Like father, like son, like hell

APR 18 - A parent drags his son to school and pleads with the principal to give him a powerful slap in his presence. What can be more shocking than this? This father of a class 12 boy came to the school angry and dejected. He asked the principal to slap his son and said, “I’ll remind him of your slap whenever he doesn’t obey me at home.” He was at his wits’ end because his son was careless about his studies and didn’t listen to anybody at home.


This incident is just a glimpse of how today’s parents are losing their bond with their children. Many parents today cannot sleep or eat properly because of their bad relationship with their son or daughter. The children are almost out of their control. So parents often seek the help of the principal and teachers to “correct” their children. This only aggravates the woes of the “generation gap” between them. 


Many parents think that their children will be kept occupied at school and be separated from their bad friends, at least, during the school hours. I doubt their belief is correct in this age of information and technology.


I find that most of the parents of plus two students are in favour of strict discipline in school. They even say they won’t object to any level of corporal punishment against their children if they can be “corrected”. But they hardly visit the school on other days except when the exam results are distributed.


Parents have lost faith in their sons and daughters who spend the school fees on other purposes and hide their poor exam results. They often complain that their children keep watching TV or movies and playing with their mobile phone or laptop most of the time and do not study properly at home. A father recently complained to me that his daughter started going to the neighbour’s house to watch television after he disconnected the cable network at his house.


Not only parents but also many teachers are concerned due to the bad performance of students and unfavourable activities in class and outside. They are worried to see them growing more and more disobedient and careless. The students keep yawning in class and always look tired making it difficult for their teachers to motivate them. Their exam results prove that they were not sincere in their studies.


A Nepali magazine recently published a report on the plus two generation getting entangled in drug addiction. Therefore, the future is sure to add more challenges to the parents and teachers who are already bearing an extra burden of “straightening out” juvenile delinquents. It’s high time parents and teachers acted together seriously to save youths from this perilous path.

Published in The Kathmandu Post on 18.04.2012

Who wants to be a teacher?

Many of my teacher colleagues complain that their students do not respect or talk to them when they see them around town. They feel humiliated and remorseful as if they have committed a sin by not becoming a role model for the students. Though I am also shocked when my students avoid me on casual occasions, I don’t think I’m guilty for that. I think it’s not actually me who can do anything about it.


I have been in the teaching profession for the last five years. Since the day I started, I have always tried to follow the Geeta philosophy, the supreme Hindu scriptures, that one should keep carrying out actions without expecting any fruit. But that is very tough and almost impossible in the modern context because you need money for everything. The reality is: If you have money, you have power. You are absolutely powerless without it. Hence, people are ready to do anything for cash.

Luckily, teaching is still regarded as one of the noblest professions in the world. But there are many other professions or jobs that pay more than teaching. It has caused a problem in society, especially for teachers and their families.


Teachers spend much time and effort and go through terrific stress every day. But what they earn is always little. So they are often found to be dissatisfied with their job. This is because society judges a person’s importance by the wealth the person earns. Teachers come near the bottom in the list of high earners in society. The rich are always welcomed though they may be morally corrupt or mischievous, while the poor are often doubted for no reason. Therefore, teachers get frustrated because they belong to the latter category.


Hardly any young person is found with the dream of becoming a teacher in the future. Maybe money plays an important role for this state of affairs. In the modern money-minded Nepali society, money matters much. It expects one to show off as much as one can. If one is unable to do so, one must be ready to be insulted in every possible way.


Students learn from society and the people around them. They see other professionals earning much more than their teachers. Therefore, they immediately make up their mind that they will be anything but a teacher in the future.


It is ironic that many teachers today never thought of becoming one previously.

They came into this profession by mistake. If given an alternative with a better salary, many are ready to change their profession without thinking twice about it. It seems that the profession has long lost its glamour. So, why should we teachers expect to be role models for our students?

                                                                        (Published in The Kathmandu Post on 28.11.2012)