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Towards the end of Father's punishment posting at Kurichedu, he fell seriously ill and pulled some strings and got himself transferred back to the Coromandel Coastal village of Muthukur as HM.
That was when my career in the Muthukur High School took off rather prematurely.
I had just passed my Class 4 from the co-ed Elementary School at Kurichedu and would have been happy to join the Elementary School at Muthukur to complete my Class 5. But Father had different ideas and asked me to appear in an 'entrance exam' for Class 6 (First Form) in his High School, thus making a hop-skip-and-jump of one whole year. And I had no say in the matter since I was just 8 then.
The 'exam' was conducted specially for me (and me only) and the paper-setter was the Assistant HM, a devout young brahmin (these brahmins do stick together). And I attended it and must have got 100% in English, 50% in Telugu and 10% in Maths. I should have been failed for my poor performance in Maths but the Assistant HM totaled all the marks and declared me 'passed' in the 'aggregate' ;)
That was a serious misfortune for me, for, I was almost failing in Maths for the next 3 years till I got into Class 9 (Fourth Form). For, the maths I was taught was all arithmetic, full of Profit and Loss, and Work and Time, which I could never understand (like RKN). And everyday after the math exam was a day of corporal punishment meted out to me by Father for which I never forgave me till this day. I don't know why he was in such a hurry to push me into High School at 8...Ishani will be 10+ by when she will be in her High School. Maybe he thought I was a prodigy, or he wanted me to come up quickly and join a job to help him out...
In my Class 9 everything changed suddenly and there was no more profit and loss...I entered the realm of Algebra and Geometry and Pythagoras Theorem and such topics which I loved, and came first in the class every time. And Father couldn't solve even a quadratic equation and left me alone to hide his ignorance.
This particular experience, although devastating to me, came as a great help when I myself became a teacher at IIT KGP much later. For, I knew that every kid has his likes and dislikes and aptitudes:
Loko Bhinna Ruchi: as the wise saying goes.
And I understood with immense sympathy students who were good but not in everything I taught.
Let me give an example:
During the mid-1990s, I was allotted a Course on Electrodynamics for the IV year MSc. I loved all the intricacies of this subject.
For the first half of the semester, I used to teach Tensor Algebra, Relativity, Classical Field Theory, Relativistic Field Lagrangians, Stress-Energy-Momentum Tensor etc, topics important for students who want to go deep into Quantum Field Theory at a later date.
In the second half of the semester, I used to connect everything up and taught Radiation Fields, Polar Plots, Polarization Charts, Antennas, and such bread and butter topics that are needed for those students who loved real life applications of the subject.
In one batch there was this back-bench student, AB, who was sitting in the class with a bored expression on his face for the entire first half of the semester. And was fuming at times as to what all this rigmarole was leading to.
After the first lecture of the second half of the semester, he advanced to the first row, and his face started beaming with enthusiasm.
He left for Caltech for his Ph D in experiments, and bagged half a dozen patents while he graduated.
On the other hand, there was this student, BR, who took the same course and was charmed by the formal portions of Electrodynamics that went on in the first half of the semester.
And after a dozen years I got this report that I blogged earlier on:
So I guess Father did me an unintended favor...he didn't know I would end up as a teacher...perhaps he wanted me to become an IAS officer...sorry dad!
...Posted by Ishani
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Towards the end of Father's punishment posting at Kurichedu, he fell seriously ill and pulled some strings and got himself transferred back to the Coromandel Coastal village of Muthukur as HM.
That was when my career in the Muthukur High School took off rather prematurely.
I had just passed my Class 4 from the co-ed Elementary School at Kurichedu and would have been happy to join the Elementary School at Muthukur to complete my Class 5. But Father had different ideas and asked me to appear in an 'entrance exam' for Class 6 (First Form) in his High School, thus making a hop-skip-and-jump of one whole year. And I had no say in the matter since I was just 8 then.
The 'exam' was conducted specially for me (and me only) and the paper-setter was the Assistant HM, a devout young brahmin (these brahmins do stick together). And I attended it and must have got 100% in English, 50% in Telugu and 10% in Maths. I should have been failed for my poor performance in Maths but the Assistant HM totaled all the marks and declared me 'passed' in the 'aggregate' ;)
That was a serious misfortune for me, for, I was almost failing in Maths for the next 3 years till I got into Class 9 (Fourth Form). For, the maths I was taught was all arithmetic, full of Profit and Loss, and Work and Time, which I could never understand (like RKN). And everyday after the math exam was a day of corporal punishment meted out to me by Father for which I never forgave me till this day. I don't know why he was in such a hurry to push me into High School at 8...Ishani will be 10+ by when she will be in her High School. Maybe he thought I was a prodigy, or he wanted me to come up quickly and join a job to help him out...
In my Class 9 everything changed suddenly and there was no more profit and loss...I entered the realm of Algebra and Geometry and Pythagoras Theorem and such topics which I loved, and came first in the class every time. And Father couldn't solve even a quadratic equation and left me alone to hide his ignorance.
This particular experience, although devastating to me, came as a great help when I myself became a teacher at IIT KGP much later. For, I knew that every kid has his likes and dislikes and aptitudes:
Loko Bhinna Ruchi: as the wise saying goes.
And I understood with immense sympathy students who were good but not in everything I taught.
Let me give an example:
During the mid-1990s, I was allotted a Course on Electrodynamics for the IV year MSc. I loved all the intricacies of this subject.
For the first half of the semester, I used to teach Tensor Algebra, Relativity, Classical Field Theory, Relativistic Field Lagrangians, Stress-Energy-Momentum Tensor etc, topics important for students who want to go deep into Quantum Field Theory at a later date.
In the second half of the semester, I used to connect everything up and taught Radiation Fields, Polar Plots, Polarization Charts, Antennas, and such bread and butter topics that are needed for those students who loved real life applications of the subject.
In one batch there was this back-bench student, AB, who was sitting in the class with a bored expression on his face for the entire first half of the semester. And was fuming at times as to what all this rigmarole was leading to.
After the first lecture of the second half of the semester, he advanced to the first row, and his face started beaming with enthusiasm.
He left for Caltech for his Ph D in experiments, and bagged half a dozen patents while he graduated.
On the other hand, there was this student, BR, who took the same course and was charmed by the formal portions of Electrodynamics that went on in the first half of the semester.
And after a dozen years I got this report that I blogged earlier on:
He (BR) was remembering you very fondly and said something like this:
"The tensor calculus taught by GPS twelve years ago is currently of immense help for my theoretical calculations."
So I guess Father did me an unintended favor...he didn't know I would end up as a teacher...perhaps he wanted me to become an IAS officer...sorry dad!
...Posted by Ishani
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