A few months ago a Hindi-language film named ‘Super 30’ was released worldwide which is based on the life of Anand Kumar and his educational program ‘Super 30’. I came to know about Anand Kumar, who is a math prodigy and a superb teacher from India, for the first time from the movie and later on I surfed the internet to gather more information about him. The more I read about him and his efforts, the more I was taken aback. This man who himself was brought up amidst abject poverty has done and is still doing somethingout of the ordinary. He is running a program known as ‘Super 30’ for students having poor economic background where he enrolls 30 students for each term and coaches them for the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Both his style of teaching and the success rate of his students have been phenomenal since the inception of the program in 2002. Now let’s turn our focus from Anand Kumar to the teachers who are imparting knowledge (at least this is what we expect of our teachers) in our country at different levels and make an endeavor to contrast their performance and approach with that of Anand Kumar with a view to getting some insights into our education system.

The first thing to be addressed in this regard is the ‘biasness’ of the teachers. I have encountered several incidents during my formal education life (up to post-graduation) where the teachers have exhibited biased attitude towards their students. They often categorize the students based on the level of intellect of the students and consequently form some ideas about the ability of the learners (which is often categorized as ‘bad and good students’). Then they deal with them accordingly. On many occasions I have seen many teachers behaving very well with the so-called ‘good students’ whereas the same teachers have been found to be very rude with the students branded as ‘bad’ without even any major reason. According to educational psychology, such biasness is called ‘implicit bias’ where the teachers’ attitude gets influenced greatly by the stereotypes that they form based on some of their experiences or pre-occupied ideas. According to some independent researches, owing to such biasness someone can favor one group and disfavor another. This is what happens in our educational institutions – teachers often construct ideas about the merit of a student after scrutinizing him/her script twice or thrice and then he/she starts marking the scripts based on that perception. Many teachers even behave very rudely with those students who fail to manage good grades in the exam. Such biased attitude demotivates those students and they suffer from a negative washback. Yes, reinforcement (which can be classified into positive and negative washback) plays a very vital role in the learning process but the teacher will have to analyze the impact of such rebuke on the students. Teachers should behave with the students (no matter whether he/she is intelligent or not) in a way that will encourage them to be more attentive and excel further. This is what Anand Kumar does with his students and this is what differentiates him from our teachers. He takes help of the technique of ‘intrinsic motivation’ to motivate the students so that they don’t feel discouraged at any stage of the learning process.

The second point to ponder over is the viewpoint of the teachers as far as education is concerned. Everyone knows that our teachers have almost successfully turned education into a commodity. They are literally selling it (the product known as education) – the unbridled mushrooming of coaching centres is a glaring reflection of such mentality of the teachers. There are even allegations that some teachers purposely give poor marks to the students just to force them to get admitted into coaching centres run by them. This is how a vested quarter of teachers are not only tarnishing the overall image of the nation builders but also ruining the very basis of proper educational process. In contrast, Anand also runs a coaching centre but the aim is completely different. He tutors the students, provides them study materials, lodging facilities and food without charging any fee from the students. He manages the money by himself and he has even turned down financial help promised by the government and other private organizations several times. As a teacher he is willing to leave no stone unturned for the welfare of his students. Such is the height of dedication for something so sacred as teaching for Anand.

Last but not least, the very approach to teaching followed by our teachers is probably not always right and learner-friendly. A significant number of our teachers still believe in the adage – spare the rod and spoil the child. That’s why corporal punishment is considered to be an essential part of many educational institutions. Moreover the teachers often fail to make the learning more fun and interesting. The faulty teaching approach, burdened with multiple exams, makes the learning process all the more mundane and fearsome. Even sometimes the teachers themselves instill fear into the students’ minds. I can still recall the very first day of my university life when one of our teachers reprimanded one of our classmates for not being able to speak a few words before the whole class. She was shy since it was her first class at the university level, so it was very natural for her to feel a bit nervous. But the very attitude of the university teacher frightened her to such an extent that she could not overcome her fear of presentation and public speaking till the last day of her university life. On the other hand, Anand focuses more on overcoming the fear and growing self-confidence among the students.

To conclude, don’t we have teachers like Anand among us? Of course, we have but the number is very meagre compared to the number of teachers with questionable quality and moral strength. Under such circumstances we need many such Anands(who are ready to go to any length for the betterment of their students and understand the psychology of teaching) to get our learning process, the education system in a broader perspective, back on the right track.

(The writer is a columnist.)