I ran the risk of preaching, en-route to penning this article. I hope this would not be a deterrent to readers of this post.
This hit when I was attending a college lecture on Plant&Animal Biotechnology, and a very boring one at that! This article has nothing to do with biotechnology or anything remotely related to that even. This is about how a teacher or a professor could conduct a class that ruthlessly drags any student's attention from whatever is flitting constantly across their minds.
Mine chose to take the route of a drone, interspersed with traces of humour that, if it were radiation, would need a highly sensitive Geiger Counter to register oscillations. He did it without any confidence and thus hopelessly failing to get to the other end of the spectrum. I wonder why do something just for the sake of getting through while it is much in everyone's capability to perform a great deal better? I appreciate this professor's idea of wielding humour as a weapon to attack the conscience of a student and destroy thoughts irrelevant at that moment, but the glaring lack of intensity with which he did this, surprised me. I penned the following line during the course of writing one of my poems, and I am particularly proud of this one.
The tides 'tack the shore,
And 'tack ain't 'tack when 'tensity lowers.
Enough of the under-performer. Lets see what he could have done. Or, rather, I will jump into his shoes for a moment and see what I would have done. Had I been the professor, the foremost matter that I would have addressed is to register the attendance! Students have to be in class before I can use any weapon, right? I am kidding. The first would be to grab their attention, before I can even think of sustenance. This in itself is a Herculean task, given the quantity of thoughts racing through a teen's mind at any instant! Instead of using my voice to bring them in, I would prefer the hands and the chalk-piece in it. As always, the pen is mightier than the sword. And everyone knows how sharp a sword our voices (read words) can be!
How exactly am I going to use the processed lime in my hand? I will be careful to not get into the trench that my professor fell into. As my above lines go, the emphasis mainly is on intensity. Imagine this: I stride to the black-board and write in big bold letters "WHERE IS EVERYONE NOW, MENTALLY?" What do you think, will be the students' reaction to such a question on the board? We have seen professors using the board for the same mundane purpose of deriving expressions and trying to explain theories, some succeeding and some, not. Why not do this? This will cause a fleeting tectonic shift in the students' perception of the way a blackboard can be used, and a not-so-fleeting thought of the answer to the question that immediately hit their retinas. The above question is what I could come up with on impulse. Innovative questions or the use of diagrams, for that matter, could also provide the same effect. Gauging their reactions, the class can be appropriately proceeded. This could prove helpful in attracting the attention of a few who would have chosen to be inattentive. The others, well, we have to innovate again, haven't we? Nevertheless, these are baby steps. You will learn on the job. A small story to elucidate:
A boy, in the exciting age of 15, once found himself walking along the banks of a lake, on a radiant Saturday's dawn. He saw a group of fishes, that, for some imaginable reason, had strayed on to land, and twitching and twisting to get to the water. And since this is a story, we as always will assume that all animals do speak the lingua franca of the world. He took a few of those and let it in their home. An old man, who was keenly observing this boy's activities for no apparent reason, was amused at the events unfolding in front of his eyes. He approached the boy and asked "What, my dear son, of the other many fishes, that unfortunately happen to suffer the same fate of the group that you now so generously lent your help to?" To which, the boy, without batting an eyelid, replied "I may not be able to save the others suffering the same fate, sir, but, for those which I saved, it would have meant a lot to them to regain their life, having lost any such hope. I too benefit, for I have done something that would make me smile at night, when I drift off into a peaceful slumber. I consider it food for my soul, respected sir." The old man was left wondering at the boy's innocent wisdom.
There are always miscreants and then there are good guys willing to lead or dutifully be led by their leaders. Encouraging the latter towards sustenance and discouraging the former of maintenance is a hard task. Anyway, heads up, artists of the future generation!
This hit when I was attending a college lecture on Plant&Animal Biotechnology, and a very boring one at that! This article has nothing to do with biotechnology or anything remotely related to that even. This is about how a teacher or a professor could conduct a class that ruthlessly drags any student's attention from whatever is flitting constantly across their minds.
Mine chose to take the route of a drone, interspersed with traces of humour that, if it were radiation, would need a highly sensitive Geiger Counter to register oscillations. He did it without any confidence and thus hopelessly failing to get to the other end of the spectrum. I wonder why do something just for the sake of getting through while it is much in everyone's capability to perform a great deal better? I appreciate this professor's idea of wielding humour as a weapon to attack the conscience of a student and destroy thoughts irrelevant at that moment, but the glaring lack of intensity with which he did this, surprised me. I penned the following line during the course of writing one of my poems, and I am particularly proud of this one.
The tides 'tack the shore,
And 'tack ain't 'tack when 'tensity lowers.
Enough of the under-performer. Lets see what he could have done. Or, rather, I will jump into his shoes for a moment and see what I would have done. Had I been the professor, the foremost matter that I would have addressed is to register the attendance! Students have to be in class before I can use any weapon, right? I am kidding. The first would be to grab their attention, before I can even think of sustenance. This in itself is a Herculean task, given the quantity of thoughts racing through a teen's mind at any instant! Instead of using my voice to bring them in, I would prefer the hands and the chalk-piece in it. As always, the pen is mightier than the sword. And everyone knows how sharp a sword our voices (read words) can be!
How exactly am I going to use the processed lime in my hand? I will be careful to not get into the trench that my professor fell into. As my above lines go, the emphasis mainly is on intensity. Imagine this: I stride to the black-board and write in big bold letters "WHERE IS EVERYONE NOW, MENTALLY?" What do you think, will be the students' reaction to such a question on the board? We have seen professors using the board for the same mundane purpose of deriving expressions and trying to explain theories, some succeeding and some, not. Why not do this? This will cause a fleeting tectonic shift in the students' perception of the way a blackboard can be used, and a not-so-fleeting thought of the answer to the question that immediately hit their retinas. The above question is what I could come up with on impulse. Innovative questions or the use of diagrams, for that matter, could also provide the same effect. Gauging their reactions, the class can be appropriately proceeded. This could prove helpful in attracting the attention of a few who would have chosen to be inattentive. The others, well, we have to innovate again, haven't we? Nevertheless, these are baby steps. You will learn on the job. A small story to elucidate:
A boy, in the exciting age of 15, once found himself walking along the banks of a lake, on a radiant Saturday's dawn. He saw a group of fishes, that, for some imaginable reason, had strayed on to land, and twitching and twisting to get to the water. And since this is a story, we as always will assume that all animals do speak the lingua franca of the world. He took a few of those and let it in their home. An old man, who was keenly observing this boy's activities for no apparent reason, was amused at the events unfolding in front of his eyes. He approached the boy and asked "What, my dear son, of the other many fishes, that unfortunately happen to suffer the same fate of the group that you now so generously lent your help to?" To which, the boy, without batting an eyelid, replied "I may not be able to save the others suffering the same fate, sir, but, for those which I saved, it would have meant a lot to them to regain their life, having lost any such hope. I too benefit, for I have done something that would make me smile at night, when I drift off into a peaceful slumber. I consider it food for my soul, respected sir." The old man was left wondering at the boy's innocent wisdom.
There are always miscreants and then there are good guys willing to lead or dutifully be led by their leaders. Encouraging the latter towards sustenance and discouraging the former of maintenance is a hard task. Anyway, heads up, artists of the future generation!
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