WHEN THE CLASS SAID "NO'

Teaching is an occupation that is full of learning: for the

teacher. This is made especially so when the school
encourages lateral flexibility and calls upon teachers to
teach different "subjects". The humanities, it is
believed, can be taught at least up to standard X by all
humanities graduates. So too with science and maths.
Every teacher can and should be able to teach at least
three "subjects" given enough notice and time for
preparation which in schools (and colleges) is the long
summer vacation. Many envy us teachers for this - i.e.
the vacation! That is how teachers spend their vacation.
The geography teachers at Vidyaranya were to be away at the
same time. So when I offered to teach Geography as well as
English in standard VIII, everyone was satisfied. The
wonderful thing about middle school is that children are
old enough to be critical and not cowed down yet by the
ultimate authority - examinations. Given the space, they
will challenge the textbook; given the respect, they will
not abuse their freedom to question their teacher, and
given the bad textbooks we suffer, and the paucity of
teachers, it is only the dialectical process of teaching-
learning-teaching that can make education really fruitful.
We were still in the first month of the first term of the
year. All faces were bright and eager, even though the
monsoon had not come to Hyderabad yet. I was teaching
parallel topics in the two sections. When section one
accepted that when you travel East you gain time and add
hours at the rate of one per 15 lines of meridian and
subtract or lose time when you go West, I was reassured
that my preparation had been adequate.
It was section two that altered the very moorings and
philosophical orientations of my life.
The children cheerfully accepted that you have to add if
you travel East, and subtract when you travel West, but
Rohit was sure that you lose a day if you travel East, and
gain a day if you travel West. Noel seconded this
forcefully. "I celebrate two birthdays when I go to
America," he said, and showed me that the textbook does
show that December 25 is repeated if you go West, and I
knew he was right. I hoped that the children had not
noticed how relieved I was when the bell rang, bringing an
end to my confusion.
That is another thing about teaching. The bell rings ever
so often, bringing all things, good and bad, to an end.
I consulted my books that night and made out new index
cards, checked old ones and went to bed with a prayer. The
next day I went to class full of conviction.
"When you add, you gain".
"Yes," chorused the class.
"When you lose, you subtract," I continued, and they
agreed. "So, when you go East, you add. So you gain time,
adding four minutes for every longitude. You subtract when
you go West, thereby losing time."
"Q.E.D." I thought to myself.
But no. The class was passive and Rohit said, "we add
hours when we go East but lose time."
This did not seem to be going too well and the bell was a
long way to go yet. We read the textbook which the
students said must be wrong, as it had been so often
before. We stood around, perplexed. I sent for the globe
to gain time.
Then suddenly Zoeb said, "Teacher, you gain hours and lose
days and gain days and lose hours, isn't it, teacher ?
Suddenly I knew they were right, as I was.
"It is like travelling into the future," I said, making a
distinction that had just dawned on us. "When you go into
the past, you gain and repeat days, but lose time.
Travelling into the future, you skip or lose days, but gain
time."
The principle was the same, I realised and now share. Both
historical and geographical time move in the same
direction. If the East is ahead of the West, may that
always remain so.