A PEN WITH AN ETERNAL INK OF OPTIMISM

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The GREAT teacher inspires.”                         -William Arthur Ward

When maturity reaches its apex, it glows on the face, out of the soul. It doesn't ask for sophisticated face expressions or wearing a branded suit. However, it’s something which is earned by experience and immortal zeal toward learnings, best demonstration- a teacher. It has to be believed that a teacher is the best learner. He learns the logics of life and presents them in the simplest way to us. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Being students, few of us question the abilities of a teacher who ends up explaining the concepts short and simple. But it is the fact that one who explains the ideas simply, has to undergone tougher observations to make them appear simple. It requires hours of thorough study before, to present ourselves on the podium facing a troop of ‘pseudo-innocent’ pupils, who are ready to chuckle at us on our single mistake. Among that crowd, the front benchers are the judging panel, having their eyes for a chance to raise hands. They study hard with a strict routine being followed by them in order to keep pace with syllabus. Following them are the wise students of the class who print the dust of white board on their copies. They try to admire their teacher to get an image of ‘Good boy’. And at the last bench, are the best cartoonists of the time, who keep on adorning their sketching skills by drawing the imitation of the teacher. When the teacher heeds them, they show as if they are the most sincere buddies of the class who are penning every word chattered by him. And the teacher knows all their cunningness because once, he was also a student. But he doesn't react to it in harsh manner as he loves to keep everything simple, that’s his maturity, not ignorance.

We know that a teacher has immense knowledge of his subjects and he too imparts it to the best of his efforts. But the role of a teacher is not up to the class curriculum only. Rather, his incumbency begins to define his role from here. It’s the responsibility of a teacher to praise his students to work on new ideas and should suggest them with solutions, be it related to his subject or not. Only enchanting the words written in the book can also be done by a student himself. Explanations are well carried out in reference books too. Moreover, the demonstration, which our life offers us every moment, can be noticed by us if we are keen observers. But all this requires an initiation and courage to put efforts. A teacher is said to be great if he also works to imbue his students with feelings to work hard and praise them on their success. It doesn’t mean that he would criticize their failure. He would speak the words from best of his collections which would puff the chest of failed ones with enthusiasm and give them a direction to work harder. This positive approach is sufficient enough to restart the race and believe it or not most of the winners on this earth have rouse out of the darkest lakes of failure.

A teacher is not only to show us the path, but he is our patron to help us distinguish between the two paths and choose the best. A perfect blend of decency, knowledge and maturity, garnished with a pinch of optimism makes any teacher great. He doesn’t ask people to follow him, but is followed himself, after all, a few words of praise are enough to revitalize our hopes to fight back and a great teacher is the pen with such an eternal ink of optimism.