Teachers’ Day here on the 5th. There was a small celebration programme in the Hall (Frs. Frazer, Roy and I gave a fun-song item.. plus there was a jazz-up dance by the staff...), a photograph and a modest lunch in the canteen...
I got a lot of mails/messages/wishes telling me how wonderful I am!!! It is such a scary responsibility having to live up to a reputation! With God’s blessings and grace... I shall do what I can! Your prayers and support will also help me in doing this.
Talking about Teachers and related things....
Christa McAuliffe (September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986)
In 1985, McAuliffe was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher in space.
On January 28, 1986, the spacecraft disintegrated 73 seconds after launch.
I mention her every year in one or other of my classes. And in many of my talks to teachers and parents as well.
In an interviews before her tragic flight she was asked: "What do you do?" and her answer
was bang on :
"I touch the future. I teach."
That's something that I would very much also want to have as a slogan or motto for my own life.
I would like to believe that I touch the future too......in my classes, in my work as a counsellor, in my work as the superintendent of the hostel, in my association with the Social Service League and all of its projects with the student volunteers.....in my art, in my music, in the letters I used to write, in the many emails I send out now, in every interaction I have with others.....
I touch the future!
That is my claim to immortality.....
I do not teach any more... at least not officially.... I bowed out of that in 1989. Even though I still give educational talks occasionally, and I take lectures in PHV ( Personality and Human Values), I rather consider myself a learner in the classroom. Perhaps at another level from the younger learners in the classroom, but even so, a learner. As we all are whether we are "students" or "teachers" or parents or administrators or whatever. The day we stop learning even while we "teach" will be the day our effectiveness will take a plunge. All the great "Masters" considered themselves learners most of all. Their disciples and others called them "Masters" for all that they were enriched by from their gentle yet profound wisdom.
"Do not bring up your children," I often tell parents, "Grow up with them!"
And in that mutual growing up there is life enrichment for both parents as well as children.
Every one of us touches the future. In different ways perhaps but we all do that. Everything we do matters in some way or the other... to ourselves, to others. We are all immortal... and it is important for us to be aware of that! Immortality is a responsibility we cannot escape from and the generations ahead will carry with them things they have learnt and picked up from us.
Children learn more from our behaviour than from our teachings as lion cubs learn to hunt by just watching the mother lioness stalk and chase and bring down a deer or zebra. There are no coaching classes for this. Effective and appropriate animal behaviour is learnt when instinct and observation combine in everyday life situations. Followed by practice, of course.
Everything we do matters... and can be a blessing or a curse ( or somewhere in-between) to the generations to come.
As I said already, it is a responsibility and it will be well worth our while to take it seriously..
We touch the future indeed!
I continue here with all the usual college things. The academic year rolls along and new challenges come up. Actually they are old ones in slightly altered garb. Good thing I have dealt with similar ones before and that helps.... so I look forward and take each day as it comes as joyfully as I can.
The rains come and go too.... much like many other things in life!
Take care. Lots of love, Terry
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