The Great Indian Mother-Daughter Switch. Or not.

My mother has been attending a Teachers' Training Programme for the past couple of weeks (or more). And with every passing day, she is becoming more and more convinced that it is a great deal easier to be the teacher than to be the taught. She's been in the teaching profession for over 25 years now- she's never really had to write examinations ever since she completed her Graduation. And it's weird how over the past few days I've relived my examination weeks so vividly, through her. I have heard the same panic-stricken outbursts, have been subjected to the same crankiness, and have had to deal with the same kind of nervousness that I generally make an oh-so-conscious effort to conceal.website

She has been studying Educational Psychology. I tried helping her with some of the topics- like Motivation, and Classical Conditioning (including Pavlov's experiment). I also downloaded pictures of Jean Piaget, and graphical representations of his theory. I was surprised to find that I still remember some of the things we were taught in school. But then, Robert Baron is a brilliant man, and his text book, is perhaps the most comprehensible Psychology book I've ever read.

She had her first written assignment today. It was on Motivation. I was playing basketball in college through most of the afternoon and early evening, so I had forgotten to drop her an SMS wishing her luck. When she returned, however, she was grinning widely. She said she had grown out of the habit of writing long answers within a limited time period, as a result of which her left hand (yeah, both my parents are lefties) was aching. Through most of dinner, she calculated how much she needs in the final test that she will have to take this weekend, in order to pass the entire module. I was highly amused, simply because this is the kind of Math we do- in college- in order to calculate how much we need to pass the ED! As I watched her, a lot of the familiar taunts resonated inside my head. I only smiled to myself, but said nothing.website