15 April 2012

Teachers Outrage in Bhutan

Early this month a teacher in India was killed by a group of students for not letting them copy in their exam. He was only doing his duty. Perhaps we ignored it because it happened far away and ignored the warning attached to it. I was scared these directionless children we have may land up doing something similarly serious. But children will grow up some days and realize all the wrongs they have done.  Shockingly a foreign parent walks into a Bhutanese classroom, drags the teacher out and bashes him to the extend of removing a tooth and damaging his eye, when will he grow up and realize his mistake?
Teachers across the country are outraged and seeking justice, this was the biggest blow to the otherwise peaceful teaching community of Bhutan. It questions our security- teaching was once the safest job but now it's like working in a nuclear station with the most radioactive materials, even in protective gears we can't escape the radiation. We were already showered with blames for reasons uncountable and here our society is taught how to deal with teachers by a learned man.
We are not machines; we are teachers- we teach with emotions, we become sad, we grow excited, we become happy, we get irritated, we become angry, we become joker, we become hero, we change ourselves now and then because we care for our students no less than their parents do. Now a father walks into our classroom and questions our emotions. We can stop our emotions and start being machine anytime but that's not what our country wants of us, that's not what our king wants of us, and that's not what our students want of us. And dear parents please step aside and let us do our work, we are on a national mission.
But unlike the mission of the UNICEF fellow, he was sent here on the United Nations' goodwill mission, he was here to help us but what did he do? He insulted the culture of the innocent nation, he manhandled a teacher in the nation where teachers are respected highly, he has corrupted one of Bhutan's highest value. As is the trend, now we are expecting more such disgrace and he will be remembered as the forerunner.
Even on the personal grounds he was a doctor who is supposed to treat people, care for them and comfort them but he disgraced that profession too. If his son thinks his father was a hero after that then it's another disgrace, and I am only happy and relieved that they are not Bhutanese.
Debate and Outrage continues on Facebook Forum and Kuensel Forum and we wish to know what happens to the man and what steps will be taken to ensure that we the teacher are safe after this. He was lucky to have lost his senses in Bhutan; our values forbid aggression and violence, the same value that he has kicked. If it had happened in any other country than Bhutan he would have known the price of his action. He would have to run for his life and his diplomatic immunity would be only a crap on paper. How waste of a person to travel half world across with the highest qualifications and not to have woken up to learn the simplest Bhutanese values.

5 comments:

  1. It was hurting to hear about the incident. More so when a teacher was a victim. It was was way too disturbing to hear about a teacher being manhandled by a parent who is not even a national.

    now that I have a better half who is a teacher, I get scared. Every time she walks to her work, it sends me fear and makes me anxious. I am more worried than ever for her safety because the likelihood of these events repeating are highly probable.

    If something drastic is not done to protect our teachers, it might get chronic. Our education system risk being degenerated.

    I share the sentiments of our Teachers. and as a parent and as a Citizen I demand justice to our teachers.

    Good Luck Teachers!

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  2. As would be teacher i am also quite worried about this. Where is the security for teachers? Democracy does not mean having right to go against teacher who sacrifices many things for students. Cheers Passu. Keep on writing.

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  3. Exactly what i feel, reading your post has made me feel so relived because I could not get my frustrations and anger out when I wrote mine. I am very happy that you wrote this, you have expressed the unheard sentiments of all the teachers of our country.

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  4. Thank you Passu for your post. It was great relief for me to pour out my frustration. You have really done a good job.
    There are section of people who thinks that we should change with time, but I feel we shoul not change to that extend, where we forget our cultures and traditions. According to our religion and culture, teachers are valued at higest, but this bloody bugger has distroyed everything. He should be penilized and punished for what he did, other wise such thing will happen now and then. What do you think?

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  5. Well the guy got away with it, and interesting his next posting with UNICEF is confirmed, which shows how lightly he and his employer took the matter. They seem to undermine the Bhutanese value and we are enjoying our complacence.

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