From the Mount…

William Shakespeare, in one of his renowned tragedies, intoned, “ Hide it, in plain sight!” This is exactly how I feel each time I look for my things for hours on end only to find it lying nonchalantly on that innocent looking study table, or on the couch or… am sure you get the drift. Nowadays, since the last 11 years actually, I have been seriously hunting for sanity and it just seems to have vanished into thin air. It surely is a coincidence that it has been exactly 11 years of my teaching in the ostentatiously labelled, international schools, where catchphrases like international mindedness, holistic learning, pedagogy and student centric are mouthed with unfailing regularity. At times, am left wondering if these are the names of my illustrious peers who profess knowledge of these terms so intimately! I am guessing my fetish for meaning in what one does and the need to want to do are rather too plain and lame for today’s ‘schooled educators’.

Of late, in order to do my bit to ease the traffic congestion on the Bombay roads, I have taken to Uber as any Indian does to a Pizza, or a McDonalds burger. Besides the convenience, the interactions with a new person on a daily basis is an incentive by itself. Not only has it extended my understanding of driving and politics across the nation, it provides me with invaluable insights into the mind of a cross section of men, mindset and music. Music, you wonder, of course. A man is also known by the type of music he listens to! While most drivers play the good old FM radio, there are a few souls who play political speeches on the loop, few others listen to spiritual gurus or to the fine lady instructing on the GPS, and promptly drive in the exact opposite direction! On one such occasion, I happened to engage in a rather endearing conversation with this young man, who while driving me from my school to home, promptly confessed to being in awe of me. I was startled by this strange remark, awe of me?! But, I am a measly teacher, sorry, IB Educator/ Facilitator to be more precise. Now, why would anyone, students, parents, colleagues, top management especially the high sounding Coordinators or Heads of School, ever deem it necessary to be in awe of a measly facilitator?! It is not that you are expected to master your subject, present papers or publish articles in academic journals. Their expectations are rather high and it includes that the facilitator, actually the lowly minion in the pecking order be compliant with the vision and mission of the school, to begin with. What? I sense your disbelief. Now allow me to share this uplifting experience that I happened to be part of just last week. The person at the top, after kindly sharing her name and extensive experience in this ‘schooling industry’, engaged us in the most engrossing activity. The good old fill in the blanks, where some of the words from our school’s mission and vision statements were blanked out and we were expected to fill that in! Now, knowledge of English language would actually suffice to complete that, however, familiarity with the lingo in international schools actually ensured success. Do you now see my point? The expectations are rather steep, display boards need to have backing paper (I heard that for the first time though), thorough knowledge of teacher handbook that underlines the rules and regulations for us, the minions, implicit conformity in ensuring student discipline wherein the poor souls are to compulsorily tuck in their shirts and not apply nail paints or mascara, lest they indicate any sign of interest or enthusiasm. The facilitators have to be vigilant at all times, be welcoming of all the criticism, no matter how unfounded they may be, be more involved in the incessant meetings and laugh or ask questions at all the appropriate cues provided… So, the expectations are rather steep, as I stated earlier.

Having been used to such ‘kind’ treatment from these corporatised schools that moonshine as havens of international education, awe of me, is the last thing I am used to. I intrepidly soldiered on to ask him the reason behind this particular feeling and he promptly uttered the word, teacher, something I had heard during my years at the convent school. The man stared at me with absolute- awe! So, my next question naturally was to ask why did he feel this towards me, whom he mistook to be, a teacher. Apparently, he is of the opinion that teachers shape a student’s mind, help them in their academics, inspire and inculcate passion into things such as arts, theatre, music, science and literature, they also he continued, disciplined students teaching them how to behave. So, in other words, teacher apparently functioned a little like an eclectic mixture of google, a military commander, a statesman and a performer. His words rekindled fond memories of some of these noble souls that I actually happen to know of and I have certainly learnt from. It also reminded of my reason behind opting to teach, which is somehow now lost in transit or dampened at one of the mandatory all staff meetings!

