I had this pleasant surprise some months back when a fellow sulekhite asked me if I could teach High school physics to a small group of muslim girls, some of whom were orphans.They could not go out to coaching classes or private tuition.I gladly accepted and it was agreed that my transportation costs would be met by the institution where the students lived and studied.
After an initial mutual introduction we got started and I found the girls very receptive and alert.But it was soon realised that covering their whole syllabus was not possible within the available time.They had a regular teacher who took little interest in the proceedings.Later he joined us for a few sessions and contributed by his silent participation throughout.I therefore asked the students to decide which of the portions they wanted me to cover first and started as per their wishes.Once I could take them to the demonstration lab in Physics at IIT and showed them some experiments.
In course of time I started getting enquiries about how long I would take to cover the syllabus from the adminisytration of the institution.This made me uncomfortable because I never considered myself as a substitute for the regular teacher who was on their payroll.Nor did I consider myself obliged to fulfil the wishes of the administrators.I thought I was answerable only to my pupils who appeared happy with the way I was going about teaching them physics concepts.
I needed to take them out again to IIT to show some more experiments to them but I was firmly asked to focus on covering the syllabus first.This led to my gently pointing out to the persons concerned that I decide the focus of my teaching and no one else.And so it ended soon with the classes coming to an end because the students could not be allowed to waste their ti,me watching experiments when exams were so close at hand.
I thought I will share my experience with people here so that we all have a clue to why we cannot win Nobel prizes in spite of having millions of young enthusiastic and bright students. Establishment has its own priorities which are not necessarily directed towards such goals. Close