Why I stopped celebrating Teacher's Day? And should you too?

It's that time of year again in India (September 5th) when you see a flood of happy teacher's day messages on social media. These messages are all genuine and come from a place of deep respect and gratitude that people have for their teachers. However, it's been quite a while since I stopped celebrating teacher's day, despite myself being in the teaching profession. 

I have been teaching full-time at a university in the USA for over a decade now. And I absolutely love my job as a teacher. I also think that teachers deserve all the respect and appreciation that they receive on the different days designated to celebrate teacher's day around the world. Then, why do I seem to be against the celebration of the Indian teacher's day?

Well, before I answer that question, let me dial back the clock to one of my most memorable teacher's day celebrations. That was the year when I was a high school senior. It was a tradition at my school (Kendriya Vidyalaya) that on this day the high school seniors gave the teachers a break from teaching by taking up the responsibility of teaching all the lower classes. The teachers observed us while we were teaching and gave us feedback on how we did. I don't remember what I taught that day but I must have done a fairly good job because Ms. Binodini Mishra, one of my favorite teachers at school, who incidentally observed my teaching that day, was full of praise for me afterward. Not sure if I deserved all the praise but I was elated nonetheless. Who knows, but those positive feelings might have also influenced my decision to become a teacher later in life.

In any case, coming back to the question of why I have stopped celebrating teacher's day, let me share three main reasons.

Teacher's day in India is celebrated in memory of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan who was the 2nd President of India. Interestingly, this tradition did not start after his death in 1975, but in 1962, the year he was elected to the office of the President of India. What kind of self-aggrandizer selects his own birthday as a national holiday to be celebrated in his honor while he is still alive?

Maybe Dr. Radhakrishnan didn't have a role in it and the Prime Minister's office decided it as a way to honor him. Choosing Dr. Radhakrishnan's birthday was in many ways appropriate. After all, he had held professorial positions at various universities in India and abroad, and was known to be a good teacher. He had also written several books on philosophy and religion. So, it must have made sense to celebrate teacher's day in India on his birthday. However, even this argument does not hold water, because in India we already had a day to celebrate teachers, which was Guru Poornima.

India has had a long tradition of honoring teachers. It is probably the only culture where teachers have been equated to the status of God. A teacher isn't literally God, but s/he is considered God-like (गुरु शाक्षात परब्रम्हा) in the Hindu tradition because of the critical role that teachers play in removing our ignorance as well as in helping realize our best self.

For thousands of years before 1962, we honored our teachers on the day of Guru Poornima. In the Yogic tradition, Guru Poornima is the day Lord Shiva became Adi Guru (or the first guru for mankind) by teaching the Sapta Rishis (the seven sages) who formed the foundation of Sanatana Dharma. Guru Poornima is also the birthday of Veda Vyasa, who not only authored the Mahabharata but was one of the rishis who made the Vedas and Puranas accessible to mankind. Even the Buddhists celebrated this day because Gautam Buddha gave his first sermon on this day. The vibrations of the Guru Tatwa  (or the energy of the guru principle) is said to be at its peak on this day, which makes it ideal for us to connect with a guru and receive his or her grace. 

What was the need to create another teacher's day when we already had a long and venerable tradition of honoring our teachers on Guru Poornima? It was most likely another one of those attempts by Nehru to remove everything Hindu from India and replace it with "secular" symbols and traditions.

Celebrating Radhakrishnan's birthday as Teacher's Day is also problematic because he was accused of plagiarism. The worst part is that he stole from his student's thesis. Radhakrishnan was one of the examiners of the doctoral thesis written by a brilliant Calcutta University student named Jadunath Sinha. In a letter published in the January 1929 issue of The Modern Review, Sinha alleged that Radhakrishnan had plagiarised his work. He provided forty examples to back up his claim and cited another seventy instances of plagiarism in the next issue. The dispute escalated to court. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan had a lot of influence, and Jadunath Sinha was under a lot of pressure to settle the plagiarism case outside of court. In the end, Sinha succumbed and settled out of court through a decree of compromise, although the terms of settled were never disclosed.

I haven't personally compared the works of Radhakrishnan and Sinha, so I can't say for certain whether or not Radhakrishnan committed plagiarism. However, the fact that he was accused of plagiarism by a student who published 110 concrete instances of plagiarism in a leading journal of the times lends some credence to the allegation. It raises serious questions about Radhakrishnan's character. Should we continue celebrating his birthday as Teacher's Day, knowing that he may have stolen from his own student?

