derogatory epithet or moniker towards me in a fit of fury at my bad performance. Your casual name-calling and body-shaming would embarrass me in front of my classmates, who will not forget to ridicule me with that moniker.
My eleventh expectation is that I want to feel comfortable not only in my classroom but also in the school. You will not let anybody bully me physically or emotionally. You will shoo away bullies and cocoon me in your unfailing protection. Your availability, in case I am bullied, will ensure that bullying is reported on. Otherwise, it will be internalised, necessitating far-reaching psychological consequences not only on my studies but also on my life. If not you, who should I bank upon?
My twelfth expectation is that you will not trivialise the recognition of my effort. I diligently do the homework and tests, and I expect you will requite my effort by duly checking and returning them. You will correct the mistakes not to humiliate me but to refine my understanding of what you have taught me. Your timely checking of my learning output and its acknowledgement will bring home to me your commitment to my betterment, making it incumbent upon me to reciprocate it.
Your favourite sideswipe on me, dear teacher, is that I lack motivation for studies. Your daily dose of liturgies to motivate me carries no efficacy. Good teaching does not arouse motivation; rather, it removes hurdles to motivation. That’s my thirteenth expectation. Inspiration and motivation are phenomena more of dynamic acts than words. Making the subject easier and creating its relevance to my future goes a long way in infusing motivation in me.
If you feel yourself all at sea with any of my questions, you will not make me doubt my memory or tamper with my perception of reality with your half-truths and wrong answers, exploiting my naivety vis-à-vis your knowledge and status. When later in my age I discover that you gaslighted me, it will mar your respect and connect a feeling of anguish and distrust with your image in my mind. Your simple response of not knowing the answer at the moment would have edified you – my fourteenth expectation. To parry a challenging query without hurting the questioner is the subtle art that a teacher must master.
My fifteenth expectation of you is that you would teach me in a way that I would not need extra coaching. You would not leave lacunas in teaching a subject or assign difficult assignments to force me to join your academy. Nor do you leak the question paper to my classmates who take tuition from you. It is utter discrimination, which doesn’t behove you at all. A teacher is a common asset for all the students in his class.
Intellectually, I am no rival to you. But if any of my comebacks give you such an impression, you should not lose your poise and make it a matter of your ego. I know if, as a countermove, you once make up your mind to humiliate me, you would ask me gradually-becoming-difficult questions till I fail to answer you. Contrarily, your appreciation of my questions would instil confidence in me. That’s the sixteenth. Moreover, your confirmation bias – favouring views that support what you already believe – coaxes me to tow your line, erasing my own identity.
Dear teacher, you are my ‘more knowledgeable other’ to help me through the zone of proximal development. Teaching, at its core, is scaffolding in action to build a human connection. That’s the last and the supreme one.
Respectfully yours