Lessons Taught / Learnt?

As a weird coincidence, very close to Teachers’ Day, one of my teachers from the past came in my dreams. Out of all the people I’ve learnt from, she was definitely not someone I would dream about.

So that made me think — why?

Did she not teach me? Did I not learn from her?

And then I realised that my feeling of non-eagerness was probably the difference between what I was taught and what I learnt.

I believe in what my mom used to say:

“Tayiye modhala guru, maneye modhala paatashale.”

Mother is the first teacher; home is the first school.

Mothers and parents are great teachers. But are parents and institutional teachers enough? Do they teach us everything right? Or do we learn everything correctly?

My parents and grandmother taught me all the values that they were brought up with and learnt along the way. But I classified and learnt what was right and wrong from my point of view.

My teachers taught me all the lessons any kid should learn from school. And I didn’t just learn them. As I grew older, I started implementing them in life.

But then came the difference.

The lesson taught was “all are equals,” but what was practised was different.

So, what do I learn?

The one taught in school, or the one I see in the world?

So, who do we have to learn from?

Once I started graduation, many things hit me.

We were taught what simple interest and compound interest were, but no one taught us how to open a bank account, how to save money or how to invest.

Why so?

I think over the years, we decide to learn what we want to learn and whom we want to learn from. But nowhere does that mean that we don’t value our parents or the lessons our teachers taught us.

It’s just that most of us were never taught how to live. We were taught to survive.
But then again, the need for survival runs in our veins from an evolutionary point of view, right?

So, what do we actually have to learn?

And who do we learn it from?

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I loved the lessons from all the teachers who came into my life.
I was taught academic knowledge — science, maths, language. I was taught music and dance.

These people definitely changed my life and were, in fact, the people who showed me the diversity in teaching.

They just didn’t teach me their subject.

They made me think.

Why is money important to one of them, and why does the other one not ask for it in the same way for similar classes?

Why is one of them married and why is the other teacher not married? – When is one supposed to be married?

Why is one teacher’s child with them and not the other’s?
How are we supposed to care for our parents? / Or how are parents supposed to let their children explore the world?

How safe is safe enough when walking a certain distance from home?
Why is our lane okay but not the next lane, when the fact is that our parents are not watching us continuously?

Why does one pray to Lord Ganesha and another pray to Goddess Shakti?

Why does one pray to Shiva and another to Allah?

Who is teaching us all these things?

These are what is learnt.

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So, are teachers in schools wrong? Definitely not.

So, do we just learn from them? No.

I believe we learn from our surroundings.

We learn from our parents how to be a family and how not to be. From school, we learn what is taught. But once we are out of the walls of our home, we also learn friendships.

We learn all kinds of emotions other than love.

We learn competition. We learn jealousy. We learn kindness to strangers. We learn how to trust, how to doubt, how to forgive and sometimes, how to let go.

So the learning never ends.

We learn from the people around us — in a café, in an office, in a hospital, on the road, everywhere.

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So, who are our teachers?

For me, everyone.

Everyone who has taught me all these lessons.
Every place I’ve been to.
Every relationship I’ve had.

Every book I’ve read.
Every movie I’ve watched.
Every lane I’ve walked through.

Every bad situation I’ve been in.
Every pervert on the road taught me what I don’t want to be.

Every patient has taught me about how to be a better doctor.
Every person I’ve met is someone I’ve learnt something from.

Every class I attended taught me subject
Every student in my life, taught me how to be a better teacher.

Every kind of relation I’ve had.
Every kind of love teaching purity, generosity.

And it is never-ending.

It’s constant.

And honestly, it’s amazing to learn.

But in the end, I think it is up to us to classify what is right and what is wrong. What kind of personality we want to have, and what we don’t.

Every good thing you learnt and every bad thing you learnt are still lessons.

And the people who taught them are still teachers.

Respect to all of them.

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And I’m glad to have met soooo many teachers in my whole life.

Teachers who taught me science.
Teachers who taught me music and dance.

Teachers who taught me patience.
People who taught me kindness.

People who taught me what I don’t want to become.
People who taught me how I want to become.

And people who probably don’t even know that they taught me anything at all.

And I’m even more glad that every moment that passes teaches me something or the other.

Maybe that is what learning actually is.

Not something that ends when school ends.
Not something that ends when graduation ends.
Not even something that ends when we think we have learnt enough.

Maybe life itself is one long classroom.

And maybe every person we meet, every place we go, every relationship we have and every experience we go through becomes a teacher — whether we wanted the lesson or not.

I’m sure every one of you will have an opinion on this.

If you do, I would love to listen and learn from it.