I read a very heartening feature on Indian teenagers in today's Times,which states that they are not as brash as previously believed.
Said I not so?
People ask me why I teach in Junior College rather than Degree College, almost as though teaching in the latter is an affirmation of superior ability and qualification(s).I am also asked, more as a topic of conversation than anything else,why I don't do my Ph D.As though that will set me in a superior bracket!They mean it as a compliment to my (ahem!)perceived abilities.
The answer to the former question is,I like teaching kids just out of school.They have been in the same school for ten years of their life, and then they enter college. It is like a revelation;a new world;an epiphany.The sheer sense of "freedom",as they perceive it,unnerves them and it takes them several days,sometimes months, to get back a sense of equilibrium.Protected and cocooned for years, the gates are suddenly thrown open and the world beckons.
I watch them change and evolve and I stand in the background and clap, when they find their feet: and cry, when they flounder. I tell them- because that is what they want to hear more than anything else- that if they want some one to talk to, I am there.
I love teenagers because they still have dreams in their eyes.
They have not become blase and cynical, in spite of their best efforts to appear so.
They still believe that the world is a good place.
They know that there are people who love them.
They realise that the world is still full of colour.
They don't under estimate the value of a smile or the trauma of a frown.
That is why I love them.
That is why I teach them.
That is why I care.
Because they care.
God bless teenagers!
These are the same reasons i hate them! ok I"m jealous of them. Teenagers still believe. They trust the world enough to let themselves loose and not worry about consequences.
ReplyDeleteI hate being a pos-teen, I feel like i recently lost that power and I now have to pick up the broken pieces of my hope...
Menaka, you are trying so hard to pretend that you are over the teenage phase, that I am amused. I laugh.Ha Ha. Like that.
ReplyDeleteBut no one without dreams in their eyes and their heart can write the way you do.Your shock when you meet duplicity and perfidy is still raw.Your deliciously scandalised look when I say something more than usually aberrant, is a study in wonder and delight.
No, thou shalt not outgrow teenage!That is an order, from your English teacher,so there!
Im not gonna be a teen any more!!! and i can feel it...Being an adult..means responsibilities and a lot more to that...!!! makes me sad...i want my days back...i wish life had a rewind button!!!
ReplyDeleteNo rewind, Nidhi.Every phase of life is special in its own way. Enjoy it when its going on, rather than after its over.For instance,your life as a student is going to be more carefree,certainly, than life as a professional might be. Live in the moment,not in the past.And now that we are at it, are you eating well now-a days, or still pecking at your food, like a bird???????????
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