Teaching – a tough personal experience

I have been a teacher on and off for over the past few years. I have taught about making devices/instruments, some maths and some physics to undergrads at a local elite college in Pune. I have had a mixed experience if I reflect back. The last year was particularly intense and tough on me, and so I have decided to quit formal teaching, at least for a year.

Being a normally driven person with some excitement in what I do, I tend to get carried away expecting the same from others. This was evident in some projects I had given and mentored with kids. Everything started nicely, and the kids responded well. These kids weren’t from the engineering or the sciences base, but studied a mix of various subjects from humanities and some science and mathematics. They loved the initial joy of making gadgets and were quite enthusiastic to make new things and imagine new things to be made. We learnt some electronics, soldering, 3d printing, design tools, etc. After learning some basic skills they were tasked to practice those skills in making projects, from a list of projects I needed help in. Although the projects started well, I realized the kids loosing steam half way through. Except a few, most failed to push enough and complete the individual targets set for their particular projects. They weren’t also coming back to me with their issues or discussing among themselves, I felt. As a teacher passionate about the projects and this whole act of making things by hand, I was disturbed. Even after repeated coaxing, the apathy of some of the teams was evident. And my annoyance in this lack of effort or sincerity probably became more and more evident. One of the students even complained that she could not communicate her challenges with me, or do the work assigned to her for her own exams, because I was “rude” apparently. By the end of the course, only a small group actually completed their projects, the rest completed the formalities of the course.

Another example was from teaching maths and physics. Most students showed interest and participated in the class with great amount of passion. I think I fared better in these classes as a teacher than in the maker classes. In another course where I was to co-teach research methods, I realized the similar trends – loss of interest by students as the work got harder. While these phenomena were on going, where students at one point may find traction in the course, while on the other side of the calendar loose interest, I realized I as a teacher also converted from a hopeful and compassionate human at the beginning of the calendar to a hard task master at the end of the course. While this is not black and white, it seemed so one of the perspectives shared by my colleagues. What was evident were the hard comments I was giving back on submissions by students, calling out callousness and shoddy work, calling out blatant plagiarism, abuse of technological privileges such as AI tools. My hard comments disturbed the kids, and the concerned authorities/teachers/admins. The sad part was that I was not so aware of this until it was brought to my notice by my colleagues.

When I re-read my own written comments, I realized that they were mean. I was shocked myself, and felt embarrassed. Some of my words could be interpreted as severe and not acknowledging the person’s struggle or the overall context. I have struggled to understand these reactions of mine, often finding all the fault with me on one hand and repenting it. Sometimes I feel that I was too passionate about the subject and expected very highly of the students, which may have led me to be so harsh on their performance. As a teacher this has been the toughest of all experiences. I also feel I was under much stress of teaching. Facing a class full of judging youngsters, my personal anxiety of ‘performing’ as a knowledgeable guide while i struggled with the nuances of the topic, my lack of experience in the teaching the subjects and other reasons may have led to a built up of emotions, which manifested in my uncalled for expressions. The critical feedback I received from about a year of passionate effort from my end, came as a shock. It was disheartening to say the least. I am still processing the experiences and interpretations, not completely sure what went wrong, what was right, etc. The moral burden of being on the ‘wrong’ or unkind to people, especially kids is crushing. But I learnt a lot I would say, and I am still discovering layers and layers within this rich experience. I loved many moments of the teaching experience, and especially the joy of connecting with kids via the topic on hand, mutually participating in the wonders of the subject, and so on. It gives me hope that I was not too bad a teacher or a human, most of the time.

Stuck – an ordinary innovator’s song

Days go by and nothing moves
you fumble, stumble and try (again)
ideas are stuck
projects are stuck
head bangs against a wall
of unknowns

no one knows
no one can help
there are no experts
no one’s around you but you 
and the unknown, uncharted.

No social life
nothing to talk about
they wont get it you say
nothing to show that is credible
understandable, comprehensible
or beautiful to the common eye
Except perhaps an old story
of a crazy innovator’s mess.

Why bother so much? they ask
move on, life can be predictable!
Ya, right! 
Why bother? Who cares?
One is tempted, every moment.
To let go. To chase the next greens
To play.
Escape seems possible and beautiful.

But something keeps alive
the silly bug of a stuck innovator.
The charm of unconnected pieces
materials and parts needing nurturing and attention
mysterious ideas needing form
dreams
stories materials wrote on the bruised hands
a nose smothered with solder smoke
and burnt metal in the taste
eyes sore with tiredness and despair 
a pocket full of holes
debts to others
sweat of many moments past
an identity looking for a home
freedom
credibility
self-esteem
all waiting in line
for the stars to align
and a universe
to fall in place.

it takes a genius ?

(old post, from somewhere around 2013…. )

It feels that what needs to be can only be begun sometime

an inconspicuous time,

often this a romantic spirit of idealism, the moment

often this minor effort will wither away into the average

but wont it be, even otherwise, the average i mean?

why make fun of the little ones

why neglect them as trivial and unimportant

why so, even when these

in ever so insignificant ways build what we understand by momentum

and momentum isn’t that all that matters?

i doubt if major efforts and waiting for them

have ever been of significance

and one may question wherein comes the major effort from

but from a general momentum,

built in ever insignificant ways

in ever miniature forms

little revolts here and there

the littleness hides the human nature

and a momentum is sure to be built

a momentum that is anyways built

and when it is built, its hard to brake, tame, control, release

and who comes to the rescue?

old little friends, the odd miniature efforts!

