Dear Miss,, To sir with love!

"You won’t remember me or my name. You have failed so many of us.
On the other hand I have often had thoughts about you, and the other teachers, and about that institution which you call ‘school’ and about the boys that you fail.
You fail us right out into the fields and factories and there you forget us."


Those were the words taken from the book "Dear Miss" which was written by eight school boys from the school of Barbiana in Tuscania, Italy 1967. The boys ask the teacher why they stay silent when they see that students write wrong answers in the exam. If it's their duty to teach students, why? Well, this came to my mind when I'm thinking about what's happening to us in the university. Clearly the industry doesn't care about the GPA as long as they get what they want. So why are we given low grades. The book was a collection of letters written by those boys which has several edition other than the above (Letter to a Teacher). The whole school cheers when the principal announces that the next day will be a holiday. The boys ask why the teachers smile when that happens not knowing that the students hates the teachers, teaching & learning that much. The current education system is a marathon. Education is the secondary outcome. It focuses only on determining who's the first.

On the other hand teachers act as the almighty in the class room. Obviously they won't do it for free. Private or government people pay for them. So treating students with some respect is something teachers should learn. E.R. Braithwaite learnt it the hard way and wrote an amazing book called "To sir with love" which was also converted into a movie later. I'm sure some of you have read it. Ricardo Braithwaite was able to introduce a bunch of untamed students into the society as ladies and gentlemen by treating them as ladies and gentlemen. So what we want is not new teaching methods,  but teachers with the capability to understand the student and teach him how to become somebody (not first).