As a teacher for over 45 years at Jesuit schools and colleges, and more than one University in India and Europe, I am tempted to jot down a few reflections from my personal experience. I consider myself lucky to have met teachers / educations who helped me at various stages of my formation to be a compulsive seeker, not so much of new contents, but new ways of facing life.
The concept of education derives from the Latin combination of , meaning drawing someone out of a prior set of little developed world vision. Obviously, the parents and the close family are our first educators, but their life pressures of supporting the family does not permit them to act much beyond home or close neighbourhood.
In the traditional families where the grandparents and some older relatives were not left behind, or as occasional visitors, there was the advantage of sharing with them the burden of educating the youngsters when the parents were away on their professional occupations for supporting the family. The situation has grown grimmer with mothers having to join their husbands in work outdoors to meet the family budget.
Even if old grandparents did not always have formal schooling, their life experience gave them the status of or meaning a “great guiding star”, prized in the Indian cultural tradition. Unfortunately now the designation has acquired a negative connotation, and they are made to feel like a drag from every possible perspective. Shifting them to the homes for the aged is our present “civilizational” solution in Goa, particularly, if not exclusively in the Catholic community.
I was entrusted to the care of a retired neighbour to do my pre-schooling, the so-called three Rs (reading, writing and reckoning). For Caridade Maciel (Caru Mashel) it was a kind of constructive way of spending his time. He charged no fees, but the parents were required to abide by his methods. He believed in the proverbial saying “spare the rod and spoil the child”. On my first day he showed me his collection of rods. He meant to use them if I did not apply myself seriously to learning. The very next morning I spent hiding in the luscious growth of a creeper of buttercups surrounding his home gate.
It attracted colourful butterflies to the yellow buttercups, but I hid in the bush by sheer fright of the old man’s rods. I went home in time for lunch, but my mum had already been informed that I had not been for my first class. Instead of lunch I was taken to the old man to seek his pardon. The results at the end of the year were fabulous. I was admitted to the first year of Portuguese primary, bypassing “inicial” or the introductory year. At admission test I got excellent in writing, reading and simple mathematical tables. More importantly I had learnt that education was a serious business.
During the four years of Portuguese primary I was in charge of Professora Belmira da Cruz. She used a ruler that for me replaced Caru Mashel’s rods. During the two final years which were evaluated at district level examinations in Mapusa, I and my colleagues were coached by Professora Belmira outside class hours at her home in my village of Moirá. We all fared well due to her extra diligence. But what left a mark on me was her insistence on punctuality in reaching the class and doing regularly my home work.
After Prof. Belmira died almost a centenarian. I was invited to celebrate the month’s mind. As a Jesuit priest then, I would drop in at her home occasionally during her illness. She asked me once if God existed () She was a benefactress of Pilar Fathers, and at one stage wanted me to join them. But the Fathers were split into two factions, and that nearly shook her faith. During my preaching at the month’s mind I compared my teacher to Jesus, who ended his life with an existential doubt, crying out from the Cross: “God, why have you abandoned me?” Belmira lived till the end the anxiety and agony of a teacher’s compulsive search.
When I joined the Jesuits at Belgaum in 1967, a German Jesuit took charge of me and other colleagues. His training methods were probably softened by his experience of the Nazi persecution back home before opting for missionary work in India. He disapproved when we broke any rules, but was kind if we had a good reason for acting as we did. It is a lesson I carry in my life.
I met yet another guru at Pune University. Prof A.R. Kulkarni, a pioneer in many respects, wished to make his students pioneers and innovators. He detested mediocrity. He had a great share in my success at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research through professional connections at various levels in India and abroad. Before he died, his students dedicated a felicitation volume to him. My homage took the shape of the chapter “The make-up of a guru”, which can be read at http://bit.ly/25y6Pun. A teacher is remembered and cherished for how he / she shaped us, not by information transmitted.
