Teachers: The Real Superheroes
Possess ability to mould perceptions
It is common knowledge that teachers play a pivotal role in a student’s life. An important facet of the student teacher relationship that is often overlooked, is the impact that a teacher can have on a student’s perception of both the world around them and more importantly, of themselves.
In most parts of the world and especially in India, classes six through nine are the most important character-building years. This short span of time marks a period of great growth in every child. It signifies the beginning of the growth of a viewpoint on life.
Rewind back to grade 7, I was an unassuming school student blissfully unaware of anything going around him. I had my fair share of problems, I was constantly bullied, had a crippling stutter and had almost zero self-confidence. Little did I know that that would be the year that would turn my life upside down.
We had a new English teacher that year, let’s call her Jane. She also ended up being our class teacher. On our first day, she asked us to introduce ourselves. I stuttered, struggling to get my name out. As usual, the class laughed, but something different happened that day. Instead of reprimanding the class for laughing, she let it slide.
Later, after class she told me that she had the same issue when she was a kid. She gave me some simple exercises to get over it. To this day, I don’t know if she stuttered when she was a kid or if those exercises even helped. But magically, over the course of the year, the stutter began to disappear.
Coincidentally, that was the year that our school decided it would be appropriate to talk to us about love and relationships.
Jane told us, you’re never too young or too old to find love. Love just means caring for someone and putting someone else’s needs before yours. That definition of love is what I carry with me to date.
These little discussions weren’t limited to any topic. They varied from politics to sports and to almost anything under the sun. These discussions were all I used to look forward to, and they shaped my perception on almost everything I saw around me. She explicitly told us never to take anything she said at face value, and to look around, read up and form an informed opinion about the topic at hand.
While to the outside eye these may seem like insignificant moments, to me it was life altering. It transformed me into a self confident, aware teen. My stutter was almost gone, and I was a shadow of my former self.
This is what I am trying to say. With the advent of nuclear families and parents working longer hours, teachers interact more with students than most parents and by extension, have the greatest impact on them. They have the single greatest tool in the world, the ability to mould perception. If used positively, we could cure society of some of it’s greatest ills, most of which arise from a wrong mindset, more than anything else.
-Anonymous
