Written by Nandini Sethi
The other day I came across a question, one that really got me thinking. If you were stuck in an elevator with a teacher you despised, what would you say to her?
In my own head, I would say a lot of things. I don’t know how much courage I would be able to muster to speak my thoughts. But I think with time, the silence in the elevator would be awkward to the extent of it being choking, and I would eventually end up saying all the things that I’d later regret.
The first thing I would probably ask her is why do all teachers hate kids? You would think that teachers loved children and that’s one of the reasons they took up the profession. When it comes to exams, students are given the last priority; when it comes to extra classes, it is deliberately done in a way that would be most inconvenient for the majority of the students.
I would ask her what it feels like to be a sadist, deriving pleasure from the agony and sadness of her students. Why she discouraged and demotivated me, despite being one of the brightest students in her class.
I would also ask her if she found it offensive that I didn’t need to attend any of her lectures to top the school. I know for a fact she wasn’t noble enough to accept that her students could actually be smarter than her. Maybe that’s why she sought personal validation from humans half her age.
Not that it counts for anything, but I would ask about her childhood and schooling, what she despised about her own teachers, and scrutinize for myself, her journey of self-awareness and self-improvement.
Maybe one day I will become a teacher too, indulging in the same immaterial behavioural patterns and irregular mood swings; I hope I will be able to recognize a hypocrite then.
