'IRREVERENCE' to 'TEACHER' [Ref: TOI dated Wed. 08 August 07]

# re: Why are the students becoming increasingly irreverent towards their teachers?
The reasons for the "irreverence" of "students" towards their "teachers" are rather complex to explain. Let us first get each of the three terms within quote marks right: (a) "Reverence" to the teacher, the opposite of "irreverence", does not demand that a student must silently put up with, if not accept, some nonsensical utterance or behaviour of the teacher. In the reported instance, the teacher exceed his limits of his normal powers of reprimand as a teacher, while he was allegedly "harassing girl students and passing lewd remarks". The teacher, in his wisdom, is expected not to do anything whatsoever which had even a slight chance of being perceived by the students as being tantamount to harassment of the weaker sex, either by the girls themselves or by the boys. Lewdnesss may be the order of the day in a permissive culture such as that of the modern Western civilization , even within the precincts of educational institutions, but the Indian society has as of today a culture that cannot give quarters to this phenomenon under a misguided notion of "tolerance" or "liberality of outlook or social interaction". There is in this incident of blackening of the offending teacher's face, this moral for India's entire teaching community, or rather that small section of it which may think otherwise. (b) That said, in (a), the "students" too have to ensure restraint before they take any punitive stance in such incidents. After all, their perception could be wrong - unless the "teacher's" behaviour fell in a familiar pattern with some precedents in the past. The "students" took a risk by swift, if not hasty, direct action against the teacher, of having unworthily acted "irreverently" towards one who was transmitting knowledge to them. (c) Taking "irreverence", what was demanded as a moral prerequisite of a worthy student, nowadays is gradually and imperceptibly becoming "permissible" due to the permissive culture of the West being more than willingly viewed - it looks like an increasingly favoured fashion - as a 'necessity' for "modernization/globalization" of India by our printed and electronic media (TV and internet) and the screen (cinema) and the theatre (drama). Our secular education does not offer scope for enlightenment of the students (and the teachers who were themselves students once) for imbibing through the curriculum, or even through extra-cultural activities an adequate 'dose' of real culture and values of even an unchanging nature (such as mutual respect and regard, for example) that transcend the barriers of time and geography. The false pretensions of the media and the theatre and the cinema are attributable to the pressures put by their owners to maximize sales and profit regardless of the cultural content of the message that should be carried by the media. And of course, since the profit will be shared with those who implement such a despicable goal, the writers and the actors involved also oblige to do the media owners' behest, but very often the mediocre executive quality, bereft of any "benign creativity", is the real culprit, since the media are more often than not good, cultured people, though sometimes they may be indifferent to what is going on with the scenario or news Editor's knowledge/permission. Posted by Posted by M Balakrishnan @ 8/8/2007 2:49 PM [Note on Blog: Slight editing for improvement has been done by me, except for which this is just a reproduction of my response to the TOI topic. ]

MY RESPONSE TO AN INCIDENT INVOLVING A QUESTION OF IRREVERENCE OF A STUDENT TOWARD A TEACHER [Times of India dated July 7, 2007]The reasons for the "i

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I could have added the following also in my above free-style and spontaneous, unedited response:: Our Vedic injunction is both for the teacher and the taught to begin their routine with a prayer : Let us learn together, Let us both enjoy this delectable routine together, Let us, both the teacher and the taught, seek the vigour of an enlightened personality through a well-directed endeavour of teaching and learning, Let us both, the Acharya and the Sishya, learn the essence of true love totally eschewing any iota of mutual hatred or disregard, May there be Peace that embellishes our Thinking, Speaking and Acting faculties". This is one golden rule that should be imbibed in the teacher and taught. Secularism of education does not mean anything if it follows a blind rule of totally ignoring even such non-denominational teachings of our eternally valid scriptures such as the Upanishads (the latter part of the Vedas which concentrate on 'Vedanta or Veda-anta' (a word which etymologically speaking, is cognate with "wit-end" (what we often use as "wits' end" referring to a state of persisting confusion despite our best to solve a tangled real life problem or just an academic "exercise" to test our grasp and understanding. Vedanta, however, offers reasonably satisfactory answers to our intensely searching questions such as what is the fundamental reality of all that is visible to our naked senses and of what is thus not visible, and so forth. It does not leave you in the confused or at least ever-questioning frame of mind with which you started asking another on these nagging questions. Incidentally, Vedanta is not, as some hasty seekers of knowledge (or otherwise seekers with just a mediocre dose of investigating and understanding power and persistence to enquire) seem to think, a futile mental endeavour, or even just an absurd pastime for idlers. Suffice it to say that some of the most brilliant and real achievers among intellectuals - such as Erwin Schroedinger, a great German physicist and a Nobel Laureate, and Arthur Schopenhauer a great philosopher of eternal fame (also a German) - drew inense and durable inspiration till their very end in their respective intellectual pursuits. They of course pursued their respective intellectual endeavours for the sake of humanity, not for any personal materialistic enrichment, per se.