I believe that emotions and opinions are important aspects of learning. It is important to have opinions. One should have more than one opinion. And one should also have the freedom to change them without having to be branded as ambivalent or fickle. This way when a teacher shares her or his opinion about any topic under discussion, it opens up an opportunity for the learners to also explore their ideas. This sets off the most important part of existence – where am I in this entire scheme of things? Do learners ever get an opportunity to ask this question of themselves without feeling a sense of redundancy or guilt?

Had it not been for Covid 19, education around the world would have been the same as it has been till now. Many schools would have started their new sessions, the examination results would have been declared and many young students would have readied themselves for another journey, a little different but still the same as before. The teachers would have had enough renewed energy to do the same thing all over again. But this teeny tiny virus put paid to all the plans and dreams.

Less than a month ago, I mentioned to a dear friend that here was the time to look at teaching and learning differently, a chance to take radical decisions and to challenge teachers, students and parents like never before. But it is important to go back a little and ask a very fundamental question. Why do parents relinquish their rights to nurture their flesh and blood, to an unknown body of people? Where does this implicit faith spring or is it, I dare say, a reluctance to commit themselves to their own child’s learning, because this commitment might reveal that they are fallible after all? And why does this body of people take it upon themselves to disburse information as they understand it? Are these the infallible? What is it that makes them so sure that it is only their understanding and knowledge that matters? Then where is the tentativeness? Why should their understanding be accepted by such young people who are yet to understand the world around them?

My first few years as a young teacher saw me teaching by the book, making sure that facts and figures were explained as they were supposed to be and they had to be understood as they were meant to be understood. And within a few years, I saw myself not really preparing myself for a new academic session because there was nothing new to be shared. I was on autopilot. As a teacher, I believed that I wasn’t supposed to take a stand, I had to be neutral, even when uncomfortable questions were asked, I had to, I believed, encourage children to come to conclusions based on facts that I had presented to them. But teaching in the school that I did, made me question the whole aspect of emotions, be they happiness, sadness, envy, boredom. Was I getting bored? And imagine, all the subjects that I got an opportunity to teach were actually high on emotional content. Geography was meant to understand the birth of the world, the space, understanding Earth, what was underneath the surface and what was above it. The different life forms that existed on it, the resilience of each and every life form. Nature that never reacted but did what she was made to do. If a river had to flow, it just flowed, and anything that came in its path would be swept away. The act of the river was without emotion but the understanding if it was not just a theoretical learning, but perhaps a learning for me too. I realised that it was important that I express awe, joy, sadness as well as anger. How can I not have spoken about the trials and tribulations of an Indian farmer when I taught Agriculture? How could I not show my confusion and my incomplete understanding of what devastation can be caused by the construction of dams that supply me water and electricity but those very dams that annihilate millions of life forms? I realised that it was important for children to feel my confusion, to know that all problems do not have solutions, yet not become comfortable in that unease. I also became conscious that I did not want children to look up to me as a person who had answers to everything. And then I realised that we are a vulnerable race, the vulnerability that makes us more human, that should make us more humane.

Every English poem and story was full of emotions. I understood that the depth of these emotions came from experiencing them. So how could I not open myself to experiencing those emotions? It was not enough to display my literary superiority by providing meanings of difficult words and sharing the deeper nuances of what the author or poet had expressed through their writings. I had to experience them, even if they would be second hand emotions for me. Seeing me getting emotional gave the children the opportunity to open up and experience their own emotional turmoil via the texts they were studying. Human beings are emotional, so why hide it? Yet, it was also important to understand the effect one’s emotions could have on another who was intimately connected, as a student or as a colleague. It would be devastating to burden someone with one’s thoughts and feelings. This was a fine balance that one had to understand. And how wonderful it would be if all humans regardless of age would become sensitive to this very significant aspect of being human. Then, perhaps, learning would not be a chore nor would sharing one’s knowledge be. The phrase ‘formal education’ itself is misleading, as if everything else not taught within the four walls of a school, is ‘informal’. And what’s bad about being informal? Will being stoic be any better?

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