C’est La Vie
-by Dhaarna Johri
PREFACE
This blog is an insight to life as we know it and all that is a complimentary offering from the perspective of a teacher, a nutritionist, a life style coach, a child, a learner, a notorious kid and parents. Here, you will be able to access the anecdotes, pros & cons, perspectives, precautions, procedures, operations, course of action, and modus operandi that you can adopt to cater your ability of decision making, moral and conscience building, learning, practising, parenting and have a better life-style.
ABOUT THE BLOGGER
I am a teacher by profession and I decided to create this blog to share my experiences and lessons that I learnt from the events, incidents or accidents even, to help you deal with the uncertain and to be prepared for what is, certain. I was always told that — “The world comprises of three kinds of people: those who learn from their own mistakes, make EXPERIENCED individuals; those who learn from the mistakes of the others, make GREAT individuals; but those who learn nothing from any mistake be those their own or of others, make FAILURES”. So, welcome to my blog — “C’est La Vie (That’s Life)” and I hope it makes a difference in your lives.
Who Is A Teacher?
Literally speaking, a Teacher is an individual who is responsible for imparting knowledge to a learner and make the learner master of skills that can help him find a medium or source of income by selling his services to the people who require them. A teacher is responsible for proper and persistent evaluation of the knowledge and skills acquired by a learner over time. A teacher is hence, a guide, a moral compass, a progress report, basically a feedback form, to the parents who in hope to transform their kids into an intellectual, rational, successful and a better human being than themselves, send their kids to change their lives for a better tomorrow.
Usually, Parents’ idea of a teacher is all about imparting knowledge, evaluating the acquired knowledge, evaluating the quality of the student, rectifying or improving the quality of the knowledge and the productivity of a student. But a learner’s idea of a teacher is pretty much that of a ‘whining complainer’ who’s ever so unsatisfied with all the learners, looks for flaws in them, highlights their shortcomings to their parents, except for a few good ones. Interestingly, even the good ones fear that the teacher would comment something negative about their conduct which is why they try not to misbehave, or participate in a mischief in the class to keep their records spotless and pious.
Interestingly, a teacher is nothing but a vigilant and keen observer; a rational counsellor; a careful listener; a moral compass; and yes charge me guilty because sometimes we are the brutal executioners to our learners and a procrastinating plodder not by choice but by chores, finally a teacher is a happy spectator :
Observer: — Someone who has mastered the ART OF MONITORING, no matter how stealthily the deed is done the teacher, always notices. In fact, this ART OF MONITORING helps the teacher not only to tackle and tend to the learner and his/her needs, but also aids motivation and rewards or rectification and reprimands.
Counsellor: — A teacher also acts as a counsellor or a solicitor to both the parents as well as the learners, whose solutions, suggestions, remedies, and action plans are based on rational, practical, critical and unbaised thinking which is why the suggestions prove fruitful for the parent and the learner in the long run.
Listener: — Being a careful listener a teacher ‘listens with curiousity and not with curtsy ’ not only to the parents but the learners as well. A parent once decided to withdraw the name of their child from the sports team as a reprimand since his marks suffered a little (his name was in the ‘A’ league of sports as well as academics) but I as a teacher, I helped the parent understand that sports was a constructive hobby and not a distraction. (It’s okay to be wrong sometimes, it doesn’t make you a bad parent it just makes you a better one because you work on it to improve and be the version of yourself.)
A Moral Compass: — In order to be able to segregate things into right or wrong, one needs to weigh all the aspects, because everything isn’t just black and white because eventhough Voldemort was the Dark Lord he was a bright wizard and Harry Potter despite being the Chosen One, had a piece of darkness residing inside him. But we fall weak, if the parents don’t support us because the parents play the role of a magnetic field which helps a compass tell the right direction, the right way to the North. Because with parenting one thing that’s always certain is “Winter’s Coming”.
A Brutal Executioner: — Teachers are known to be serious, mean and savage beings who are hard to impress and easy to piss off. We are hard on our learners and always expect the best and nothing less but its not meant for our students to be scared of us or to hate us but its to familiarise you with brutal world which is going to punch you in your face until you surrender or succeed.
A Procrastinating Plodder (not by Choice, but by Chores): — Given the plethora of ever persistent tasks like Copy checking, Evaluation of tests, Evaluation of Co-curricular Activities, Behavioural Reports, Progress Reports, Student Attendance Record, PTM/PTA Attendance Record, Report cards, Student Feedbacks, organising Cultural programmes, Annual Fests, Inter/Intra house or school competitions, Field trips, Excursion trips, organising and participating in Seminars, I can go on but the list is a little long.
A Happy Spectator: — Similar to a film director, a teacher’s job is to provide directions to the learners and polish their skills through proper training and resource management, so that they can give their best performances, prove their worth and claim their prize in the world. The learners are the star performers who are celebrated in the society as an epitomy of success, when they are rewarded with opportunities (jobs, appreciation, salary, fame, success), the work of director (i.e. the teacher) to produce new star performers continues, yet again….
C’EST LA VIE !!!
