Teachers - the not so good ones!!

I have been lucky to have had good teachers all through my schooling and college and my Masters in Melbourne. But this post is about the few teachers who did things that were grossly unfair, most of whom I dealt with in the best possible manner at the given time.
Why this post now?? Well i have been hearing some stories of juvenile treatment to students both young and adult and I just think its the EGO of the teachers in question and also a feeling of POWER and INVINCIBILITY, misusing the helplessness of students.

In “Nursery“ (otherwise called Pre-KG) I was caned by the headmistress for having forgotten my Cardigan/Sweater at school the previous day. man I was all of 3.5 yrs and I stilkl remember that caning and that teacher!!!! No excuses for her!!!!

It was in 6th std that I was in Trivandrum - the only year i was there. The education system there was good enough to exempt me from learning Malayalam as second language. I instead had Additional English - a more specific branch of English that was a substitute. We were 3 such students in a class of about 50. Our Hindi teacher was a bit of a character. he used to single us out in class and make fun of us coz we did not know Malayalam. He even used to teach a lot of Hindi in Malayalam!!!! As 6th std students it was frustrating to be singled out and mocked at in class. We approached the teacher in question and told him about it and nothing changed. Our Additional English teacher was also eth principal of the school and we were his pets. We told him about this and then things changed - immediately.

I was in 7th std when i first moved to Chennai. It was a new school and as part of the PT routine I had to choose a sport to take up and play during the PT periods. Being a cricket crazy fan, cricket was an automatic choice, until a couple of weeks later when I enrolled for Athletics coaching. The cricket coaching and athletics coaching clashed and I had to make a choice. I chose Athletics. Since I was not going to get coached in Cricket, I decided to take up a new sport at PT so I could learn another sport. I chose Volleyball. One day, as was coming up the stairs at school in the morning I was slapped by the PT (cricket) teacher. This he claimed was coz i changed from cricket to volleyball. I reported the matter to my parents and they to the Principal of the school. Apparently there were quite a few complaints against him and he was suspended for a few weeks.

At college in Pune, it was frustrating. Every announcement, every key note address, every chief guest address, principals address used to be in Marathi, lecturers explained concepts in Marathi. I studied at an English Medium college. I approached the Vice Principal of the college and told him about these things. He expressed his sympathies but said that there was not much he could do about it. It was ridiculous. I resorted to self studying and slept through college functions when marathi speeches were made!!!!!

Just to clarify, the Marathi I speak at home is different to the Swaccha Puneri Marathi!!!!!! Also, I picked up the Puneri marathi after coming to Melbourne :):)

Teachers often are not accountable for such acts and thats when impressionable students can be affected most. Institutions of Higher education, especially the privitasied ones, bestow too much power in the hands of a few and the whole system suffers. Something needs to happen about such things!!!!