Travails of a teacher

T.R. Maragatham

I was spurred to write this article on reading the news item, “Strength of class also counts” ( The Hindu, June 9, Chennai edition), wherein it has been stated that the attention a student gets depends to a large extent on the student-teacher ratio, which in any ideal elementary class should be 25-30: 1. A retired teacher, I can understand the importance of this issue.

Till last year, I was working in an aided higher secondary school with a good reputation. But I opted for voluntary retirement for a variety of reasons, among them the workload of handling unwieldy classes. The school produces excellent results in the board exams and so the demand for admissions is always high. The management has to yield to the tears and pressures of parents. The result is an overflowing population in each classroom and we teachers are helpless witnesses to the phenomenon.

An overcrowded class drains the physical and even mental strength of the teacher. This is what happened in my career spanning 25 years. Since I was handling classes X and XII, I was under constant pressure to produce cent per cent results. A language teacher has to correct double the number of answer papers, of Language Paper I & II. I held special classes on most Saturdays and, on many occasions, I could not manage time for personal work. I was travelling almost two hours daily to reach my school. So it would be very late when I returned home after completing the special class and I had to concentrate on class work late into the night.

All this told on my health. My voice got abused by the necessity of speaking loud to reach out to all students. My forefinger thickened with continuous correction work. In fact, my correction work consumed all my Dasara and Christmas vacations and at the end of every vacation, I returned to school with irritation in the eyes and pain in the neck and back. Social commitments and entertainment were next to non-existent.

Inspirational teachers like Dr. Radhakrishnan could not help me either when I had to face a class of 80 to 90 students. Eye contact with every student was not possible as by the time my eyes surveyed half of the class one period would be over! Practically, it became impossible to look at everyone. That my myopic vision couldn't register faces from the last rows was another matter!

I am not boasting, I have all through been a teacher with commitment. In all my service, I availed myself of only 10 days of medical leave for a surgical operation. I had never exhausted my CL or EL. I say all this only to stress how demanding a teacher's job is, especially when the strength of the class is unreasonably large. You are exhausted and you call it quits.

Source:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-openpage/article488003.ece