Dr. Ranjit Basu’s Quote about Teaching

“Teaching is not like the other five corporate professions. It is more of a performing art.... You have to teach by speaking and writing.... This profession demands not body language, but mind language. The language of the mind”

— Dr. Ranjit Basu

Read this Quote in Bengali

Source and Context of this Quote :

Dr. Ranjit Basu, former chairman of the West Bengal School Service Commission. Talking about what an ideal teacher should be like, he said these things in his article titled ‘Body Language, Teaching is a Performing Art like Acting’.

The article was published in the January 2007 issue of Aajkal Publications’ monthly magazine ‘Sopan’. Pages 10-11.

Here he says, “Teaching is not like the other five corporate professions. It is rather a performing art. You have to teach by speaking, writing and speaking. This profession demands not body language, but mind language. Language of the mind.”

But how? To clarify the matter, he brings up some of his personal experiences. He writes, “A friend of mine was scolding his son at home about some subject of his studies. His son replied, Do you know more than my sir? Sir told me to study like this....” Then he says, “The place of a teacher for students is like this. Like their parents. Sometimes even higher. So, in the body language of teachers, boys and girls should find the shadow of their parents. They should find shelter. What is needed for this is communication skills. Communication does not mean just being smart in speech. In every way. At the beginning, becoming one with the student.... The image that you want to have for your children as a mother or father, that image should also be maintained for the students. In fact, the body language of teachers is not only in the body language, but also in the language of the mind (mind language). If you do not teach with attention and love, the students will not be attracted to the subject. For this, first of all, you need to explain it to the students in the language of the students, be like the students, be like a friend.”

He took the help of an example to illustrate the point.

He writes, “Let’s say you studied at Lady Brabourne. You get a job as a teacher in a school in Gosaba, South 24 Parganas. Your students eat muri in their tiffins, and speak Bengali in their regional accent. What will you do? Should you call them ‘dokno’? Should you explain in words that they live in a village and are very backward? Or suppose you get a job in a school where all the students are first-generation students.... You have to struggle to explain a simple math. If you say it one day with annoyance, nothing will happen to you.... The moment you say this, you are a big zero as a teacher.”

In this article, he says, “How do you know, what do you know, who do you know — these conditions should always be clear. If necessary, you have to tell stories in math class! But it should be relevant. I mean, you should also have a good idea about the outside world, is just reading books enough? Just as the game inside 22 yards is important in cricket, the game outside 22 yards is no less important. I think that teaching is also a performing art, like acting. You should teach by looking at the faces of the students, not at the door or the wall. In the 8 to 10 minute personality test that is taken by the School Service Commission, instead of a good teacher, we are looking for an effective or efficient teacher. The qualities of an effective teacher are, going to class every day after reading the book, staying up-to-date about your subject, being able to speak clearly, and becoming a friend and gaining the trust of the students.”

After passing the School Service Commission’s written test, a 10-mark personality test was taken. What special qualities or abilities are tested in a prospective teacher through this test?

In his words, “It is true, in just 10 minutes in a personality test, we can know how much a prospective teacher is. But we think that no one is born a teacher. A teacher actually has to become one. There is a saying in English, ‘Teachers are the best learners’, which Ramakrishnadev said more simply: ‘As long as you live, you learn’. From whom should you learn? From my students.

Teaching to learn — this should be the language of an ideal teacher. You can imagine, body language.

--------xx-------