Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

Ethics of teaching in an Engineering College

I am very happy to be here today. Dr Sumit Nandi, HOD of the Science & Humanities Faculty of
this College invited me to speak in this TEQIP sponsored Faculty Development Programme. I will present
my lecture on this extremely sensitive topic in the form of seven salient points.
A very challenging job Teaching:
First of all, we must realize that ours is a very tough and thankless job. George Bernhard Shaw
once said that the toughest job on earth was teaching. He had his arguments for this statement. He said that
a doctors mistakes get buried six feet under the ground; a lawyers mistakes hang six feet above the ground;
but a teachers mistakes destroy six hundred years of a nations history! We of all people here in Bengal
this vital influence that our job has on society. If Derozio hadnt taught here, who knows how Bengals
history would have turned out!
1. The Fundamental principle in Teaching:
I believe that the fundamental principle of teaching was given by the Jesuit Father Ignatius Loyola. He
said, If you wish to teach Mathematics to John, you must know Mathematics and you must know John.
Let us study this fundamental principle in some detail. If this were a school, I would have told you that
knowing John includes learning about his personal life, how his family is, how his parents treat him and
one another, how the boys health is, etc. Here, in a College, that would be dangerous. This is a place where,
if you ask a student where have you been this late? he most probably answers, I was just around here.
These adolescents vigorously resist any intrusion into their personal lives. In most cases, it is dangerous for
us to enter into their personal lives, into their personal activities. Then what does this knowing John
actually mean?
Today, we all know the concepts we are teaching. However, we too were students once upon a time.
There was a time when, as students, the concepts made no sense to us. We struggled. After continuous
struggle, the concepts opened up for us. We need to simulate that situation every time for our own students.
This is what I mean by knowing John. John is stuck somewhere with regard to the particular concept I am
teaching now. I will have to discover that marshy land on which he stands. I will have to recall how I too
was somewhere near that same marsh years ago.
a. Class Preparation:
How do we do this? You know, I keep telling my teachers back in my College, Never
enter a class without sufficient preparation, no matter how many years you have taught that
particular subject. I say this because I believe we never teach a subject; we teach students. And
those boys are new, they were not here last year. So, I sit in silence for hours in my room, imagining
how each young boy in my class will react to the concept I will teach tomorrow. I know quite a lot
about those boys from my previous classes and the discussions in the last few months. This is quite
a time-consuming exercise, but highly satisfying. Students readily appreciate the extra effort you
put in. And, what is most gratifying is the light you see in their eyes when the concept flashes in
their minds in the course of your discussions. If you have experienced that moment at least once in
your teaching career, you will get hooked on to that exhilarating experience. And you will attempt
to repeat it in every class.

Page 1 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

b. Beyond the Syllabus:

