Current Teacher-student relationship

(Muhammad Affan Ahmed, Multan)

 In this short 17 year period of life I have experienced a lot of differences from the period of the past. As In this era, I can see that the teacher student relationship has changed a lot. It is not the same as it was before. I can observe there is no spirit of love, sympathy, sacrifice and no respect. Now-a-days teachers are nothing more than employees in a business. Being soulless, they are not respected as they were in the past. Moreover, a change has also occurred in the behavior of the young students due to the changes that have occurred in recent centuries. It seems very hard to find out and eliminate the reasons behind this problem.

First of all, in my opinion, the increase in population has affected the psychology of people. There are few cooperators, but more competitors due to the dearth of resources and opportunities. For teachers, getting enough payment to overcome their needs is the only purpose, and for the students, the only purpose is to acquire a certificate or a degree. Everyone is selfish! Everyone wants to standardize his lifestyle and to survive in this cruel world. How shall they care about each other, care about the relationships? While they have a lot of things to be cared about themselves! Both the teachers and the students have diverged from the basic purpose; Service of the nation.

For students, teacher is like a servant, whom they pay and then use afterwards. Sometimes the students think of a teacher as their slave. It is only because of the involvement of a great amount of money in the purpose of acquiring education. When they have paid the fees, they think they own everything, every right. It is a natural psychology of every human. This is the reason why a student who was once reluctant to ask a question from his teacher, now asks even irrelevant questions just for sake of irking and teasing him. They have become courageous enough to even knock off a teacher as he is there slave after all. There is no problem in doing this. Keeping this in concern, why should they respect their teacher, or sacrifice for him? They just get what they want from him; they don’t like him to patronize, they don’t like him to judge them and they don’t like him being didactic. Morality was once best taught by the teachers, but it cannot be taught by a servant and never was! Students are morally spoiled due to the negligence of their parents in their upbringing. It is never a fault of a youth, but always that of his elders.

By the way what are the teachers doing now-a-days is also a burning issue. They do not care about how are they teaching but care only about how the students are performing. Ironically, they do not leave any stone unturned in spoiling the youth. What in the world is the purpose of using ill, abusive and corrupt language before young students? Why do they give them immoral punishments. What is that: Passing your hands from beside your legs and then holding your ears? A strange punishment of the Middle East that is as vulgar as it appears. I don’t know who introduced this. But I am sure that having your Up-side down and down-side up does not bring any reform in your personality! Neither it does in the personality of a student. Giving such punishments, teachers make the students habitual of humiliation and they no longer feel insult even if they have conducted blunders. It results in the death of the conscience of the students. It’s like “making the students to conduct another mistake as a punishment of their previous mistake”. Moreover physical punishments also arise the hatred of the students for their teachers. They may respect him in front of him but may abuse him when he turns his back. When such teachers are not respected, they start to cite the exemplary action of the sons of Khalifa who were picking up the shoes of their teacher. But they do not realize that if they do not have such students, it means they are not such kind of a teacher they had; the teacher for whom the shoes were being picked.

Good teachers do not punish their students because they don’t need to. They apply such a conduct that there words are enough persuasive that the students love to follow them. It is a weakness of a teacher if he cannot persuade the students towards something important through his mouth. Instead he does it using his hands. He cannot act as a role model for the students. If we suggest such teachers to teach politely and affectionately, they refuse to do so saying that the students of these do not deserve affections as they are stubborn, they’re handled by strictness only. Such teachers appear to be right according to present situation, but morally they are wrong. This is another extreme. They continue the violence and extraordinary punishments as a result of which the students become a puppit and they blindly follow their teachers with lack of interest and love for their work. They don’t know the purpose what are they doing and what for? They just do it to escape themselves from their teacher. Persuading is better than forcing, and affection is better than violence. This reality is certified by the teacher of the teachers, The Holy Prophet Muhammad (s), who changed the “wild” personalities into the “civilized” ones using his love and affections only. But these teachers cannot control the kids, it is a shame!

The reason why I have written a little about students and a lot about teachers is that the latter is the cause and the former is its effect. Iron can be reshaped as long as it is hot. The blacksmiths of the present may reshape it but don’t know the right way to do so. By reshaping, I think the teachers only mean to make the students pass their hands from beside their legs and holding their ears, turning their up-sides down and down-sides up, thus changing them into another creature. But it is hitting the iron in the wrong way! Such iron piece, when used in a building, may make it fall! We need good blacksmiths to resolve this problem.
I wish that I may see all these changes turning into positive changes one day (aameen)

M. Irfan
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