Pay Panels and Teachers: Some Sage Advice

Dear Friend,
I have been teaching for so long (both in the service and after 'retiring') that I some times feel, I have only been teaching all through my life. However, my first instructional assignment was in 1972, at the MCEME, and like the first love, it was the most memorable. I was received at the railway station by some one who became my mentor. Before he began to tell me how to handle the class, he gave me two pieces of advice. So profound were his words, that they got etched in my mind. He summed it up with two pieces of advice. For some reasons, I wish to mention the second one first.

"Teaching is easy. Any one can do it. Marking assignments and answer sheets is tough. Because, there, you are 'grading' the students. You are picking good apples and segregating the bad ones. Take your time while doing so. But once you have awarded marks, do not change them. If you do it in one case, you will have a queue in front of you and you will never know, where to stop. Pressure might come to you from the boss, too".

I followed his advice, and declared that before showing the answer sheets. I did my home work properly, and refused to budge an inch when students came with requests for a review of the marks awarded to them. I was never sorry for that. Another colleague who had not received such sage advice, made the mistake of granting 'grace' marks once, and his office was forever full of student officers seeking more marks. He was pestered even at home.

The Pay Commission awards are similar. If you yield once, you are inundated with 'anomalies' and 'aberrations' . But to stand firm and hold your ground, you have to do your home-work properly. And the present pay commission has not done that. They have acted in haste, only to repent in leisure. I must also recount the other advice which he actually gave first.

"Never get angry on a student who asks a silly question. He might be the only one who is listening!"
Need I say that I found both the above 'sermons' worthy of mentioning after a lapse of 37 years? And now, I must also reveal the name of my guru. He is Maj Gen R Swaminathan. He went to the DRDO and was an advisor to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in the Rashtrapati Bhawan all through the five years as his 'advisor' I salute him today.

Love and regards,
Maj Gen Surjit Singh (Retd)

PS
I mentioned the second piece of advice before the first one for a very specific reason. I am often confronted with an awkward question by friends, who look at my youthful wife, and ask, "Is she you second wife?" And I, at once, say, "Yes" If they are so foolish as to probe further, and ask, "What happened to the first one?" I say, "I have not yet met her!"