Abstract
The article dwells on certain personal experiences of the author with school teachers. It analyses a few negative behaviour patterns, which includes a hypercritical nature, an inclination for sadistic pleasure and signs of a deteriorating intellect. This makes the author wonder whether these behaviour patterns could be attributed to one teaching continuously in schools. He goes on to club them under the umbrella term ‘School Teacher Mentality’.

Is there a School Teacher Mentality ?

Early this year I had an opportunity to listen to a lecture on ‘Stress Management’, by an eminent Resource Person. In the course of his lecture, he referred to an occasion when he had to train Bus Conductors. He had asked them who is it that they found most difficult to manage?... Was it college students or school children?... Pop came the answer... ‘School Teachers’ !

Years ago, while working as Coordinator of an In-service Secondary School Teacher Training Institute I had the opportunity to meet Resource Persons from various Human Resource Development organizations. I could always perceive an apparent discomfort in their faces before and after their sessions with the school teachers. My curiosity prompted me to inquire what was wrong . They were of the opinion that of all the classes they had handled in their career , classes for school teachers were the most difficult and the least satisfying!

A few months ago, I came across an incident where a particular teacher, possessing a doctorate and had served over twenty years as a school teacher, had been assigned invigilation duty for an examination on Information and Communication Technology. One of the questions in the Question paper was “ What are microforms and what are its uses?” The teacher on invigilation duty read the Question Paper and took the liberty of telling the candidates that ‘microforms’ is a misprint and it should be read as ‘microphone’. (‘Microforms’ refers to the storage of large data in materials like microfilms ) Naturally a few candidates in that Examination Hall who attempted the question gave an incorrect response.

Now, what could be the reason for such behaviour? Can we attribute the first and second incident narrated above to a certain hypercritical nature characteristic of school teachers? Could the two decade old interaction of the ‘invigilator’ in the school classroom where he assumed the role of the omniscient one before school children urge him to exhibit his misplaced wisdom by correcting the Question Paper? Such incidents made me surf the Internet on the term ‘ School Teacher Mentality’. I failed to come across very explicit references to teachers developing negative behaviour patterns owing to their serving continuously as school teachers. As I was not satisfied, I began to rummage my mind for negative behaviour pattern of school teachers. I will now narrate two incidents which left me absolutely confused as to the peculiar behaviour I had observed.

When I was studying in the primary class , I had a Crafts Teacher who used to come to school in a bicycle. Afternoon Lunch Break, is for children not just Lunch Break but Play hour! On a particular day, a child running helter skelter had an head-on collision with the Crafts Teacher returning home after lunch in his bicycle. The child who collided with the bicycle took little heed of it, ran away probably because he was fully engrossed in his game. But what stunned me was the torrent of abuse that the teacher showered on the child. It was the kind of words that the uncultured use when they abuse someone. For years I wondered why a ‘school teacher’ should resort to such filthy language with children.

The second incident also refers to playing games in the same school where I studied. The school had very limited playing space , and goatee was probably the only game students could play. A peculiarity of the game is that during each stage of rolling or hitting marbles of the opponent, one has to quote rules of the game for that stage. To any observer unfamiliar with the game the quoting of rules will appear as fighting one another. On this occasion, I happened to be the one to quote the rule with gusto . Unfortunately the teacher who teaches Drawing was passing by, noticed my animated language. He ordered both me and my opponent to come to the School Office . There, he showered six blows each with a cane on our buttocks. I was shocked and perplexed for two reasons. Was the punishment I received commensurate with the ‘crime’ which according to the teacher I had committed ? I was then familiar with the term ‘sadism’ and I wondered whether the teacher is really a sadist who finds pleasure in punishing. Years later, when I was under going training, it was pointed out by my Teacher Educator that trainees should never ever use a cane. Even then, it puzzled me because I had seen a number of teachers carrying a cane and I was sure that most of them were highly uncomfortable without a cane.

For all the above incidents can we blame the education system? Where did our teacher training programmes go wrong? Does teaching in schools give teachers a crushing inferiority complex for being branded as ‘Mash’(An endearing term in Malayalam for school teachers. ‘Lecturer’ rouses immediate respect but not necessarily ‘Mash’) resulting in developing a tendency to assert their ‘brilliance’ at every available opportunity ? Can it be that having very little to teach in terms of academic depth in school classrooms result in their developing a tendency to lower their urge to tread wider horizons of knowledge? Can this be one reason for their getting excessively preoccupied with their mundane existence? Does constant interaction with restless children result in teachers too imbibing unconsciously certain irrational behaviour patterns and ending up as ‘refined perverts’? I really don’t know what is wrong … I hope dear reader, that you will one day attempt to find solutions for these behaviour patterns which I prefer to call ‘School Teacher Mentality’!

cpteach@rediffmail.com

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