BIG AND HEAVY DOORS SWING ON SMALL HINGES

 

 

“Eagles come in all shapes and sizes,

but, you will recognize them chiefly by their attitude.”

E. F. Schumacher

 

Every generation has to deal with its own challenges. By challenges, I do not mean, only financial hardships that an earlier generation may have gone through. Every earlier generation has worked hard to provide a better living condition (material comfort) for the successive one. My grandpa was poorer than my dad, and my dad was poorer than I am, and my son, by all probability, will be richer than I am today…

But, then, when I say ‘poorer’ and ‘richer’, I am only referring to financially – in terms of material comforts.

Well, have there been some things, which regardless of passing generations, not changed?

‘Values’, they are… They are universal and timeless…

No matter to which ‘international’ school we send our children today, we cannot expect our children to pick the ‘timeless values’ from these schools. With due respect to each institution and their faculty, the kids have to inculcate some very basic values just by observing their surroundings – the home, neigbourhood, friends and relatives, religious settings etc. In fact, I have come to this conclusion: One picks up the basic values on his own – and, may I add this: in his/her own time…

My last rejoinder has a great deal of honesty. For, I myself have picked up some basic values on my own, and in my own time. If that is true for myself, it’s true for my son and students, as well…

A month ago, Vishal*, a dear ex-student of mine, brought to me his 17-year-old. He said, “Sir, here is my son… He goes to Jai Hind college and, his eleventh-standard (college) results are pathetic - 2 marks, 4 marks and so on. These kids are getting everything on a platter… So, no motivation to learn and grow… They have brains, but no right attitude… Do something, Sir.”

Well, a teacher like me can do only so much. As it’s said, a teacher appears only when the student is ready. I have seen, from my decades of experience, that no matter how good a teacher is, and how hard he breaks his head – at the end of the day, it’s how teachable the student is…

Vishal’s son – Ritesh* – started coming to me every day, ever since he was enrolled a month ago…

Yes, Ritesh is ‘smart’… in grasping the subject, I say. However, he has a long way to go when it comes to his ability to grasp the simple things, such as his interactions with his teacher… Some things, I want him to learn, and fast…

“Greet your teacher when you come, and thank him when you go”… Yes, it’s taught in early school, and now forgotten…

“Show consideration to others around you… It should never be all about you… You won’t be a leader without this attitude…

“Are you there?” I ask a hundred times in my online classes (no video), calling out each name… and, you know why that is. But, yesterday, to that question, Ritesh reacted, “Of course I am here… Where else can I be?”

It was right in the midst of an intense interaction…

I paused, counting 1 to 10, before I could express my annoyance at this response of my smart alec… I asked Neerja* (the daughter of a top cop at the crime branch of Mumbai police HQ), one of the students in that group, “Beta, why do I ask ‘Are you there?’”

“Sir, to make sure each one is attentive,” Neerja said.

“And, what did you think, Ritesh?” I asked sternly, “Wanted to be extra-smart?”

That was yesterday… This morning, in our offline class, I was telling, “Ritesh, please look at me as I explain, so that you get it fully and I come to know that you are with me.”

“But, I am listening,” Ritesh argued...

“Beta, our eyes listen better than our ears,” I tried to tell him how important it is to maintain the eye contact…

“I told you, I am listening,” the argument was even colder...

I lost my cool and kept aside my Accountancy subject… “You need to know some very basic manners when you speak with your teacher… You can’t get away with this kind of attitude, there outside… There are authorities, and there is decorum. If you go on in this manner, you may have to pay a heavy price for such attitude… Did you get it, my boy?”

Mercifully, my boy did get it…

At the end of the class, after everyone had left, Ritesh stayed back and said with humility, “Sir, I am sorry for my misbehaviour.”

“You should be, beta,” I explained with my arm around him, “It’s not just the right aptitude, it’s also the right attitude.”

Incidentally, Raj, my dear friend (and another ex-student) had shared a line responding to a similar episode in one of my earlier blogs… It said:

“Big and heavy doors swing on small hinges.”

I promised Raj, that I would baptize my Blog today with that line…

“Men do not attract what they want, but what they are,” James Allen had said, long years ago…

 

*Names changed

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic’s: Pixabay

Video: Oliver Kahi/Dead Poets Society