Teaching Teachers

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Teaching Teachers? Don't! Please!! Never!!!

It is like scratching your back with a red-hot poker.

Late 1980s:

Professor KVR was our HoD at IIT KGP. And he won, using his enormous influence, the coveted Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan's Refresher School in Physics. And came to my room one day and said I have to give 3 Lectures for the 30 odd Teachers of various KVs assembled in the ECE Auditorium, with a terrific honorarium.

I said I have enough money but crave knowledge (much like King Janaka of Videha). And no amount of honorarium would tempt me to spoil my Woolgathering Sessions at Harrys in the welcome Summer Vacation.

But KVR was never one to take a 'No' from anyone...he threatened to ring up my home and lodge a complaint with my wife (we were good family friends).

That settled it.

One day before my 3 Lectures were to start, I met the Team Lead of the KV Teachers. He was a graying Principal, unlike his flock who were in their 20s and 30s, male as well as female, desperate to be 'refreshed'. He said I am to teach the Chapter on 'Universe'. That enthused me somewhat.

But he added that, since it is the very last Chapter in the CBSE text book, it is usually dismissed in a hurry, more so because very few questions would generally appear from that Chapter in the Class XII Question Paper (the Paper-Setter also being in a hurry). He added that he allotted the 'heavy' topics to Senior Professors (I must have looked like a chokra to him). And assured me that my job is simple: he would give me the two fat books of Objective Questions that were selling like hot cakes in the market, and all I have to do is to 'discuss' about 20 typical questions that he would (kindly) mark with a tick in those two books. And pocket my check...

I said I have other ideas. And requested him to take it easy and sleep off in his Guest House during my 'hour', since Universe is a 'light' topic. He was delighted and arranged my Lectures in the Last Period before Lunch.

As soon as I entered the Class Room and managed to get their attention, they were pleased that here was a chokra they can twiddle (they didn't guess that I had already bitten, chewed and digested about a couple of thousand IITians in the past 25 years). And within ten minutes of the first Lecture, they fell silent...I told them that Cosmology is nothing but Reverse Engineering....like the American U-2 Spy Plane that the Russians brought down safely to the ground and released the pilot but not the plane...they 'deconstructed' it (to use a favorite phrase of Aniket).

I told them stories and tall tales and myths and hot topics like the evolution of stars, the color-brightness plot, Chandra limit, Cosmic Distance Ladder, Quasars and Black Holes, First Three Minutes, Population I and II stars and how it resolved the conundrum of the Universe being younger than Earth, how Feynman was greeted by a young RS at Caltech and announced the resolution of the mystery, and how Feynman at once decided to stay back at Caltech and refuse the blank-check offer from IAS, Princeton, and lots of cock -and-bull stories. There was pin-drop silence in the first Lecture, smiles in the second, and guffaws in the last.

And I was invited, along with the other Senior Teachers from our Dept and other Depts involved in the Circus, to the Farewell Dinner in the Faculty Club. All bigwigs like the Deans were there. And while the Principals congregated with the Administrators, the young Teachers flocked around me narrating jokes and witticisms...in short I was mobbed by the Teachers.

And then there was this Valedictory Ceremony chaired by our Diro and other noblemen. There was the usual speech-making by the Convenor and Chairman, a couple of representatives from the 'participants' were invited to come to the dais and talk about their Refreshing Experiences.

The first Teacher (asked out by the Principal who offered to lend me those fat books) stood in front of the mike and my heart was beating. And the Speaker wanted to especially thank the wonderfully stimulating Lectures of Prof GP.

Yea, you thought it was me, no?

NO!!!

It was quite another GP, of the Electrical Engg Dept (I was the wrong'un).

And it turned out that this Prof GP taught them the very important and new topic of Logic Circuits, AND, OR, NAND, NOR, EXOR Gates and their various combinations. Because the current editions of the Objective Question Banks in the market do not as yet have this very new topic; and so the Electrical GP's Lectures were not only inspiring but also very very 'useful'.

Didn't I tell you not to Teach Teachers?

Well, it all reminded me of Thurber's terrific suspense story:

"The Princess and the Tin Box"

Here is its summary, with its Moral:

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On the day this rich and pampered Princess reached 18, the King announced that he would give the hand of his daughter to the Prince that brought the gift she liked most.

The first Prince brought an enormous apple of solid gold that he snatched from this dragon that was guarding it for a thousand years. And as he lay that apple at her feet, she didn't even get up or handle it....just bored.

The second Prince brought a nightingale made of a thousand diamonds...she yawned.

The third Prince brought a jewel box of platinum and sapphires...she started to doze.

The fourth Prince brought a gigantic heart made of rubies and emeralds...she winced.

The fifth Prince was the handsomest and strongest but poorest. He brought a small tin box containing mica, feldspar and hornblend...all of which were absolutely new to the rich Princess...

She jumped up, examined the box and squealed with delight at the absolutely novel contents of the tin box.

But when she was asked to make her choice, she chose the platinum-and-sapphire jewel box.

Thurber's Moral

All those who thought the princess was going to select the tin box filled with worthless stones instead of one of the other gifts, will kindly stay after class and write one hundred times on the blackboard 'I would rather have a hunk of aluminum silicate than a diamond necklace'

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