To all the PG students considering teaching as a serious career option, here is my formula which will increase chances of success. There will be a lot of confusion and doubts before you handle your first class. Just mastery in the subject you are handling hardly matters to the end user, that is a student. To all those who aren't planning on teaching any time soon :-
”Teaching bhale distant hi sahi,
professor nahi to Teaching Assistant hi sahi”...wah wah...
Here are the 10 commandments of teaching:
1.Thou shalt secure: You don’t want to distract the attention of the students, who anyway hardly concentrate in the class. So before going into the class double check if you have zipped your pants. It is one of the most important things on the check list because it can actually end your career in teaching. So don’t take chances. Keep things SECURED. Also resist with all persistence and determination, the need to comfort that irritating itch. Students, otherwise, would better remember you for the unconscious scratching. I remember one of our teachers used to enjoy a “scratch” with his hands in his pockets :-). A clean and comfortable outfit always helps .
2.Thou shalt plan: Be clear in your mind what is the course content and plan going to be. Mention it in your first class so that the students get a clear picture of what the scope of the course is. If students have a choice not to do the course, then it would help them make a decision. Also, good students will get a picture on how difficult the course is going to be. A course plan would help them plan their studies accordingly.
3.Thou shalt tidy up: Practice writing on the board and improve your handwriting. Effective and orderly usage of the black board is very important and that is where most newbies falter. Try to restrict your writing to a straight line and try to maintain a sequence following the logical flow of the subject, else it can confuse the students on what to copy first into their notes. Poor quality chalk make squeaking sounds which would wake up peacefully sleeping monsters. Poor quality chalks can also cause skin allergies. Dust the duster regularly. Do not put your hands on your pants or pockets when your hands have chalk on them. It would be really embarrassing to have weird shapes on your pant :-)
4.Thou shalt not blab: Prepare what you are going to speak, even the jokes, for the full duration of the class. Do not assume that you can handle it in real time, unless you are an excellent orator. Once a student asked about how much details should be written in the exam, one professor answered “It should be like a girl’s skirt, neither too long and neither too short”. After which a few students complained to the authorities. People do not plan and end up narrating “fart” jokes, making a fool out of themselves. Also think of some very good examples for the concepts involved in your subject to be very effective. To convince students that L-Hospitals rule cannot be blindly applied anywhere one likes, one of my math teacher said “You shouldn’t take bath where ever you see the water”. Examples/anecdotes are the best way to drill monotonous concepts into a student’s brain.
5.Thou shalt hold attention: Maintaining eye contact with all the students is very important. Otherwise you may lose their attention. Avoid keeping eye contact just with your favourite students and front bencher's. There are teachers who spend a lot of time facing the board and writing rocket science equations while the students are flying paper rockets. Many teachers fail because of their monotonous voice. Consciously modulate your voice and give stress to a few important points by stating them in a dramatic fashion with hand movements, else students WILL doze off. A good teacher has to be an actor as well.
6.Thou shalt keep peace: Do not get angry with any student, irrespective of their behaviour. Getting angry is a sign of weakness in any profession and students actually enjoy watching you angry. One of my professors used to throw his tie away and curse the whole generation in anger. We used to wait for such drama. Some teachers even cry when students tease them in the class. Be professional and don’t take student’s attitude personally. If somebody acts over smart , try to mildly attack the culprits through jokes. There is no better way to attack a youngster's ego than hurting his image in the class especially in front of the girls. That would hopefully silence him for rest of the semester. There would be lot of politics among senior teachers as well, stay away from it until it harms you. Some of the AICTE and Accreditation norms seems very irritating and meaningless. Just do justice to them. These norms are the reason why one may find teaching boring after a while.
7.Thou shalt research: Get some inputs from other faculty regarding the past behaviour of the class and their level of understanding. If they are weak technically or mathematically, prepare your course accordingly to clear their basics. If they are already aware of the basics then its better to feed them with some new fundas. There are always a few students who would lag behind. Take special care to address them. May be some extra classes or tutorials can bring them up to the mark. Never give up on the “give-up” students of the class. Some of the parents send their kids to engineering colleges just to keep them away from home, because they think that their son would either burn down the house or will go to jail under rape charges if he is not kept busy. Even so, it's your job to make them study or at least mug-up so that they can some how survive in society.