Well, as part of my obligation as an IB Practitioner, these sessions of torture, referred to as staff meetings in general, at times pompously passed off as PD Sessions (Professional Development), are least palatable. They are far worse than marking students’ works actually, they are akin to having been force fed Chinese food, when you are craving for a south Indian delicacy… there is much hype and promise but little else. In one of my previous organisations, this weekly detention promptly started at 3.20 and went on until they chose to finish! The lesser mortals that we are, we were condemned to endure these assaults ignoring the fact that we lived at least 25 kms from our workplaces and traffic in Bombay, in the evening peak hours is nightmarish to say the least. What we did in these sessions could range from the Yoga teacher imposing the mandatory asanas* to calm us in our daily lives even as we fretted over the ticking minutes, to learning to write out meaningful recommendation letters that suited the whims and fancies of the subjective college counsellor. At times, we were also given judicious dosage on how teachers can be perfect mothers to their students, as the school subscribed to the idea of ‘nurturing’ the students, irrespective of whether they desired to be nurtured or otherwise. On special occasions, these sessions were aimed at our holistic improvement, or at understanding the various forms and teacher handbook manuals. A rapid fire quiz sessions at these places would possibly include naming the specific stipulation on the handbook cited on Page 54 point number 8 or perhaps quoting the student diary, consequences for non submission of work, where the detention is largely for the hapless teacher than it is for the errant student. The onus was on us to keep the authorities concerned, the students’ parents and possibly even the school housekeeping in the loop about the assigned detention, that is previously decided with the parental consent to ensure that the ‘child’ does not miss any important after school activity, holiday, social event, birthday and the like. Either way, a non submission of work by the student is seen as a failure of ‘proper pedagogical practices’ by the teacher that needs to be promptly reflected upon and redressed with immediacy. It is not desirable to the parent community to have his/ her ward to be taught by a teacher who is stagnated and not keeping up with the recent developments in pedagogy. After all, the teacher needs to inspire the student to want to do the work!

That is another p word, besides pedagogy that I have developed an absolute distaste for, the parent body! My new colleague had the pleasure of a parent meeting her just yesterday. The point of the meeting was to establish and assert the child’s supremacy over the rest of the class, and question a recent grade awarded by my “relatively new to teaching” colleague, who failed to award the maximum marks to this child, who apparently at the young age of 11 is a god’s gift to mankind! This apart, yet another parent deemed it necessary to ‘advice’ this same colleague on how to teach 7th graders, by providing a list of the to dos in class. You may scoff that this is a one off incident by a rather sensitive parent, but the trend is rather common in the Asia-Pacific region (IB Terminology) and the parent body is quite generous with suggestions and advice on all matters pertaining to teaching and learning. An integral part of their engagements for the day include an active WhatsApp group discussion on a teacher’s attire, accent to her marital status, all of which is certainly crucial in delivering a meaningful lesson. Most of these parents, like this special one I have had several interactions with, are assured of their wards “making it to Columbia Uni”, even if they cannot spell University or do not have the faintest idea of who Miss Julie is in Strindberg’s play, for instance. In fact, this lady, whom I used to routinely meet with in the august company of my section head, was far more regular to school than her son was to my English classes! While the boy was a skilled sailor, he was often at sea in my classes, and this observation was met with the lofty remark that I lacked “in compassion” and that explained the student’s lacklustre performance.  

Yes, yet another p to pick a bone with! Performance in our world actually translates to how we can multi task: make detailed curriculum maps and unit planners and complete the reflections even while you are teaching a particular unit, plan up and book the dates for all the tests and submissions even if the academic year has just begun and if my colleague’s recent appraisal that is class observation by the head of school is anything to go by, calling out students by their own names is an achievement whereas students’ bags lying on the floor is a matter of “grave danger”! After all this tightrope, if one actually uncovers the real take home income of these hapless souls, working in a call centre with regimented toilet breaks would seem like an escape to freedom. At least these chaps need not get home to mark and set papers or prepare for the next day… Despite these, we do have our moments in the sunshine. There are some prolific students who actually learn and credit us for helping them in this endeavour, there are those set of parents who greet us warmly and thank us for inspiring their wards and those rare few administrators, folks from the mount, who do acknowledge the ‘value add’ that we have been to their organisation. Those select moments, like the Friday evenings post 4 pm, surely are ‘noble’ in this believed to be noble profession. 

 A G K