1. Tell us more about your experience as an educator.
My experience as an academician has been wonderful. I decided to join academics after my post graduation, MDS in Orthodontics, in the year 2016. I always had the desire of teaching students but at the same time I wanted to do it in a different way.
At that time I had a certain image in my mind about academicians as well as students. I used to think that a faculty’s job is as simple as a cakewalk, as there is nothing much to do . I had the perception that a faculty takes one or two lectures in a week and clears students doubts, if not then they just scold students and hold them responsible for their miseries.
About students I had the image (as opined by many) that most students don’t want to study, they don’t want to be taught either. They go to college for the sake of attendance . They spend the college timings making friends and enjoying with their friend circle. They just want to get a degree.
But when I became a faculty I came to know about the other side of the coin. I was fortunate enough to have interactions with many senior faculties, my fellows and many students as well. I came to know that the faculties were excellent academicians with a positive intent towards really teaching students and at the same time
I also came to know that most students actually wanted to study and learn their subjects. But there was an obvious gap between the two positive intents of teaching and learning. I believe in interactions, communications, exchange of ideas and a mutual respect for each other (faculty and students). This works wonders and the job becomes a joy ride.
I have experienced this joy ride and relishing each and every moment of it in my journey of being an academician.
2. What is your opinion of the Indian education system and how would you like to change that.
Indian education system has two essential components – the curriculum and the “GURU – SHISHYA parampara”. I would not like to change any. They are the body and the soul of Indian education system.
But I definitely want to bring about changes in the teaching methodologies in professional courses as I am a dental professional. Instead of class room teaching I would like to emphasize on core-group teaching. By core-group teaching I mean to say that instead of delivering lectures in classroom, there should be a core group headed by a faculty in-charge and a batch of 15-20 students. There should be interaction among all instead of faculty delivering lecture on a topic.
Also, I would like to highlight that if we intend to grow, we should learn to respect and value “ideas” at par to respecting “hierarchy”.
3. What changes in the teaching methodologies have you seen in the recent times
In recent times, particularly in this COVID era, I am sure, all of us have seen a lot of changes in the teaching methodologies. Teaching and learning has become more of gadget oriented and technology dependent. There are always two sides of a story and same applies to the recent trends in teaching methodologies.
Online teaching, conducting webinars, online workshops etc are the latest that we are into. The positive aspect of all this is that , knowledge sharing can reach to many audience at the same time. Learning through these technology based modalities is not restricted to limited learners rather it has crossed boundaries.
That’s a big advantage as too many ideas can be shared on a common platform. But limitations of these modalities is that it lacks the essence of imparting knowledge. Virtual modes can never replace what’s real. The educator feels satisfied only when the knowledge shared by the educator is well received by the recipient. This can be known only when the educator observes the pupil. The body language of students speaks more than their verbal acknowledgement of knowledge gain. Thus a sense of incompleteness, a sense of dissatisfaction is always there among educators in the recent times online teaching.
How many times we hear the educator taking online lecture saying "Am I audible?", "Are you all there ?", "Please respond", and many more. A feed for thought!
4. How does education help one to do well in their career.
In my opinion one’s career STARTS after one fulfills the eligibility criteria for the job and it grows if one has dedication, discipline, honesty and ethics in character.
As stated by Swami Vivekanand ji, "What is education? Is it book learning?, NO. Is it diverse knowledge?, NOT even that. The training by which the current and expression of WILL are brought under CONTROL and become fruitful is called EDUCATION". Therefore a well educated person will always scale high in career provided he/she has taken education in its real sense.
5. Do you think teaching as a profession is viewed at par with corporate jobs.
Every sector has its own pros and cons. Same applies to teaching profession and corporate jobs. I personally have no complaints about my profession, but the perception of general public, the perception of people around me definitely hurts at times. This reflects the fact that in our society, teaching profession is definitely not viewed at par with corporate jobs.
However, we need to accept the fact that we can’t change anyone’s perceptions. It's always better to abide by own preferences than to bother about other's perceptions.
6. How can we adopt technology to make teaching more effective.
Technology always helps us to do things more accurately and efficiently. Adopting new technologies in the field of teaching also helps in similar way.
What I believe is that technology should also make things simpler and the technicalities of new technologies should also be simple and easily understandable.
7. Why does India need more educators like you.
I don’t know, if India needs more educators like me or not. But we definitely need educators with new ideas, who are passionate for the profession and who have vision for new India. I wish, I serve my nation by being an educator par excellence. Jai Hind!
- Dr. Kumar Amit
Assistant Professor, Department of Orthodontics, Subharti Dental College, Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, Meerut
- Interview by - Sanjana Jain
.jpeg)
0 Comments