Anna and I received the above gift this week, from a friend whom we got to know recently. It touched us and reminded us of our vocation! It came at a time when Anna relinquished her role in the MOSC Medical College recently where, she worked for eight years after her time at CMC Vellore and PIMS Pondicherry.
When we heard that this piece of exquisite art work was handcrafted by a student in a college, who does this as a hobby, it made this gift even more special. We were moved when we fond out that this friend thought of us to find this gift for us.
Anna and I looked back over our thirty five years of life in Medical Colleges and pondered over the statement in this art work. We remembered our teachers who fulfilled this mission as teachers.
I remember Prof C.U.Velmurugendran, under whom I had a privilege of doing my doctoral studies, who showed me the way but left me to make my assumptions. Anna and I feel grateful to Prof Frank Garlick of CMC Vellore, who was a pointer to the vocation in the practice of medicine but left us to discover our calling!
Dr Susan George, a multifaceted paediatrician, began her academic work in bio-medical engineering with a well earned PhD and went on to train herself in child Neurology, engaging herself in childhood rehabilitation work in Nepal, while living in Britain. Now married and getting ready to migrate to the USA is a gifted a person, who reminds me of a person, who finds teachers to mentor her and yet moves on to fulfil her inner aspirations.
Teacher-student relationships are nor definable. What can be defined is teaching-learning takes place only when this relationship is qualified by freedom with no boundaries for exploration of the fund of knowledge. Let not a teacher engage students to conform them to his her orientation to life, but invest in them to lead them on a path of their inclinations in academic and service roles.
It is the community of students who contribute to make someone a teacher. In that sense students are formative in mission in the life of a teacher. It is not the teaching that is at the heart of this relationship, but sharing life experiences through which students and teachers become co-learners. It is this which dissolves the boundary between a teacher and student.
A gift I received as a teacher which touched me as much as this gift of this art work this week was, when a group of students came to our home one evening in 1999, while living at CMC Vellore and told Anna and me that they would like to come to 'chat' with us on Fridays. And a group came almost every week which became the Friday Forum conversation times. The students presented themselves to us as those who valued our friendship and conversations.
We resumed this on Friday evening conversation time a few months back when few log in from different places in India to explore the theme of Life, Living and Learning.
Show where to look and leave the rest for the learners to see! What a mission! It is inspirational and directional!
Anna and I feel grateful to our friend who thought of blessing us with this gift of a profound mission statement for a teacher.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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