10 Early teaching methods

 From the beginning of my teaching career, I was asked to teach subjects which are in a way apparently difficult except during my first year of teaching in TKMCE where I taught my favourite subject Generation Switchgear and Protection for my immediate juniors. In REC, I was offered some challenging subjects right from the beginning, probably because I had an years’ teaching experience earlier. This was probably as per instructions from the Head of the Department. Moreover, as a matter  of principle, I never taught the same subject for more than  two occasions. I felt that it is enough to teach the subject twice to master the subject even if we have not been taught this subject effectively in our class. Whatever deficiencies in the first attempt will be overcome in the second attempt and there it remains. During our undergraduate studies, getting good marks for the examinations was more important and as per our university examination methods, it was not absolutely essential to be the master  of the subject  to score  high marks. My intention was to teach as many subjects as possible during the first   few years of teaching, so that I will have a reasonably good foundation for teaching advanced subjects later.

The subject I was teaching immediately after my wedding was an elective subject for final year mechanical students  with the title  ‘Instrumentation and Servomechanisms’. The number of students enrolled for this elective was only 8 , but when the Head M E Dept sent a request  to our department and when this was  circulated in our dept, I took up the challenge. But later I found it was really a very difficult task. Instrumentation was a subject never taught in our undergraduate electrical class. We had only one paper on Electrical Instruments and Measurements whereas Instrumentation was a subject involving measurement of non-electrical quantities such as temperature, pressure, flow, velocity etc. So, I had to refer a large number of handbooks on Instrumentation to prepare my class notes.  The other part of the subject Control (Systems)  was equally difficult.  In our final B.Sc.Engg course, we had  a paper Industrial Electronics & Control Systems.  The subject was taught  by one Mukherjee (from Kolkatta)   in TKMCE  who  taught us only the Industrial Electronics  part. To answer at least two questions from Part B of the question paper, we had to  study Control Systems, a difficult subject for undergraduate students, using some  guides. With the result that to teach this elective course, I had to prepare for at least 4 - 5 hours every day for a single hours’ lecture. Moreover, I had the habit of writing detailed notes before I go to the class. For every course I taught in the first  10 or more years, my lecture notes used to run up to 3 or 4 , 200 pages note books. This habit never left me even a few years before my superannuation in 2011.  I used to carry these note books to the class instead of the text books. Occasionally, I used to refer to these notes, if required. But later, when I grew in confidence, these note books would remain simply on the table as the magic wand of a magician. If I had compiled all these notes, I could have published a few text books easily.  The interesting thing was that I was teaching this subject when I had just returned to the campus immediately after marriage. By the time I used to complete my preparation for next day’s lecture and start sleeping, my newlywed wife must have completed two rounds of sleep! Old habits die hard, even these days, whenever I am asked to make a short speech inaugurating an event for just 10 minutes, I do write the contents to be spoken on a few sheets  of paper and  kept  it in my pocket. I may not refer to it, but for the confidence I had to keep it with me.