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Yesterday was Teacher’s day – a day very special to my mom because she has been a teacher for more than 30 years now (and I forgot to wish her!) Mom is here for a while and something she said had me thinking…
She said that teachers who teach nursery and KG kids need to be really paid much much more than the profs who teach in universities or even higher than secondary/ higher secondary teachers….(Dad take note, ma thinks you are overpaid ;))
Her logic is that these are the teachers who mould kids’ brains, they are the ones who require infinite patience, teach the kids all the basics which they build on, who basically are the hands that rock the cradle…
She herself has moved from teaching class 12 students at the start of her career, down to teaching class 2, 3, 4 students. While she confesses that she could never ever teach KG students since she doesn’t have the patience, she does accept that it’s more enriching teaching smaller classes because the teacher has the ability to mould the students in a positive way.
She agrees that the higher the classes you teach, the more you need to know, but somehow, you lose your influence on the kids after a certain age. Yes, you can command respect, but the power you have to create an entire generation of strong minded kids is lost by the time the child is about 12 years old.
In R’s school, I think the average pay of the playgroup, daycare and nursery teachers is not more than 6-8 K (which hubby thinks is on the higher side – he thinks they get paid much less). The other day, the owner of the daycare told me that the education system is much better abroad and the teachers are more dedicated; I disagreed with him saying that I feel teachers in India are dedicated, but often disillusioned because of the pay difference from the industry. While university level profs are paid well, teachers in India are definitely poorly paid. For someone who is doing the job of creating, leading, being role models and teaching values to an entire generation, don’t they deserve the right to a good living?
He told me that he has problems retaining his teachers who leave at the drop of a hat because they get paid more elsewhere, so where is the dedication? Well, while I agree that as a teacher, your first priority is the child you teach, don’t you think teachers are also human and their families too need all that stuff that you and I need? While I didn’t argue too much with him on that, I wondered about it…
Often, we hear of teachers taking up additional tuition classes – I dont really blame them, a teacher’s salary is hardly enough in today’s world.
While loads of people do criticize the education system in India, etc etc, I think perhaps it’s time we pay more attention to the demands of the teachers. Instead of giving them tasks like working on the census, it’s time we empower them to empower the future generation..and it’s time that we accept that we still have a long way to go in giving the teachers the respect due to them.
Oh, by the way, Happy Teacher’s Day to all of you who are teachers to someone in some way 🙂
R’s Mom is a working mother in Mumbai trying to balance work, home and baby. Learning the ropes of new motherhood and wanting to spend more time with baby. Running to catch up with read more...
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I huffed, puffed and panted up the hill, taking many rest breaks along the way. My calf muscles pained, my heart protested, and my breathing became heavy at one stage.
“Let’s turn back,” my husband remarked. We stood at the foot of Shravanbelagola – one of the most revered Jain pilgrimage centres. “We will not climb the hill,” he continued.
My husband and I were vacationing in Karnataka. It was the month of May, and even at the early hour of 8 am in the morning, the sun scorched our backs. After visiting Bangalore and Mysore, we had made a planned stop at this holy site in the Southern part of the state en route to Hosur. Even while planning our vacation, my husband was very excited at the prospect of visiting this place and the 18 m high statue of Lord Gometeshwara, considered one of the world’s tallest free-standing monolithic statues.
What we hadn’t bargained for was there would be 1001 granite steps that needed to be climbed to have a close-up view of this colossal magic three thousand feet above sea level on a hilltop. It would be an understatement to term it as an arduous climb.
Why is the Social Media trend of young mothers of boys captioning their parenting video “Dear future Daughter-in-Law, you are welcome” deeply problematic and disturbing to me as a young mother of a girl?
I have recently come across a trend on social media started by young mothers of boys who share videos where they teach their sons to be sensitive and understanding and also make them actively participate in household chores.
However, the problematic part of this trend is that such reels or videos are almost always captioned, “To my future daughter-in-law, you are welcome.” I know your intentions are positive, but I would like to point out how you are failing the very purpose you wanted to accomplish by captioning the videos like this.
I know you are hurt—perhaps by a domestic household that lacks empathy, by a partner who either is emotionally unavailable, is a man-child adding to your burden of parenting instead of sharing it, or who is simply backed by overprotective and abusive in-laws who do not understand the tiring journey of a working woman left without any rest as doing the household chores timely is her responsibility only.
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