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Linking Young Minds Together
  Volume 6 | Issue 17 | April 29, 2012 |


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Opinion

In Defense of the Student Body

Saad Adnan Khan

Lately, there seems to be an urgent need for the inclusion of a “sensitivity assessment” box on the teacher's evaluation sheet. After all, being sensitive and understanding are two qualities that we expect our teachers to have. Anyone can deliver lectures and distribute notes, but a lesson can only leave an effective and positive impact when the lesson is conveyed with the right attitude.

Teachers should make students feel comfortable in classrooms, by not discouraging ideas that students come up with and treating students with equal respect that the teacher would give to any other academic. Often, the opposite happens, and what is worse is that teachers keep drawing parallels between students here with those studying abroad (mainly in the USA, Canada and in European countries), choosing to be blissfully oblivious to the contextual, social, political and cultural differences that exist between countries. They state, “If students who study abroad can study so much, why can't you?” diminishing our spirits and making us feel inferior. Just to be clear, this article is not about condoning lazy students, but it is an attempt to expound on the aforementioned 'rhetorical' question of teachers and how problematic it actually is.

 
 
There are many economic reasons for which students here cannot study like students abroad.

It is a known fact that students who study in the 'first world' get many privileges that students in Bangladesh are deprived of. There are many economic reasons, for which students here cannot study the way students do abroad. For one thing, students in the first world do not have to suffer from crises like power outage, water shortage and gas shortage. It will be downright ignorant to say that these crises do not have psychological (and physical) effects on students. More importantly, students in the first world do not have to sit in traffics for hours. After a whole day of back to back classes, students come home (some have to detour from work and/or voluntary and community activities, not to mention suffer from transport issues as well) after all their energy is spent and wasted behind traffic congestions of Dhaka city. Dorms abroad (which are very nice by the way, with top-notch facilities) are 10-15 minutes away from classes. In case of students who do not live in dorms here, they have to be stuck in traffic for hours before reaching home and contemplating to read an essay and get some personal research work done (that is if they have the energy to do so). Clearly, students who study abroad have privileges that students here do not. Of course everything goes back to bad governance, and in this case, it is specifically a concern of bad governance that exists inside universities and classrooms.

More importantly, teachers here do not respond to students in an ideal manner. Often, teachers completely dismiss students, and make faces to express contempt and impatience if they do not agree with what the students have to say. Teachers who teach abroad always treat students with utmost respect. They will talk to a student like an equal. They will poke the student to go deeper and brainstorm more with an idea. When there is a rudimentary flaw in the philosophy and attitude of teachers here, how can then they expect students to excel and feel enthusiastic about learning? Moreover, students who study here also have to deal with unkind administration. Administrative officials here are rude and the least cooperative people. As we stand in lines (missing out lectures, because missing out on paying fees at the right time costs a fine) to take slips to pay our fees, the administrations bully students by appearing cranky, too annoyed to answer questions and giving students wrong directions, which is strange given that they work in air-conditioned offices all day long and then comfortably reach home by using university transport. Administrative officials abroad are understanding and patient, and work with students to make their lives easy, because unlike administration here, they do not leave it up to the students to deal with administrative complexities, fussy rules and bureaucracy. They are aware that students should not have to worry about administrative formalities.

Students here learn and thrive in hostile environments, unlike students studying abroad, who quite frankly live in a bubble. Students here study when there are power outages and read countless pages even when their bodies are sore from standing inside public buses for hours. Students abroad have friendly, understanding teachers who do not bark, cooperative administration, dorms with proper facilities and rich libraries where students can marvel and think. It will be easy to say “What do we have?”, but we will think again before saying something so insensitive, and we expect our teachers to do the same.


DID YOU KNOW?

Jerry Seinfeld

 

Television personality and Stand Up Comedian, Jerry Seinfeld was born on 29 April, 1954 in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Kalman Seinfeld, was of Hungarian Jewish background and was a sign maker; his mother, Betty, is of Syrian Jewish descent. Her family identified their nationality as Turkish when they immigrated to the United States in 1917. Seinfeld grew up in Massapequa, New York. In September 1959, his mother enrolled him at Birch Lane Elementary School, Massapequa High School. At the age of 16, he spent a short period of time volunteering in Kibbutz Sa'ar in Israel. He went to SUNY Oswego, and after his sophomore year he transferred to Queens College, City University of New York, graduating with a degree in communications and theater. Seinfeld developed an interest in stand-up comedy after brief stints in college productions. In 1976 after graduation from Queens College, he tried out at an open-mic night at New York City's Catch a Rising Star, which led to an appearance in a Rodney Dangerfield HBO special. In 1979 he had a small recurring role on the Benson sitcom as "Frankie", a mail delivery boy who had comedy routines that no one wanted to hear, but he was abruptly fired from the show due to creative differences. Seinfeld has said that he was not actually told he had been fired until he turned up for the read-through session for an episode, and found that there was no script for him. In May 1981 Seinfeld made a highly successful appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, impressing Carson and the audience and leading to regular appearances on that show and others, including Late Night with David Letterman.


Information Source: Internet



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