To Be or Not…
To be an ‘I
don’t care’ personality or to be professional is the millennial probe that
tickles the techie and pro-techie generation. It alerts men and women hailing
from East, Middle-East or West. Professionalism, if connected to profession, is
a sort of narrowing the area. Being generation of megalomaniacs, the new
generation, in which I feel myself to be a part, not only with age but also
with mindset, cannot understand those narrow casting. When I came back after
dis-cum-re-orientation, the class which, I like best by virtue of its locale
alienated me with the aura of unfamiliarity. Literally, I was baffled like a
man who is watching his bride in a wedding dress. The familiar faces on the
unfamiliar garb! In a half jocular manner, I told my student that I am very
much pleased to be a teacher, in return, to my “B.Tech appearance” classroom of
humanities, and added, the professional kind of dress could be the reflection
of professional kind of attitude. Normally, I would stop it there, and keep the
unsaid for them to fill if feel like, to create theirown meanings rather than
be confined in myown. More than artistically putting things, more than
selfishly keeping the intellectual property, the two aims guarded my action
from behind:
1.
I don’t wish (which I
strive to balance without shattering, but spills at times unknowingly) to be an advice machine if not it is sought,
generally.
2.
If I say everything, as
a teacher, I was afraid, becoming bad by restricting their progress.
I don’t feel
these guardians as the protectors of less responsible actions, though
superficially, they would be perceived as in the way the kid in the lower
primary class teachers’ hand book yelled, “ If I could not understand the way
you talk to me, why can’t you talk to me the way, I can grasp easily.” The
students in the field of higher education cannot be equated with the students
of lower primary class. Who else will recognize this if not me, the teacher? So
I prescribed, though not always, sounds and furies, since my students moved
from the generation of Shakespeare who caught it as ’signifying nothing’, and
reached at least near Faulkner, who offered a question for the examination:
“what is the significance of the title, Sound
and Fury?”, which can gain no credit if answered ‘signifying nothing’. But
this time, I selfishly felt to be understood, contrary to the earlier
revelations. I explained professionalism for the students in the light of the
article, I read from Faulty Focus, without providing a hyperlink. Perhaps they
may think of it as putting my old wine of punctuality, tolerance, optimism,
commitment, reliability, integrity, staying work focused, supporting and
respecting others ideas, listening properly, time management and
self upgrading, as a decorated novel paradigm. But I did not reiterate
the Old Testament, instead, provided our own wishes we regularly postpone,
whether a teacher or student. We would often be confused with the notions of
sacrifice with professionalism, which we need to demarcate to keep a balance to
make ourselves feel that we are above exploitation.
Earlier professionalism has been recognized to be a profession-add on
programme. But in the current scenario its relevance has heightened as it is no
more a ‘profession’ and ‘al’ but a way of being, living and becoming. If by
simply answering a mail, or by smiling at the face of an acquaintance, or patting the shoulder of the
small scale victories of your friend and listening, to the low tone music comes
with the breeze which cannot be recognized if the parameters of the tempests
shaking the buildings, you will be
surely benefited, by the feeling of increased reputation, dignity,
contentment and finally self reliance. This can be best induced when you are
the students, because the student is a free citizen than any other
professional, that the student realizes when he/she is no more a student.
Afterword:
The author of
this post, as V.S. Naipaul ‘remarkably’ commented in the link of yesterday’s
post, is a sensitive, sentimental, emotional woman, on which she is proud and not ashamed of , and tried to use “ecriture feminine” to uphold
the inscription.