To sum up, I believe that we should go back to celebrating Guru Poornima as Teacher's Day. It is a day that has been steeped in tradition for thousands of years, and it is a day that honors all teachers, not just one individual. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

The Paradox of Quality

I was talking to a colleague (and friend) today who would be retiring soon. I asked, "What plans do you have for your life post-retirement?" She replied, "There are so many things that I want to do... However, I haven't finalized what exactly I will do." The things that she listed were all, in one form or other, related to trying to make a meaningful difference to the world. My friend is already an accomplished academic, leader, sportsman, and contributor to the local community. So, I have no doubts that she will carry forward her excellence into whatever she takes up in her post-retirement life.

The conversation led me to reflect for some time today on how we all wish to make a difference in this world. This is a fundamental need that we all have. The nature and scope of the impact that we wish to make may vary from person to person. Some people may be highly ambitious while others may have modest goals, but the wish to make a difference in our unique way is pretty universal.

Now, how do you know that your work is making a significant difference? There are many ways to figure this out, but the most straightforward way is to evaluate the objective and subjective feedback that we receive for our work. Thus, a writer may wish that his book sells millions of copies (objective) and that his readers also rate his book highly (subjective). Similarly, a musician may wish that her music video gets millions of views and that her music is appreciated by the majority of the viewers (Because it is certainly possible to be a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons). The point is that irrespective of what we do, we all want to be successful on both objective and subjective terms. But then the big question is, "How can we make the kind of impact that we wish to make?"

Again, there can be many answers to that question. People follow different strategies based on what they believe. For example, some people may place heavy emphasis on producing high-quality output while others may focus more on marketing, and so on. Let me focus on quality in this post, because marketing (although important) will be mostly useless if the quality of output is shoddy. Thus, according to me, high-quality output matters much more than marketing, albeit quality doesn't automatically guarantee success. Stated otherwise, quality-output is a necessary if not sufficient condition for success. In simple words, if you can produce high-quality output, then it is more likely that your work will be valued by others. The obvious question then is, how to produce high-quality output?

The quality of our output is dependent on many factors. Certainly, our talent has a role to play. However, the world is filled with people who had talent but didn't amount to anything. That's because talent is just potential. Howsoever talented we may be, we will not produce high-quality work if we do not put the necessary effort to hone and sharpen our skills.

People who are committed to bettering their skills usually employ one of the two strategies: quality or quantity. By 'quality strategy', I mean that people tend to focus on creating high-quality output from the very beginning. They spend a lot of time in the preparation of activities so that the output that will produce will be of superior quality. For example, a writer may invest a tremendous amount of time researching his topic, edit his sentences thoroughly so that no mistakes are present. In the 'quantity strategy,' people are eager to produce instead of being preoccupied with the quality of output. Going back to the writer-example, a quantity-focused writer would just write a lot without worrying too much about the quality of what he writes.

So which strategy wins? Well, the answer is not straightforward. Both strategies surely have their merits, and one should not be pursued to the exclusion of the other. However, what needs to be remembered is that ultimately skills are perfected by doing, and not just by preparing. In other words, a quantity-focused approach may often be a wiser strategy than a quality-focused strategy. Let me explain what I'm saying through an example.

Jerry Uelsmann's Surreal Photography

Jerry Uelsmann is an award-winning photographer who graduated from my alma mater, Indiana University. He pioneered the art of creating surreal images in the darkroom, way before the advent of Adobe Photoshop. While teaching photography to his students at the University of Florida, he once conducted an experiment. He divided his class into two groups. One group (the Quality Group) was asked to submit their single best piece of work for their course grade. The second group (the Quantity Group) was asked to submit the maximum number of photographs they could for their grade. This group was told clearly that the quality of their photographs would not be evaluated. It didn't matter if their photographs were great, good, bad, or even horrible; they would be graded solely on the basis of the number of photographs they submitted.

Which group do you think created the high-quality output that is so essential to success? Professor Uelsmann was guessing it would be the Quality Group. On evaluating all the submitted photographs himself and also by independent raters, however, he concluded that the Quantity Group created the best images. There can be many explanations for the superior quality produced by the Quantity Group. Maybe they were less stressed about their output, or maybe this low stress allowed them to experiment more with their images, or maybe the quantity focus simply gave them more practice which ultimately enhanced their photography skill. Most probably, it was a combination of all these factors and more. Whatever the reasons,  it turns out that often the best path to achieve quality is through quantity. Let's call this the paradox of quality. This should be a lesson for all those perfectionists who get so hung up on creating their perfect product that they never create anything. Unfortunately, the world is full of such perfectionists. Even I am one of them.

