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I feel that if students have understood the basics of the subject, then they also know how to prepare for exams, because they have spent twelve years in that culture. So I don’t think they need to be told much how to prepare for exams - they know how to do it. And so if you teach them the basics of the subject, then they know what else needs to be referred to beyond that - generally enough to prepare them for exams.
MS: What bureaucratic hurdles you face? How do you get past them?
MW: More than bureaucracy, it is the orthodoxy of the system and the mindset of people that come in the way. I’ve tried to hold onto my independence from the start - whether as a young teacher, or a department head. For example, I always tried to conduct internal tests in a different way - have open-book exams, create different situations. Now, the crazy thing is that even this is no longer possible, because the structure of internal exams has been defined: so many multiple choice questions, so many definitions. Teachers have no independence even in the internal exams.
There are other problems with bureaucracy. In ’98, when I became the head of the department, I tried to give it a new shape. This can never be achieved in a routine way. So, you have to go out of the way to do it - and, the management is not ready to go out of the way. They mean well, and they too would like to see developments underway, but in order to make these developments, you have to think outside the box. This is something they can’t digest.
MS: How do you face a class everyday?
MW: In my first few years as a teacher, I used to really prepare. Plan the lectures, keep notes ready. I did that for the first couple of years. Then I stopped. The current situation is that I go absolutely unprepared. There is some flow – so I do remember what had happened the previous time - but very often, what is to be taught in class gets decided after going into the classroom!
We start talking at the beginning of every class. There is some quizzing, the discussion grows, (sometimes it can even happen that perhaps I did have something in mind to talk about, but we end up elsewhere). The direction of teaching slowly evolves in each class. Sometimes the students ask some question, and that determines the direction; sometimes I think of something rather different and the path changes! [Grins] It is open. The start and the end-points are determined, but the middle bits are not. That can go via any topsy-turvy path.
This hasn’t really lead to problems - eventually, the curriculum has been covered, what has to be taught has been taught.
MS: Your classes must be quite large; how do you remember all the peoples’ names, and what is your way of interacting with the students?
MW: While teaching, my attention is mainly fixed on the faces of the students, and what kinds of responses they show: whether they are understanding something or not, appreciating it or not – who is showing signs of appreciation and who is not. Then, whether they are able to answer questions or not; if not why. Most of my mental energy is spent in watching these reactions of the students. I believe in face-reading more than anything else. You can gauge their caliber – who are the interested ones, who will go further, who has a large capacity to quickly grasp things, who takes a while to understand – these things come with practice (and it has been 27 years, now).
I take attendance for the first few months for a new batch, because it helps me to remember names. But I remember students’ faces even if I forget names.
MS: What do you do about difficult concepts; ones that you feel that you are not able to get across?
MW: In class, I don’t look at the watch. Instead of counting time, I count yawns! [laughs] So, once we reach a certain number of yawns, that’s enough! If some day there is a topic that gets the yawning started early, then it is better to wind up quickly, or change the topic.
On explaining something in a straightforward way, if it has not gotten across, then I just start over from a totally different angle. I start talking about a problem or situation that they are more familiar with. Once you understand a situation well, you also understand why you need the concept. And once you understand its relevance, you get interested in it and can understand it. So, the trick is to change the approach, and start from the other side. If you can’t go from here to there, you try to go from there to here!
MS: What about questions or concepts which you yourself are not familiar with, or which are outside your experience? How do you react to those?
MW: Whether I know the answer or not, my approach does not change. The approach is not “I know the answer, come to me!” It is more like, let us start thinking and trying to find an answer ourselves.
If I do know the answer, then I know where we are headed - but we all still travel towards it together. If I don’t, then, along with everyone else, I am thinking about the problem too. Sometimes we unexpectedly come across some answers, and sometimes we don’t, so we stop and acknowledge that we have reached the limit to our understanding.
But the important thing is to keep a question alive. Maybe not today, maybe in 25 years you will find the answer. Such things do happen. Some very old questions or observations suddenly come to your aid. Something will strike you, and you might find an interesting solution.
MS: How do you keep in touch with all the current happenings; with both the past and the future of your research?
MW: The situation now is that I don’t have to take special pains to do this - I have so many students in so many fields in so many places... So, if there is some new development or an interesting new paper - I get a mail from someone, “Here is something new, have you read it?”
I also subscribe to some online news bulletins, like the evolutionary psychology group. If there is a new, interesting paper in Nature or Science, I ask someone to download the paper for me.
MS: Now I’ll just change track a bit and ask you about your family background: where and with whom do you live and so on…
MW:[Grins]. Our family was not, in a sense, a typical family. My father was not very educated, while my mother was a doctor. Such was the combination. But my father had made a name for himself in his field, and my mother had too. So, I had the cultural influences of both in my mind, but my development was going in a different direction. I liked what they both did, and I was absorbing things from both of them, but ultimately I did neither of their careers.
While I was in college, my parents separated, and the next few years did not go well for me, emotionally. Only after I got married could I put this period behind me. One consequence of this middle period was that I was never too attached or absorbed in family, relatives - I remained a bit aloof from it all.
MS: you have been interested in spirituality of late…
MW: Yes, but not “of late!” That was from where I was little. You know how when they are little, children want to be all kinds of things. One of the things I wanted to be was a train engine driver, and the other thing I wanted to be was a sadhu - and to travel all over India, on foot! [laughs] That was my childhood dream. And it remained intact till I was much older. Afterwards it turned out that I had some responsibilities, and going in that direction was not physically possible. But there was always that sadhu somewhere in my mind, and he is still there.
MS: Apart from teaching, what are your other main interests?
MW: I have jumped a lot from one thing to another. There was bird-watching, and
travelling. I learnt classical music for a while - enough to be able to sing a khayal for 20-30 minutes. Writing Marathi poetry is something that has been most consistent. Then… illustrations, sketches, pencil-work.
For some years I pursued photography quite intensively. I also developed photomicrography with very basic equipment – it was part of my study, but it was a hobby as well. Using a students’ microscope with an adapter, I’d mount the camera on that myself. For a while I didn’t even have an adapter, so I used to just place the camera directly on the microscope. I tried many experiments with photography… inverting the lenses and so on – inverting a wide-angle to use as a macro and so on [laughs].
MS: what do you look for in students?
MW: This is the most difficult question, perhaps. These impressions happen at such a subconscious level. I guess I am more interested in off-beat talent than academic performance. The odd ones out seem more drawn to me. And if I see off-beat talent, I feel it is my duty to nurture it - because the system does not support such people. So if you have to go out of the way to support them, I feel that it is my responsibility to make that extra effort.
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