LEARNING IS EASY IF TEACHERS AND SUBJECTS ARE OF LIKING
The life of a student revolves around two important pillars-Teachers and subjects. Both of these have an important role in the life of a student. Our culture has given the stature of guru to the teachers as they are capable of enlightening the young minds with the power of knowledge. Ancient India was the birth place of the rich Guru Shishya Parampara in which students used to live in Gurukul along with other students and teachers. They were taught the nuances of life and some major subjects such as Mathematics and Science in the Gurkuls. The gurus were considered as the life-guides. Even the parents trusted the Gurus for their children. They used to leave gurukul only after a certain age. A student used to enter the gurukul as a child but used to leave from there as a learned individual.
However, with the changing time there has been a radical shift in this ideology. The student-teacher bond has become more formal. Earlier the premise of this relationship used to be respect. Now it has become purely professional. Gone are the days when students used to idolize their teachers and had the tendency to learn from them. These days students consider teaching as something that a teacher is doing because the person is being paid for it.
Knowledge is the most powerful asset that one can possess. However, this knowledge can be manifested to its best only when an individual is willing to learn. This is possible when one is indulging in things one loves to do. Of late, there is a lot of debate going around the famous quote-Follow your passion! This quote holds true in terms of a student’s life. In order to be successful in life you need to follow or do something you are passionate about. Now, again there is a catch in this. You may argue that until you know what is going to be taught in a subject how will you discover your inclination towards the same. This is where the role of a teacher comes into being. A teacher has the power to make a boring subject interesting and vice-versa. Until the students are able to understand the subject, they cannot decipher their liking for the subject. Learning becomes easy if the person is able to understand the basics and concepts of a given subject. There are cases where students start developing an interest in the subject because of the teaching methodology of a teacher. Teachers need to be innovators and creators. They need to learn the tact of articulating their subject in a manner that students start developing an inclination towards the subject. But this cannot be a one-sided affair. Students need to acknowledge the efforts of teachers and follow their guidelines to make learning an easy process for them. They need to respect the time, effort and energy that a teacher has invested in making the subject worthwhile for the students. There may be cases where a student is clear about his goals right from the first day. But this isn’t true for all the students. This has been beautifully portrayed in the famous movie-Three Idiots, through the journey of the three friends. The character of Madhvan realized and gathered courage to follow his passion in the last year of his engineering. Years later, we see him doing exceptionally well in his field of photography. At the same time, it was Aamir Khan’s character who was sure of what he wanted to pursue in his life and landed doing the same in long run. It is exceptionally important for the student to decode his liking for a particular subject.
Both students and teachers need to understand that it needs to be a joint effort from both of them in order to make learning easier. With the advent of internet, teaching has by-passed the four walls of classroom and arrived at YouTube and other such platforms. Students have access to knowledge while sitting in their comfort zone. This has added to an increase in the learner’s base across the segments. It is because students are getting the best of content delivered to them free of cost and in their comfort zone. With online classes, a student has an access to multiple teachers for the same topic. This helps him in getting clarity over the topic of interest and that too from the teacher of his liking. Students need to make the best use of such opportunities to understand their intent of learning for a particular subject.
A teacher’s personality can strongly influence students, both in a positive and negative manner. A student can either develop a liking for the subject or start disliking the subject basis teacher’s behavior and attitude. They can start developing interest in the subject if they align with teacher’s ideologies and they may recede from the subject if they start developing a dislike for the teacher. Teachers may be masters of the subject but the students are learners who are still novice when it comes to the subjective knowledge. They are at a nascent stage of acquiring knowledge and applying it. The behavior of teacher can go a long way in helping them inculcate the interest.
However, students need to understand that the teachers can only sow the seeds of interests and learning. It is for them to understand that they need to water these seeds with regularity and persistence so that they can bear fruit for them in future. They need to devote quality time to a subject in order to understand their orientation towards subjects of their choice. Students need to have a right mix of attitude, intent and persistence in order to be successful in life. Always remember that success cannot be myopic. It needs to be looked at from a larger perspective where the success is not measured by clearing a single examination. Success must be measured by the ability of an individual to understand his interests, passion & inner calling, one’s persistence and determination to follow them. Always remember that anything that is worthy doesn’t come easy but one can always do the things one likes in order to make life’s journey a worthy one.
