Skip to main content

Giving Knowledge, Gaining Knowledge

Since May, I have been teaching a young boy (8-year-old), music. Manish, a less privileged boy, is currently my pupil. Tejomay Charitable Trust has enabled me to impart musical knowledge to an enthusiastic pupil. Till now, I have covered multiple topics essential to building a strong foundation in music.
Previously, I had taught English at Samriddhi Trust (A bridge school for the economically and educationally backward classes) to a girl older than I. She learnt 5-6 lettered words by the end of our 3 week reading concourse. Bolstered by my success, I began keeping a lookout for similar opportunities.
After a few years, I was given a teaching responsibility again. It utilised my education of 8 years in music. Finally possessing the prospect to give back to society, I leapt upon it. Seeing an individual with a passion for learning music at such a young age was new to my eyes. Of late, scientific education and sports seemed to grab the limelight. With great zeal, I began tutoring this musicophile.
I was confronted with numerous challenges at first. Resources were a cumbersome obstacle. Fortunately, the Internet was able to provide an adequate stock of sheet music. Knowledge retention was another difficulty I do still encounter. Repetition does not considerably assist the process of teaching. Having faith in the power of curiosity, I began motivating Manish to question and answer questions.
Hot on the heels of my problem-solving spree, I looked around for my next opponent. I did not have to strain my eyes. Music requires the learning of complicated Latin terminology and theory. Any musical beginner is easily dissuaded by such boring theory. Manish too was no exemption. Thinking of innovative solutions was the only feasible way of enchanting the boy. From using MIDI Sequencers to Playing example pieces, my list of such solutions was lengthy.
As I continue my journey as his teacher, I have had realisation dawn me. My current stint as a teacher is providing a new perspective to music. I provide knowledge and gain it too. I teach to learn. Such an experience is not typical in life. We must grab the opportunity by its horns, and unlock our true potential. We must teach to learn.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Dawn of Isratin

  ‘The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality’ – Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian Poet. Dark plumes of smoke rose in the air, heralding a doom of unendurable potency. Widow and Widower, Orphan and Vilomah, all formed in an instant – as a missile crashes into their building. They are the unwilling victims of a war they are not part of. As children cry for their dead fathers, and vice versa, who really cares about the idea of Palestine if it comes at a cost which cannot and should not be borne. Except there is no alternative. Palestinians would not hesitate to live in Israel, but they are not allowed. Persecution, oppression, execution: that is the only fate which meets those who try to cross those imaginary lines which mark Israel from Palestine. And for those imaginary lines, wars are fought, homes are ravaged and people, precious people who are born with one and only life, are killed, mercilessly, causelessly, and inhumanely.  Although many people mark...

Math: Invention or Discovery?

  Why is one plus one two? Why is anything into zero zero? Why is two to the power zero one? Any mathematician would categorically reply to you, sighing deeply, that these are axioms in math; that they’re obvious . But are they really that obvious? And what really are axioms? Most significantly, what even is math, using certainties in a world where only uncertainty is certain? Is the universe really just math, or are we being presumptuous of our talents? Was math invented, or discovered? What are axioms? Merriam-Webster defines an axiom as ‘a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference/an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth/a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit’. A common feature of any mathematics textbook, they are those statements which we commit to our memory without question and utilise for the rest of our lives. If you are reading this, it’s almost guaranteed that you have studied some level of mathematics (as you are literate)...

Beyond Paradise on Earth: Kashmir

On a quintessentially frosty midwinter morning, a lone conifer stands tall, cursed with eternal greenery, looking onto the icy virgin snow by the glacial river while basking in the glory of the icy peaks behind it. This is Kashmir. Paradise on Earth. When the winter clears, the land will coruscate with its verdant scenery all around, completed by the frolicking of animals, birds, and children. Or rather, if winter clears. For the wintry dark hands of indifference, deceit, manipulation, hatred, and jealousy control Kashmir now. Where there used to be nature and villages, forming the milk of human kindness, there are now ugly machinated military camps and their soldiers, forming the dung of inhumanity. Where there once was heaven, there now is hell. Kashmir is a land that has been long embroiled in the Indian subcontinent’s gratuitous power struggles. These struggles and their subsequent pyrrhic and temporary victories have extracted a heavy toll from Kashmir. Who can we possibly blame f...