Wednesday 3 June 2020

How to Go From Monkey to Monk: Keep Your Eyes Closed?

Covid-19 lockdown is a mixed bag for us teachers. We’ve had to adapt quickly to teaching online, and are slowly learning the art of balancing college work and home work when working from home.

During these trying times, the silver lining has been the opportunity to upgrade our own knowledge, free from the restrictions of desh and kaal (place and time), thanks to the plethora of webinars/online conferences being conducted by institutions across the country and the globe.

Yesterday, I attended Day 1 of a 5-day Faculty Development Program, hosted by GIET School of Pharmacy, Andhra Pradesh.

Dr. B. G. Nagavi, one of the most distinguished innovator-teachers of the pharmacy profession in recent times (and so much more – you can check his profile here 
http://hesdarcenter.com/promoters/), was doing a presentation about education research.

While talking about the very important role of a teacher, Dr. Nagavi played a video, narrating an anecdote from a teacher’s life.

Here’s the summary of the story; if you want to hear it for yourself, click this link https://youtu.be/yf-AlywtY5g


A young man walked up to an older man at a gathering and introduced himself, saying, “I’m one of your students.” The teacher greeted him and asked about what the young man was now doing.

“I’m into education. I’m also a teacher.”

“Great! So what inspired you to go into education?”

“You!”

“Me!? How?”

The young man answered, “One day a boy in our class brought a new watch to school. I liked it a lot, and because I wanted it, I stole it. He realized the watch was missing, and complained to you, the teacher. You announced the news and asked whoever had stolen it to return the watch.

I didn’t return it.

Then you closed the classroom door and asked all the kids to line up facing the wall. You ordered us all to close our eyes tight until you had finished searching through all our pockets. We did as you said. You went from one boy to the next, looking through the pockets and when you came to me, you found the watch in my pocket! Yet, you kept moving through every child’s pockets and at the end, you announced the watch had been found, and handed it over to the rightful owner.

You never said a word to anyone about it. That day, you saved my dignity. I was ashamed of myself and decided not to do such a thing again. But you never ever asked me about the incident, either. You saved my soul by your action. I learned how a real educator must be and because of you, I was inspired to go into the teaching profession.

I’m sure you remember this episode, so you must remember me, Sir?”

The teacher replied, “I remember the event you mention. But I don’t remember you. Because that day, while going through the children’s pockets, I closed my eyes, too.”

This story is meant to drive home the message of how wonderfully inspiring teachers can be. It is supposed to make us teachers more aware of how our actions can impact our students.

For me, however, it triggered an even deeper realization of how vital it is for teachers to be self-aware.

“I closed my eyes too!”

What a sensitive, thoughtful, and loving act by the teacher!

How self-aware must this teacher have been, to realize that he is likely to be affected by knowing who the offending student is!

How strongly the teacher must have been motivated to not let himself get prejudiced by one wanton act of a young child!

What an immense control of mind he must have possessed to decide he didn’t want to know who the errant child was!

Can we even imagine the degree of self-awareness, and goodness of heart and magnitude of self-control someone needs to be like the teacher in this story?

Even as these thoughts raced through my mind, I was struck by another, deeper one. 

Can I learn to be like this teacher in the other areas of my life, too? 

Can I unlearn the tendency to notice the unpleasant things people do, can I stop mentally branding them, and give them another chance to become their better selves? 

Is this the ‘key’ that I must lose, to make the transition from ‘Monkey’ to ‘Monk’?