The making of an artist or an inventor,

of a leader or a peasant

is not due to the bold stroke of genius we all hear about

it is the nurturing and practicing of the medium of expression

of years of little efforts

years spent in learning the language that can speak of creativity and command

that can dance and walk on a tight rope, one with the rope not separate,

but all we the ignorant passer-bys notice

are the miniature efforts of the performer that meet the moment’s eye

the rest hidden, lost …. the real stuff is invisible

but then the greed of ease, we ape these,

visible and tangible as if the real,

dreaming to replace the artist with an ego burp,

we fail miserably and we come to know how difficult an effort it would take!

And thus we conclude, oh we the ignorant, how much of a genius it takes …

And we live our lives with this learning ingrained into our living,

the importance of a certain kind of effort ever increasing,

instant and glorious, of bold strokes and radical ideas,

and what a glamour we conjure of a near-future dance of the ego genius!

But we neglect that what can build the momentum.

And thus we fail again, and again we conclude what a genius it takes …

but this time, we also conclude that we can’t probably be one.

And sometimes, we wait for our bold strokes of creativity,

of right conditions, support and love, fail which we have others to crutch on,

and never make the smaller ones that might make momentum,

because our yardstick’s just so bigger than what we can lift,

and so we wait for the enlightenment, we dream of the big moment,

desperate for the sparks of opportunity, ignorant of the chances (moments) passing by,

and we neglect so much …

And thus fails another artist, even before the journey began,

ignorant and disillusioned, but convinced that it takes a genius…

greed, growth and efficiency

the habit of trying to move mountains:
there are two types of people who can break stones, the first is the simple stone breaker, who sees the stones and takes a hammer and breaks them. and then there is another type, the ‘intelligent’ one, who wants to achieve more than the simple one i.e. break more stones than the simple man, with lesser actions/resources but more thinking….achieve more with one go…

the latter creates ideas, makes assumptions, measure resources and strategizes over how to be ‘efficient’ in breaking stones. he puts a lot of effort in thinking and researching other tools, with the ultimate goal of higher efficiency. after numerous experiments and years, he develops a design that can break 5 stones in one go, but requires additional resources, more metal, fuels and is costlier than the humble hammer. its requires time to manufacture and labour. so the tech guy see this as an opportunity, convinces 5 stone breakers to leave their profession and join a labour camp to make stone breaking equipment. the balance sheet is balanced, the prices, wages are fixed, etc. its a profitable business. u can build a 10 stonebreakers/month, each with a capacity to replace 5 stonebreakers multiplied with the ability to replace another 10 by working day and night, and thus the process is very efficient.

By the end of above paragraph,  the ‘tech’ have ‘liberated’ 150 not-so-perfect-and-efficient-machines, the human stonebreakers, from the back breaking work, and gained a huge ‘profit’. so its is only ‘sustainable’ to continue and more such machines are built and distributed. profit is tastier and its a pleasure to have as much. however, what about the 150/month of free souls? well some are as enterprising as the tech guy, so they decide to compete, and you have another 150/month count of free souls. well not everyone is interested in replacing stonebuilders, so some start building the farm machines. more free souls. and so on….

free souls(humans) are not sustainable and peaceful in general and they start to create menace, so the government decides to employ them, create jobs. also one of the tech guy decides he doesnt want to just build some stonebreakers, but many and for that its would be efficient to takeover other companies. to do that it would be more efficient if force is used instead of buyin it out, so he asks the little government of ex-stone breakers and ex-farmers to help him take stuff from the other, and a new profession is born, the militia. after the takeover, the government is stronger, the military gets more men and funds are available to develop new industry of this war machines. other people are scared and they develop their own militia, and efficiency of operations increase globally.

then there are some subtypes of the tech people, who spend all life studying the stones and finding out how to break them more and more efficiently. they branch out into various techniques and stuff. some people get bitten by the bug of exploration and leave the trail that heads back to industry, and they delve into theoretical physics,maths…and yes, they are ofcourse fed by the government since now the governments know that there is chance that these guys may make the processes more efficient.

in all, tech is created to increase efficiencies and it also creates more free souls, who enterprise to create more tech and more free souls. just like a stack of cards, the only difference being that the cards are dynamic. this process of super efficiency : replace more with less, continues creating the world today. all to break simple stones…funny.

it seems greed and efficiency are quiet related. well we have examples right in our own brains. often we dream, and imagine of moving mountains, because you know that it is the most efficient of all thoughts. by moving mountains i mean being successful at first go, become the richest man on earth, become super intelligent, ultra cools and others…..well if you ask the question why do you want to move anything in the first place, then you must head back to the start of this story and understand why a stonebreaker was ‘inefficient’..we dont like inefficiency at all, its very annoying…so why try moving stones when you can imagine moving mountains. why do the ground work when u can see the sky…

the idea of ultra-efficiency is very lucrative and we fall for it. There are 2 side-effects of this persuit, 1)you spend enormous time dreaming 2)you build a virtual image of achieving the dreams and the feelings you will posses then(if you do). it is very tempting and so much that it becomes a habit. the images in your head become stronger and stronger and for you its is an unacceptable contrast to the reality around you. When the time comes for living in real life, u expect yourself to move the mountains you always have imagined you are able to, and you fail. the fall from the castle of dreams is so large that it dents you pretty permanently. however we try some more times, till we realize that we cant do this, that the world is not a fair place for you to be, that your life is doomed. however you still cant let go of the dream, its a habit now, years of dreaming cant be wished away. it would require years of practicality, of reality, and that to only when you accept that you are a stonebreaker by birth, you can only move stones rather than mountains. that efficiency is nothing but greed.

life is not doomed, it can only be worse. if you stick to the moving stones, you can move the mountains some day, but dreaming about ultra-efficiency is a disease. you must fight the illness or else fight the reality.

the state of world today, is a result of greed and we continue to participate in it. we value efficiency more than human life. we value concepts of our mind more than the lives involved. the question that must be asked , humbleness or efficiency?