The next time you choose to take a break and relax, consider heading to the African Wild life Parks.  

It will be a nature therapy experience like none other and an outdoor activity with few parallels.  

You will never be the same again.

There was a time when chalk and board defined instruction and teaching. You literally had to get your hands (read: fingers) dirty messing with chalk and duster in the process of teaching. The venerable blackboard was your instructional canvas. You wrote lesson material on it, you often then erased it, you communicated to students with messages on it, you drew diagrams on it, you reeled off equations on it, and so on and so forth. You were obsessed with it. You even had separation anxiety at the end of the day when you left the blackboard and the classroom to head home.  

Not just you. Your students too revelled in peering at the barely discernible writing embellished with your hieroglyphical handwriting - (doctors get the Oscars for that - their scrawl is indecipherable!) that was the essence of learning and it took an effort. This was the era gone by. I dare say it is not so gone by, a great majority still swear by that.

You see, you as a teacher were holding court, this is your kingdom. You called the shots. You were the Boss. It is a heady feeling and no wonder you did not want this state of affairs to end. However, in all this, a critical consequence was inexorably being lost sight of. The goal clearly was student learning. Everything else should have paled into insignificance. Moreover, the chalk, duster and board were tools in helping students learn. But the instructor was taking precedence over instruction. This was a tragedy. Some of my personal experiences in both school and college had given me the impression that learning took a back seat to the personality who was teaching. The teacher was bigger than what what was being taught. You may find parallels to that observation for yourself.

Another grand legacy of the past was the monotonous, soporific, unilateral drone lecture. This sounded like a hundred high grade pumps had been switched on simultaneously for not only is the drone cacophonous, it also makes listening and assimilating impossible. So, there are two parts to this torture. Firstly, it is loud and noisy - teachers, particularly in the days gone by did not have the luxury of powerful lapel microphones and tended to shout a lot during the lesson to get heard and secondly it was one way. The students had no part in this supposedly "learning session." They were at the receiving end and just endured it. And there was no question of a student interrupting the teacher for a clarification. Hell hath no greater fury than a teacher questioned!

One of the major benefits of pedagogy particularly modern teaching is interactivity. The student participates in the learning process. But this is a preposterous suggestion (at least to a great many pompous teachers), how can the student ask any questions? After all you as a teacher are the one dispensing knowledge.

Long ago (that should give you an indication of how young I am) when I was still in school, my father taught me an unforgettable lesson (pun intended) never to become arrogant about knowledge, which he said was the abode of Goddess Saraswati (Goddess of Learning and revered greatly in the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses). In fact he said knowledge should make you more humble so as to allow you to share it with others.

Little eye contact 

On the other hand, of course you also had the inspired, passionate teacher who was a delight. I can vividly remember that our History teacher in school was one of those. History is a class dominated by the topic of past civilizations, communities, way of living, chronology and personalities and if not handled well will put you to sleep if not sending you into downright slumber.  

But this man was a dynamo. His storytelling was so captivating that most of the time we listened in rapt attention and never felt the passage of time. Before we knew the class would come to an end. He regaled us with his anecdotes about the historical personality he was talking about, reeled off dates and facts without a pause and we loved it. He was an exception though amongst the teachers we had. History class was something we eagerly looked forward to which could not be said for many of the other classes.

In fact, the influence of this man and his teaching style was so lasting that even to this day when I teach or make a presentation (both of which I have adopted as my profession now), I use some of his techniques in engaging my audience. As they say, the influence of a school teacher on a student is even more than the parents of the students. Teachers mold minds and possibly other than the profession of nursing there cannot be a more noble one. It has something to do with what my late father referred to as sharing knowledge and making the world a better place to live in.

Think back to your school days. Did any of the above resonate with you? Did you have any similar experiences with your teachers?