I was spurred to write this article after reading the news item, “Strength of class also counts” ( The Hindu , June 9, Chennai edition), wherein it was stated that the attention that a student gets to a large extent depends on the student-teacher ratio, which in any ideal elementary class should be 25-30 : 1. Being a teacher (though retired now), I can understand the importance of this issue. Till last year, I was working in an aided higher secondary school with a good reputation. But I had to opt for voluntary retirement owing to a variety of reasons, among them being the workload of handling unwieldy classes. The school produces excellent results in the board exams and so the demand is always high. The management has to yield to the tears and pressures of parents. The result is an overflowing population in each classroom and we teachers are helpless witnesses to the phenomenon.
My point is that an overcrowded class drains the physical and even mental strength of the teacher and this is what happened in my career spanning 25 years. Since I was handling classes X and XII, the pressure was constant to produce cent per cent results. A language teacher has to correct double the number of answer papers, of Language Paper I & II. I had special classes on most Saturdays and, on many occasions, I could not manage time for personal work. I was travelling almost two hours daily to reach my school. So it would be very late when I returned home after completing the special class and I had to concentrate on class work late into the night. All these told on my health. My voice got abused by the necessity to teach loudly to reach out to all students. My forefinger thickened by continuous correction work. In fact, my correction work consumed all my Dasara and Christmas vacations and at the end of every vacation, I returned to school with irritation in the eyes and pain in the neck and back. Time for social commitments and entertainment were next to non-existent.
Inspirational teacher leaders like Dr. Radhakrishnan could not help me either when I had to face a class of 80 to 90 students. Eye contact with every student was not possible as by the time my eyes contacted half of the class one period would be over! Practically, it became impossible to look at everyone. That my myopic vision couldn't register faces from the last rows was another matter!
I am not boasting, I have been all through a teacher with commitment. I availed myself of only 10 days of medical leave due to a surgical operation in all my service. I had never exhausted my CL or EL. I say all this only to stress how demanding a teacher's job is, especially when the strength of the class is unreasonably large. You are exhausted and you call it quits.
