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Light The Lamp Within, Teacher |
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Excerpt from the convocation address at the International Academy for Creative Teaching, Bangalore. by Subroto Bagchi |
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The people who write my textbooks and the ones who prescribe the syllabi will not tell you how important inclusion is for me to do well in life. Without the sense of inclusion, I will not know that boundaries are meant to be pushed - not to be lived in. Take for example the fact that I clean my house but empty my garbage on the road. That is because the road is not "included" in what I deem to be my own. I feed my own child but do not enquire if the maid has eaten today. Her hunger is not included in my hunger. So, Teacher - teach me inclusion. Teacher, teach me "sense making" in an increasingly senseless world. Teach me not just what is good or what is bad. I may not always be lucky to be in situations that will be simply either black or white. As you teach me to deal with moments of crisis - teach me how to come out of them without residual toxicity. For there will be moments in life when I will see the failing of those I have admired. I will see cracks in the walls of those who had taught me the meaning of strength and solidity. In those difficult moments, I should know that sometimes situations make people who they are. Teach me such that cynicism does not impair my power to behold the beautiful nature of creation of which the human nature is also a part. I pray to you to make me learn. More than that, Teacher, teach me how I can learn to learn. As you prepare me for the wide world in which I need to fend for myself and for others, one-time learning will not be good enough. I will have to have the ability to learn newer things and more difficult things. Some of it I will need to learn in increasingly lesser time. In all this, what will become critical is the
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process of learning itself, more than just what I am able to learn. Help me to learn newer ways to learn. And that will make learning a joy for me. As you teach me to learn how to learn, I pray to you to teach me to learn from unusual sources
Teach me, not just about the way the waves rise but what causes them to engulf. Teach me to appreciate that the trees I fell, the small creatures I kill with indiscriminate use of fertilisers and pesticides on the ground, the urban decay I cause with my consumptive ways - all catch up with awesome imbalances in the natural state of things that cause death and destruction and can one day, engulf me and whatever else I am trying to leave behind. Our minds become mountains of ego as we know more things and become more successful. |
Mountains cannot hold water as the clouds rain on them. The mind has to be a valley and not a mountain, so that it can become a reservoir of life. Make me meek and humble and ordinary so that I empty myself and gain the power to receive. As I learn the power of humility, teach me about how all things that sustain life on earth, come free The cow does not get paid for the milk she gives us. The earth does not ask for money for the crops we get. The sea does not come to get royalties on the catch of the day. The sun and the air and the river and the clouds do not get paid for their services. Finally, I pray to you to teach me to develop a world view of things Teach me to appreciate that poverty disease and hunger have no nationality. For hundreds of years, I have lived in a world with narrow domestic walls. In that world patriotism was founded on religious bigotry, racial intolerance and man's remarkably short view of time. It was bounded by barbed wires and smoking guns. In the future that I want to create, I want you to teach me the power of loving another fellow human being. Teach me to appreciate diversity and dialogue. Teach me tolerance and teach me to remove the word "foreign" and "foreigner" from my vocabulary. This is my world, Teacher. In this world, I do not want to be a foreigner to anyone and I do not want to treat anyone like a foreigner.
From the convocation address at the International Academy for Creative Teaching, Bangalore. Subroto Bagchi is Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting Pvt. Ltd
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A Miracle Worker |
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From Darkness to Light.... |
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Helen Keller (with her prized doll in her lap) with her Miracle Teacher - Ann Sullivan. Doll was the first word that Ms Sullivan taught Helen.
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to graduate from college. The story of how Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become known worldwide through the dramatic set up of 'The Miracle Worker'. Helen Keller was born in Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to Captain Arthur H. Keller, a former officer of the Confederate Army, and Kate Adams Keller. She was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she came down with an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain".. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind. Her parents contacted Perkins Institute for Blind to find tutor for her. |
The School delegated teacher and former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and then only 20 years old, to become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship, eventually evolving into governess and then eventual companion. Sullivan got permission from Keller's father to isolate the girl from the rest of the family in a little house in their garden. Anne loved Helen dearly and loved her like she was her child. Her first task was to instill discipline in the spoiled girl. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came one day when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm, while running cool water over her hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world (including her prized doll). In 1890, ten-year-old Helen Keller was introduced to the story of Ragnhild Kåta, a deafblind Norwegian girl who had learned to speak. Kåta's success inspired Keller to want to learn to speak as well. Sullivan taught her charge to speak using the Tadoma method of touching the lips and throat of others as they speak, combined with fingerspelling letters on the palm of the child's hand. Later Keller learned Braille, and used it to read not only English but also French, German, Greek, and Latin. Later she wrote 2 books and acted in a movie. She also received Oscar Award for her autobiography, ' The Story of My Life". .
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| Editor's Note |
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Dear Readers, This issue is dedicated to teachers who have contributed to who we are today. Teachers are not only the ones who taught us abc.. ; they are in form of all people who in some or the other way made a positive contribution in our lives. Our parents taught us to walk, teachers with their lessons, taught us to walk through life, our parents taught us to speak, teachers gave understanding of those words and gave meaning to our entire lives. As our country celebrates, 'Teachers Day' on 5th September, we too would like to take this opportunity to thank all our teachers and wish them the Best in their lives. - Team Alive
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