Last week an incident
happened at work which gave me an immense sense of satisfaction and pride. As
part of my work in implementing efficiency improvement solutions in testing, I
have been coaching two young engineers for the last couple of months. Last week
was the presentation of their two months of work to the customer. The morning
on that day last week both of them came smiling and happy to my desk and told
me " Girish, the presentation was received very well and from yesterday
mails have been flying around congratulating us for our excellent work.
Thanks to your mentoring and guidance that enabled us to be
successful".
Why was I so happy? I
had assumed the role of a teacher and coach and the success of those two
young people made me happy because of my involvement and passion in shaping
up,their work. I started contemplating. One small instance where I
was able to see the success of something I taught two people makes me so happy.
My teachers right from my kinder garden to my MBA, those great people who have
taken teaching as their profession and have shaped up and sculpted the
successful lives of hundreds of people. How are they able to of that? The
passion, sincerity and dedication they showed towards their profession is what
made people like me what we are today.
I started thinking
about every teacher I had - Sherly teacher who taught me how to write the
alphabet "f" properly. Sarasa teacher who took personal care of me in
my first standard and Choodamani teacher who made me love Tamil classes and
Balaramamoorthy Sir who made learning English grammar a pleasure. I still
remember the instance when I went to give my marriage invite at my school. My
Chemistry sir Mr. Selvarajan told me " Girish, I am glad to see you
successful in your life and blessed me". Then comes my REC where my
teachers to name a few Dr. PSS, Dr. Thiruvengadam, Sati Devi mam and many
others to whom I owe where I am in life today. A common trait, they were all,
passionate about imparting knowledge to us. Our generation were all very
blessed indeed to get such teachers. The passion of these teachers always
exists. Indeed, with such teachers the profession is indeed a "noble"
profession. Am fortunate to see such role models in my family. My parents, all
my aunts and a couple of my uncles. My father is no more but he still is
remembered by many of his students.
As I move on to the
present, where we are witnessing the education boom happening through
mushrooming private professional colleges and a school around every street
corner. Are most of the people who are getting into this profession doing
so by choice? Sadly no, predominantly. Many of them are there as a last
alternative - like a person who completes final year becomes a teacher
next year since he does not have any other job and that too for a pittance.
Something I overheard a neighbour telling my wife " I am looking for
a teaching job since hours are comfortable. I want to get into a government
school only since we need not work there". A sad state of affairs of
affairs indeed.
In a competitive
global environment, education plays a major role and what this country needs is
a lot more of those passionate and noble souls to take up teaching as a
passion first, rather than as merely a profession.
Coming back to me, I
have come to a conclusion that teaching is what I want to do be it in a
college or school or in my current profession. I hope that I will strive
to do this with the same passion and commitment as what I got from my
teachers.....