Remembering Dr. Reeta Peshawaria: Secrets of Personal Influence

With Dr. Reeta Peshawaria, Dr. D.K. Menon and my undergrad classmates

Yesterday was the birth anniversary of Late Dr. Reeta Peshawaria, the most influential teacher I have had so far in my life. And I have had the rare fortune of being taught by many extraordinary teachers. Some of these teachers are not only respected within their immediate student community but are also counted among the most influential researchers in the world. I learnt a lot from all these teachers. Whatever skills and goodness I have in me today, a large part of it was shaped by these exceptional teachers with the largest contribution made by Reeta Ma'am (as she was called fondly by her students). Today's post is my humble homage to this great teacher.

Frankly, I was a little hesitant to write this homage, because I felt inadequate to explain the greatness of this great person. Also, to highlight just three of her qualities--which I intend to do here--seemed like an injustice to the multifarious personality that she was. Yet, I decided to engage in this process because identifying the important qualities of success in others is a significant step in the direction of building the same qualities within oneself. According to me, the three qualities that made Reeta Ma'am such a great teacher and leader are her passion, humility and care.

Passion

Everything that Reeta Ma'am did, she did it with passion, be it teaching, conducting research, seeing people with disabilities (PWD) in the clinic, or counseling family members of PWDs. And the evidence that she was passionate about her work was the immense amount of positive energy she brought to work.

Probably there isn't a single adult in this world who hasn't heard about the importance of being passionate. So much so that it's almost clichéd to talk about it. Yet, in my experience, high levels of passion for one's work/profession is pretty rare. Most people--even hard working people--go about doing their jobs without much enthusiasm. For these people, their job is just a means of earning their livelihood, but there is no life in their jobs.

"If you don't have the equivalent of a child's excitement for play or a young adult's excitement for sex, then your passion has a lot of room to improve."

You may think that you are not such a passionless person, and you might be right. However, if you don't have the equivalent of a child's excitement for play or a young adult's excitement for sex, then your passion has a lot of room to improve. Nothing worthwhile in this world is created without passion (including bringing children into this world). The best teachers I have had were all super-passionate about their subject and teaching.

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing with passion."

What makes Reeta Ma'am's passion even more remarkable to me is that Behavior Modification--the topic that she taught--is an antithesis of intrinsic motivation concepts such as passion. Behavior modification (or Applied Behavior Analysis, as it is known now) is the application of reinforcement principles to increase desirable behaviors and reduce undesirable behaviors among children and people. In other words, what Reeta Ma'am taught us was how to effectively use different extrinsic rewards and punishments to change the behaviors of PWDs. Yet, paradoxically, neither did she need any extrinsic rewards to be motivated about her work, nor did she have to rely on extrinsic rewards and punishments to get us students excited about Behavior Modification. She was intrinsically motivated to learn, master and teach the methods of behavior modification so that she could make a difference in the lives PWDs and their families. We students got excited about behavior modification not because of any extrinsic rewards but because her passion and intrinsic motivation rubbed off on us. So the first lesson that I take from Reeta Ma'am's life is that anything worth doing, is worth doing with passion.

Humility

In our so called "modern" culture, the importance of being confident is overemphasized. For example, a simple Google search of "improving confidence" today yielded me 169,000,000 results. In contrast, searching for "improving humility" only yielded me 593,000 results. If these results are any indication, we seem to give 285 times more importance to being confident than to being humble.

Humility is not false modesty. For example (and this is a real example), it is not calling yourself a शिक्षित बेरोजगार (or an educated-unemployed person), when you are a published author of three books who writes regularly for reputed newspapers and magazines. Humility is also not about being submissive. Humility is having the constant awareness that you don't know it all. Humility is having the openness to learn from everyone, even those who are less successful than you. Humility is knowing that you are not above--or below--other people.

Students of Reeta Ma'am will remember she taught us about assertiveness. Assertiveness refers to behaving in a manner that is self-assured and confident but not rude or aggressive. Reeta Ma'am herself was an assertive person. In fact, she was known for her assertiveness. She did not hesitate to speak her mind, but always did so respectfully. She demanded high standards of performance from everyone, including her students and her staff. And I greatly admired Reeta Ma'am's assertiveness, and personally strove to be assertive myself.