8.Thou shalt maintain the potential difference: As the ohm’s law states, more is the potential difference more will be the current. Hence maintaining a knowledge potential difference between yourself and your students is the essence of teaching. Be clear in all the concepts and problems of the course. Be prepared for some tricky questions from the class especially if you are going to teach technically good students. Never bluff if you don’t know the answer and do not feel embarrassed. It is absolutely fine if you acknowledge that the question is good, and ask them for some time and find out the answer after the class.
6.Thou shalt keep peace: Do not get angry with any student, irrespective of their behaviour. Getting angry is a sign of weakness in any profession and students actually enjoy watching you angry. One of my professors used to throw his tie away and curse the whole generation in anger. We used to wait for such drama. Some teachers even cry when students tease them in the class. Be professional and don’t take student’s attitude personally. If somebody acts over smart , try to mildly attack the culprits through jokes. There is no better way to attack a youngster's ego than hurting his image in the class especially in front of the girls. That would hopefully silence him for rest of the semester. There would be lot of politics among senior teachers as well, stay away from it until it harms you. Some of the AICTE and Accreditation norms seems very irritating and meaningless. Just do justice to them. These norms are the reason why one may find teaching boring after a while.
7.Thou shalt research: Get some inputs from other faculty regarding the past behaviour of the class and their level of understanding. If they are weak technically or mathematically, prepare your course accordingly to clear their basics. If they are already aware of the basics then its better to feed them with some new fundas. There are always a few students who would lag behind. Take special care to address them. May be some extra classes or tutorials can bring them up to the mark. Never give up on the “give-up” students of the class. Some of the parents send their kids to engineering colleges just to keep them away from home, because they think that their son would either burn down the house or will go to jail under rape charges if he is not kept busy. Even so, it's your job to make them study or at least mug-up so that they can some how survive in society.
8.Thou shalt maintain the potential difference: As the ohm’s law states, more is the potential difference more will be the current. Hence maintaining a knowledge potential difference between yourself and your students is the essence of teaching. Be clear in all the concepts and problems of the course. Be prepared for some tricky questions from the class especially if you are going to teach technically good students. Never bluff if you don’t know the answer and do not feel embarrassed. It is absolutely fine if you acknowledge that the question is good, and ask them for some time and find out the answer after the class.
9.Thou shalt be the smartest: Generation after generation, students have tried to out smart their teachers using latest methods, be it by copying in the exams or in assignment submissions. Even taking attendance is a tricky part when many students give proxy attendance for others. While invigilating the exams, students use things from the desks they are sitting to calculators to mobile phones to copy. You got to be careful and do not allow them to fool you. You should be the smarter one, as you too may have done the same. Do some homework, be aware of the latest technologies and find out all tricks of cheating which didn’t exist while you were studying. Like they say (I say) that a “good doctor has to be a very good patient, a good teacher should have been a notorious student”.
10.Thou shalt consider feedback: Consider taking feedback from students regularly. You need not wait for the official institute provided feedback form which comes at the end of the semester. Till then a lot of damage would have already been done. So even if it is on pieces of papers, take feedback in writing within a week after you started teaching. This drastically minimizes the communication gap between students and teachers. And in addition it is always fun to read some creative comments. Some senior teachers are so rigid and arrogant that they consider students as immature and never take feedback seriously. Each batch is different, hence even if you are one of the best teachers around, you need to make some fine adjustments in your methods of teaching.
There are few teaching skills that can be practised and improved. Some people are gifted with special skills which makes them great teachers. The day a teacher concludes that he has learnt enough or need not change his teaching methods any more, he can no longer be a good teacher. Whatever the case may be , your aim should be to do justice to your job and make some difference not only in the education system but also to the lives of at least a few individuals. Teaching should be considered as a never ending, mutual learning experience between a teacher and his student. As it is quoted in the Taittiriya Upanishads
om saha nāvavatu, saha nau bhunaktu
saha vīryaṃ karavāvahai
tejasvināvadhītamastu mā vidviṣāvahai
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
May he protect us both together; may he nourish us both together; may we work together with great energy, may our study be vigorous and effective; may we not hate each other. Let there be Peace..
