The Essence Of Being A Teacher

There are two age-old sayings in Tamil that kept popping in my head last week while wondering - why am I doing what I am doing today?

Saying 1: Vaathiyar pulla makku. (A Teacher's child will be a fool.)
For the starter, I am not born to one but two Teachers. Perhaps that makes me double the fool that I should be. Quite true actually this saying and I fit in perfectly to this saying like a hand to a glove. I have always struggled with education, have always found myself being dragged into learning things I never wanted or often felt never needed to. I have always resisted learning than being able to see any possibility through education. I have often seen it as a tiresome, worrisome and wasted investment of time, energy and money. I am still allergic to chemistry and maths. I take a much longer time to understand things and wonder if I would be labeled a 'retard' if I did take the proper psychological tests. I try to understand and communicate concepts in the most simple way even until this day - not because my students are dumb but because I can't understand it otherwise.

Saying 2: Vuk'cuth'tha'vun Vaa'thi'yaan (The incompetent becomes the Teacher)
Holds true too (in my case at least). I have never been able to handle the politics and associated nuances required to survive the field. Very often I wonder if that is what brings me back to the comfort and safety of classroom walls from where the utopia can be dreamt in absolute complacency. No one can criticize me more than I can about my incompetency to put an end to fraud, malpractice, hypocrisy and pseudo-goodness often projected and existing in many organizations and institutions I have worked for - many times holding a leadership position - which if some else had held, might have perhaps used to do wonders. I have been the most incompetent in many ways especially when it comes to applying what I teach and am wonder stuck when I see many of my students, on the other hand, do a much better job than what I probably can or will ever be able to do. Perhaps if anyone must use a name more casually to establish the truth in this saying, they should feel free to use my name as a living example.

Mentioning these, if that is what makes a Teacher, well then the role I play fits me well and perhaps that is why I adorn and play it happily.
Yet, beyond all these, there is a happiness that I manage to reach by doing what I do that cannot be kept a secret - a happiness that unfolds and moves me everytime I see the brightened glow on a student's face if s/he has understood a concept when explained in a simple way - perhaps in a way that this incompetent fool has managed to understand in the first place - not because of the presence of ample intelligence yet the gifted absence of it.
May every Teacher - otherwise bright, wise and clever - and still the rest, have a 'Happy Teacher's Day' today. God save the world...