The Hindu Business Line : Teachers are our most important asset

ALL teachers play their roles but some are remembered, the ones who taught us with passion. Who are they? "Teachers with a passion for teaching are those who are committed, enthusiastic, and intellectually and emotionally energetic in their work with children, young people and adults alike," explains Christopher Day in A Passion for Teaching, published by RoutledgeFalmer (www.routledgefalmer.com).

"Passionate teachers are aware of the challenge of the broader social contexts in which they teach, have a clear sense of identity and believe that they can make a difference to the learning and achievement of all their pupils."

The author confidently proclaims that teachers are "potentially the single most important asset in the achievement of the vision of a democratically just learning society". It is not enough for them to be transmitters of knowledge. "In this century they need to play more complex roles if students' creativity, intellectual curiosity, emotional health, and sense of active citizenship are to be realised." It is difficult to put down the book, so one more last line: "For teachers who care, the student as a person is as important as the student as a learner."

Anger is more powerful than sobbing

TILL some decades ago dalits had to tie brooms behind their backs so that the ground they walked on was swept clean. We read a lot of black literature, but not about dalits. So, if dalit writing from Ambedkar to Omprakash Valmiki were to be introduced from LKG to PG, would it not sensitise us to dalit issues? Do you know that anger is a much more powerful response than sobbing? "An angry person scares those who are perpetrating justice because he might do `something'." Well, these are but a few snatches from Touchable Tales edited by S. Anand, and published by Navayana (www.navayana.org). Get touched!

A story to punctuate studies

FROM the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves is With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed, the debut novel from Lynne Truss, distributed by Viva Books P Ltd (www.vivagroupindia.net). A snatch of office life "proceeding with ghastly normality":

"Michelle spoke to the typesetters by phone, asking them with a deadly sweetness... , whether it would be too much trouble for them to `set some type', perhaps in the spirit of experiment, to find out whether they could take to it, given time and the right circumstances. And a motorcycle messenger, despairing of ever gaining Lillian's attention, slowly surrendered to narcolepsy on a chair, his heavy, shiny, helmeted head coming finally to rest on his leather-clad knees, giving him the appearance of a black coiled-up bean-sprout."

Elsewhere: "Makepeace wrote another letter, beginning with the words `Can't understand how this did not reach you by post, although I wonder now whether your secretary gave me the correct address.' He noted without pleasure that he could type this particular sentence as quickly as he could do `The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.'" A story you can punctuate your studies with.

Courtroom drama

DEVAN'S Tamil novel Justice Jagannathan portraying `a courtroom drama of a murder trial' comes now in English, translated by Lakshmi Venkatraman, from CBH Publishers (cbh_pub@vsnl.net). Karunakaran, the Prosecution Counsel explains: "First of all, it is essential that there should be a reason or motive to kill a person. Listen! There had been disputes regarding money matters between the accused and the deceased. These had begun soon after the accused became the son-in-law of the deceased. I will prove this through evidence.

"Thyagaraja Pillai wrote a Will twelve years ago. In that he had left a house and cash to his first son-in-law. But after that his family had expanded; his love for his son-in-law also underwent a change. He had mentioned several times that the Will must be rewritten, as he was getting weaker. It is obvious that the accused would have been the loser if the Will had been changed... " Engaging read.

Dig one well, deep

ONE day Jalaluddin Rumi took all his students, disciples and devotees to a field. That was his way to teach them things of the beyond, through the examples of this world. He was not a theoretician; he was a very practical man. The disciples were thinking, "What could be the message, going to that faraway field and why can't he say it here?"

But when they reached the field, they understood that they were wrong and he was right. The farmer seemed to be an almost insane man. He was digging a well in the field - and he had already dug eight incomplete wells. He would go a few feet and then he would find that there was no water. Then he would start digging another well... and the same story continued. He had destroyed the whole field and he had not yet found water.

The master, Jalaludding Rumi, turned to his disciples and asked them, "Are you going to follow this insane farmer? Sometimes on one path, sometimes on another path, sometimes listening to one, sometimes listening to another... You will collect much knowledge, but all that knowledge is simply junk, because it is not going to give you the enlightenment that you were looking for. It is not going to lead you to the waters of eternal life.

That's just one of the many stories you get to read in Osho's Satyam Shivam Sundaram, a rebel book from Tao Publishing P Ltd (www.osho.com). "And if becomes your habit to change paths — because the new has a certain attraction for the mind — you will move a few feet on one path, a few feet on another path, but you will never complete the journey."

Tailpiece

"What happens if you find two power centres in a political circle?"

"It becomes an eccentric ellipse."

ReadingRoom@TheHindu.co.in

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Teachers are our most important asset