The Allure of the Classroom
something to end the year on
As I sit here, alone, on the last day of the year, I watch the chairs and the round tables arranged neatly around the lectern at the centre. There are just a few lights on, on the side I am sitting - stressed about my upcoming project submission deadlines and aghast at not being able to write them. There are also other things going on in my head, far more important perhaps. Yet, when I see the quiet classroom, and the seemingly inanimate chairs, I feel a sense of being which is hard to describe.
The classroom has always been for me a place of comfort and excitement. While I get extremely conscious when it comes to dancing in weddings, or get scared almost if I see a huge group of people talking loudly, or find myself alienated in parties and concerts, somehow, when I am in the classroom, I feel like I own the space in every sense of the term. As far back as I can remember, I have always raised my hand even when I was unsure while accepting that I was unsure. I would, and continue to, spurt out stupid questions sometimes, only to understand the answer myself as I speak aloud the question leaving the teacher to simply say “yes”. Yet, that has seldom, if ever, felt embarrassing. Just last term, my family law professor asked everyone to describe the marriage rituals in their families. When my turn came, I spent about 10 minutes explaining, in rather unnecessary and irrelevant detail, how weddings are done in my community. I later realised I had bored everyone and embarrased myself - but in the moment, for some reason, I just didn’t care.
This feeling of not caring, and simply being myself gives me great joy when I am in the classroom. There have been uncountable times when I’ve had shivers down my spine listening to the teacher — from dohas and Shakespeare in middle school, to an introduction to Rawls in high school, to anthropology and theory in college. It is as if I forget everything else - the people around me, the things to be done later that day, the politics outside the classroom. In that moment, when the teacher is engaged in a conversation with me, acting like a link between me and that untapped channel of knowledge, I am lost in that mutual dance. Of course, this is not to say that this is always the case. I also find myself - quite often - checking my social media and emails on my laptop, doodling on my notebook, checking my to-do list on my phone, and waiting for the period to end if I don’t like the class. But there is a noticeable difference in the way the classroom speaks to me and to those around me. I feel safe in a classroom. Respected. Heard. Valuable. I feel a sense of purpose when I get engrossed in the class. And this purpose is not instrumental or goal-driven. The times when I am the most awed, I am not thinking about how the stuff I am listening to may help change the world. In those moments of utter bliss, I am just awed by the beauty of the idea itself - in and of itself.
This connection with the classroom comes to me with immense respect and admiration for my teachers - the people I love the most after my family, more than my friends even. For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to really criticise a teacher, even when I felt angry at some of them for various reasons. I would somehow convince myself that they must be right, they must be good. As I grow up, I realise that teachers are also humans - with their own failings, insecurities, doubts, fears and faults. There are teachers who are more passionate about what they do than others. Yet, that sense of respect does not leave me. To this day, when I am with friends, I find it hard to refer to a teacher by their name without prefixing it with “sir” or “ma’am” even when I am expressing my frustration with their class. After all, these people have been my biggest cheerleaders - always motivating me, listening to my endless doubts, trying to balance my disagreement with the textbook and the fact that in the Boards, the textbook is what will be “correct” whatsoever. That is why, teacher’s day remains one of my favourite days.
As the year ends, and as I try to write my projects, I feel content at least with the fact that there is a space I can call my own. The classroom. It is also a space - I am increasingly realising - that I might never want to leave, finding myself on the other side of the tables and chairs, standing at the lectern, striking a conversation with my students. But for now, I can only say: thank you, dear classroom. Coming to NLS, and getting to sit in this room listening to some of the most amazing professors - some of whom, with their kind care and attention, have forever changed the way I think - is one of the best things that’ve happened to me. For all the lessons I have learned in 2022 in this room, I am grateful. And to all those who have made it possible, I am indebted. May the allure of the classroom never leave me.
You've written it beautifully, you didn't just give me expression to my own feelings but also made me almost jealous of how much more the classroom means to you and not as much to me but I'm so thankful that I read this because I now know that there is much more to classroom that I could explore. I pray that this allure of classroom stays with you.
One last time, it was really really beautiful and means something, thankyou.
I wanted to be beneath this classroom in the new year of 2023, while I was getting my 2022 new year wishes.