Some students backbite that you are not a good teacher,” one of my collea-gues confided. For one who seeks approval of each student, such callous comments were both embarras-sing and heart-rending. For a long time afterwards, I felt disappointed and dejected.

When I thought about it afterwards, I was able to come up with two kinds of students. Thought this mi-ght seem a naive exercise, I differentiated them into the “good” and the “bad” lots. The bad eggs were were irregular in class and aggressive towards their teachers. The ones who never bothered with their homework and raised a din in the class. And these fellows wanted a lot of “liberty.”

You might say that I might always scold and punish them for their bad behaviour. Umm. If so, you have never taught modern students. There is an unsaid pact among the backbenchers that a scold (or worse, some kind of physical violence) on the part of the teachers will be soundly reciprocated by boxes and punches outside the confines of the school. Hence a teacher disciplines his pupils only at the risk of his own life.

On the other hand, there are a handful of students who are gentle, disciplined and attentive in class. These fellows understand their responsibilities as students very well. They also routinely do their assignments and homework. Unsurprisingly, they have good relationships with the teachers. These are the students that every teacher labours for.

It can be a hard balance between fulfilling all responsibilities of a good teacher while at the same time knowing that no matter how hard you try, there will be some students who will never improve. I feel bad at not being able to make them see the importance of education and respect for the elders. But there is little I can do. If someone closes both his ears and simply refuses to listen to anyone else, whose fault is it that they never hear what they should?

A good teacher, I believe, also has to be a good student. He has as much to learn from the students as he has to impart to them. But in modern-day classrooms, increasingly filled with deaf and dumb students, the teacher can do little beside sit aside and wonder about the sorry future of their sorry students.