It is very ecstatic to receive the love and honor from you. I thank you for your love and making me a part of this auspicious celebration. At the same time I congratulate you for being part of our family and organizing this ceremony in grandeur fashion.
Seeing your innocent face I go down the lane of memory few years ago when I too was like you and I feel how revering it was for us to display our respect to our beloved teachers. Today I feel myself at the adjunct of two spheres where one sphere represents students and
Donning the cap of teacher, I feel myself an immature person. Nevertheless, I understand my responsibilities and am committed to bestow you with knowledge. As a teacher I may not be able to take you across the ocean but definitely I will be able to torch the right path. I see, it is my responsibility to embark you in right ship. Since a teacher is more experienced in time and age than students, you will learn from our experience. Otherwise there is no doubt that the “students are the best teachers”. This means since students keep themselves abreast with latest information and they are in continuous touch with books, are well versed in knowledge. They have enough time to span over a wider range of resources. At the same time it also means that a teacher must be like a student. To offer the best a teacher must try his best to study and keep himself updated with the latest information. Experience without knowledge will be waste because unpolished experience is outdated and irrelevant.
We are living in a system where people are judged by their excellence in competition. In a competition driven world we are bound to achieve good scores, high grades, standing first and so and so forth. I agree that such criteria are never the appropriate scales to measure quality. Newton was a drop out from school, Benjamin Franklin a scientist, author and entrepreneur was primarily home schooled, Walt Disney a high school dropout, US president Abraham Lincoln with one year of formal schooling. The list is very long for such personalities who broke away from routine of formal education but they excelled in life.
Education means to make you a gentle social man. Education cannot make a person intelligent and excellent. It is our duty to utilize our brain to the maximum then only we can be great. We have to be creative, innovative and inquisitive. To acquire such characters it doesn’t require any formal education. What it requires is inspiration, encouragement and motivation. And a teacher’s responsibility in school and college should be to ignite such fresh brain. It is our responsibility to show you path, to nourish you, to inspire you. Even if I fail to explain you a particular subject, it will be my success if I could invoke you to think on it and explore the answer. So it is you. You have to sail through. You have to face the wind. And for that don’t keep yourself in “limitations” “restriction”. Let your brain fly. Think what you want to do? Think what you enjoy doing? Think if you do what you like will you repent over the failure? If these question you ask before starting the journey, I assure you that you will never waste time in life in doing unwanted things.
As it has truly been said, process is important not the product, journey is important not the destination. So try to enjoy the process of learning. One of my teachers once told why a mountaineer attempts hundred times to climb the highest peak? What does he get after reaching the hill top? It is the journey that gives him pleasure. It is his nature to accept the challenge of struggle and difficulty. When you start enjoying the process of learning, you feel at good and nothing bothers you: a highest mark, good grade, good rank other’s expectations, all become meaningless.
Then you will ask why should we read then? Reading is important because it broadens our views. It gives us the foundation on which our thoughts can be built up. By reading books we learn the state of science. To what extent people have already achieved and how they have achieved. So reading gives us a background knowledge on which we can implant our thoughts.
I will emphasize here that since you are living in a system of competition where you must make your space to survive. So you cannot ignore the system’s facts. We have to go along with them and face the challenges and demands. Over all we can say we are now in dual responsibility of acting according to other’s wishes and at the same time acting at our own wishes. Keep moving with the system as it forces you: It means: study hard, cram, compete, achieve good ranks but most importantly don’t give them much importance. Keep the flames of your wishes burning? Wherever and whenever, you get opportunity to acquiesce you desires, execute it promptly. That is the way you have to move on. That is the way you have to maintain a balance between what systems ask you to do and what your conscience asks you to do.
Sometimes we feel I have no time to read books. The time of reading books is over. It is absolutely wrong. Remember when we start any novel in the beginning it is completely meaningless. The discussion seems to revolve around some scattered characters and place that seems completely out of place. But as we move on and by the time we have read ten twenty pages story seems building up. We start enjoying reading. And we don’t stop till we finish. Same is the case with science books also. Initially it feels very boring. We don’t enjoy. But don’t leave hope. Just move on. Once you are through some chapters or a few books. The whole story seems very clear. You are start understanding the matter. And after sometime you feel inclined to read other books on same topics. So read books whenever you get time. Make it your habit. If you will avoid them now, they will chase you forever. Internally, you will always feel lack of confidence that you are not able to perform better may be because you have not read those books. So why to leave a chance? Just don’t read them just ride them.