However, drawing the line between assertiveness and aggressiveness is not always easy. That's why assertiveness sometimes alienates people. You may win an argument with your assertiveness, but you will find it difficult to win over people with it. This does not mean that one should not be assertive. One should certainly stand up for one's convictions. However, assertiveness alone can be pretty ineffective a tool. According to me, what made Reeta Ma'am effective was not her assertiveness per se, but the paradoxical combination of assertiveness and humility that she possessed. While she pushed hard for what she believed in, she didn't pretend to know it all. Although we were just undergraduate students, I found her open to our ideas and suggestions. She really listened to us. And that's what made us want to follow her.

"Humility is much more important and powerful than being self-confident."

Reeta Ma'am taught me many powerful concepts, theories and techniques, but these things alone would have made me a cocky, know-it-all guy. My love for learning got enhanced only because of the humility with which she showed that she did not have all the answers and that there was a lot more to learn. So humility, according to me, is much more important and powerful than confidence. However, it's beyond the scope of this article to talk about all the powers of humility. So I will just narrate an incident that illustrates how even very accomplished individuals are very humble. Or perhaps it is their humility that made them so successful.

The incident I am referring to happened with Dr. Kiran Bedi, the current Lt. Governor of Puducherry, and also the elder sister of Reeta Ma'am. Yes, looks like humility runs in their family. In June this year, my colleague Dr. Rama Cousik and I traveled to Puducherry to receive the Reeta Peshawaria-Menon Fellowship Award 2016 from Dr. Bedi. We had, of course, learnt about our award this same day last year, but we could physically receive the award only in June when we both were in India. The award ceremony was organized at the Raj Bhavan. The place was filled with many senior bureaucrats and police officers. At the award ceremony, I touched the feet of Dr. Bedi (for those unfamiliar with this Indian tradition, this is a gesture of respect). Now there is nothing surprising about me bowing down to Dr. Bedi; she has been one of the most powerful role models for the people of India (including me) since the 1970s. But what happened next truly shocked and humbled me. Immediately after I had touched Dr. Bedi's feet, she bowed down too and touched my feet. In the eyes of the honorable Lt. Governor, I was no less a person than her. Now that is humility!

Receiving the Reeta Peshawaria-Menon Fellowship Award from Dr. Kiran Bedi

Care

Passion and humility were great qualities that Reeta Ma'am had, but I think the biggest reason she made such a huge difference in my life (and many others) is because she truly cared. Although an undergraduate student of Reeta Ma'am, I sought out opportunities of engaging in academic discussions with her on different topics. I did so because I was passionate about certain topics of psychology. I wanted her expert insights on those topics so that I could get more clarity about them. Reeta Ma'am was very generous in giving her otherwise limited time to me. She also patiently listened to my ideas on those topics. Of course at that point of time, I felt like my thoughts and ideas were super-genius, but now with a little more knowledge and wisdom, I know that they were almost always poorly developed and sometimes downright lame. Yet, Reeta Ma'am was never dismissive of my ideas. She gently encouraged me to continue to think and helped refine my thinking process.

When you truly care for somebody, you do everything in your capacity to help in the growth of that person. Care comes from a position of love, not very different from the love that a mother has for her infant. Care is not a moral discourse on what is the right thing to do. Care is wanting to do the right things because you care so much for that person. To care is to develop and nurture a relationship. To care is to be present. To care is to feel a sense of responsibility towards others.

"Care is not a moral discourse on what is the right thing to do, but wanting to do the right thing."

The teachers (and leaders) whom I have wholeheartedly followed were not necessarily the most brilliant (although most were), but they were definitely people who cared for my welfare and well-being. In today's age and date, where personal ambition often takes precedence over everything else, we are ceasing to truly care for people. We start seeing human beings as a collection of resources with knowledge, skills, talents, experience, etc. who could be used to attain our personal goals. Or worse, we see them as hindrances in our path of success. We forget that they are human beings first. We forget that we would have never made it to where we are today without the love and care that we received from certain people in our lives.

That said, I realize that to care is difficult. It is difficult the same way as it is difficult for a mother to take care of her kid. To care for somebody means that we have to be willing invest our time and energy for that person. To care for somebody means willing to make a few personal sacrifices. These are the lessons I learnt from Reeta Ma'am, not because she taught me those lessons explicitly, but because she lived the ideals she perhaps wanted inculcated in me. We are more likely to follow a person for who s/he is rather than for what s/he says. So the biggest lesson that I take from Reeta Ma'am's life is to operate from an ethic of care, because that is the only way I can repay the care I received from her and other caring people in my life.