Quite often what I see in classes in India is that the teachers, all of them well-meaning
people, seem to have a pathetic obsession to stick to the syllabus. The syllabus is the Bible for
them. And they are teachers. And they teach the subject. We are teachers, no doubt. But we do not
teach subjects. We teach students. There is a vital difference between teaching a subject and
teaching students. Do we ignore the all-powerful syllabus prescribed by the AICTE or the WBUT
then? That is just a broad outline of what minimum needs to be covered in the semester, a broad
guideline based on which the exam paper will be set, thats all. It has nothing to do with my
teaching. My class teaching will be guided by what my students know and how the next higher
concepts have to be passed on to them. Teaching is all about awakening ideas and concepts related
to Engineering inside the minds of our students. Teaching is all about establishing new connections
between ideas that are already inside the minds of our students. How can a flimsy paper circular
ever control such a momentous job?!
You see, this syllabus-class notes-mugging up-examination-grades cycle has resulted in
a terrible condition of engineering education in our country. Engineering education doesnt happen
like this. Engineering is all about real-life. Concepts have value only insofar as they translate into
something practical. Engineering isnt poetry, no offence to my humanities colleagues here. Ten
paragraphs describing the blue azure, and sunlight sprayed all over, etc. merely mean that sky is
vast and it is blue to me! That is all those ten paragraphs convey to me. Similarly, lines after lines
describing that delicate flower swaying in the gentle breeze that Wordsworth has immortalized
merely tell me that daffodil is a yellow flower and one day this poet saw some daffodils when he
went for a walk!
Engineering education stands on developing an Eye for Engineering in our students.
Everything is to be seen from a manufacturers point of view. We are all hardwired to use things
in our lives. We see something and we want to possess it and use it. This is natural to us. When this
basic human urge is sophisticated, you get poetry, thats all. Engineering is a totally different point
of view. We shall not possess anything, nor use it. We shall start thinking about how that thing can
be made. Great difference in the points of view here!
See, the main trouble is that our school education in India is very hazy. It doesnt have a
focus. A boy passing out of the school system in India wouldnt have picked up any particular
skills. He is not equipped to seriously take up the humanities, nor engineering. He has a smattering
of many thing, all lying unconnected in his young brain. The only thing he is skilled in is in learning
by-heart a whole lot of things, and recalling those trivial pieces of information when he sits in the
Exam hall. Thats all. That is a worthless skill, if you dignify it with the term skill. Has he learnt
how to play around with ideas in his mind? He hasnt. Has he learnt how to translate real life
situations into Mathematics? He hasnt. Can he roam around comfortably inside the realm of
mathematics and come up with a mathematical solution, and then translate back that solution into
real-life terms? He cant; and yet he might have got the highest grade in his Class-XII exams! Such
a fellow walks into our college and it is our job to prepare him for a life in engineering! How well
are we equipped to do that? If we think that we call deal with this situation using the syllabus-class
notes-mugging up-examination-grades process, well, I am sorry for all of us!
2. Love for Systems:
Most importantly, the young man needs to be drilled into following rules and procedures. Engineering
is based on rules, procedures and principles. You know, students in my college ask me, Dont you have a
Page 2 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

heart, Maharaj? Why cant you pardon us at least once? Why do you have to punish us every time we do
something wrong? I ask them in return, Do you see that 15amps plug point on the wall? Shove your finger
inside that and ask the wire to pardon you and not kill you. Or, put your head on to the moving center of a
lathe in the workshop and request the lathe not to decapitate you just this once. If you survive, come back
to me, and I will certainly start pardoning you!
Engineering deals with high power. One small lapse and it will result in loss of many lives and property.
Are we training our boys adequately to handle this kind of power? If we are not, what engineering education
is it that we are giving? Our boys will be taught to stick to procedures. Work habits of tomorrow grow from
the habit of following fixed procedures and protocols in college. You know, they say that an expert dancer
doesnt place a single wrong step, even if she gets absent-minded while dancing! That faculty has to be
developed in our students. Then, you wont have flyovers collapsing in our cities! IIT professors have
analyzed why the Ganesh Talkies flyover collapsed. It was there in the papers. You all must have seen it.
It is clearly mentioned that engineers flouted many protocols in design, purchase and execution. Where did
they learn to flout procedures? Or, why did they not learn the paramount importance of sticking to
procedures? It is because, their mistakes were not punished in college! They brought those rotten work
habits from college into the work place, and see the damage they did!
So, what I do is, I dont care for answers in my class. I concentrate on the approach the students took
for handling the problem at hand. If the approach is based on accepted principles, the answers will be right.
The relation is invariable. For instance, you will find that most students directly start working out the
mathematics for a problem you give them in the class. I insist that they have to follow the line diagramgiven data-to be found parameters-assumptions-industry standards-logic protocol for solving any
problem. Again and again, I make them do this. Slowly, over a period of time, I find that they start
transferring this habit of systematic approach to other areas such as making a report, drawing up estimates,
etc. So, approach and not just answers that is the key to effective engineering education.
3. Practical skills vs blackboard teaching:
You know, I keep telling one thing about our engineering education in India. The people who drew up
the policy must have been nuts! You see, you cannot start a medical college anywhere and everywhere. A
medical college can come up only where a hospital exists. And the number of seats in that college is directly
related to the number of beds in that hospital! How beautiful this idea is! It is possible to become a doctor
only by working on patients, and not just with classroom lectures. However, you can go and start an
engineering college right in the middle of a desert! All you need is some land and building and some
machinery, and professors and students will make a beeline! I do not understand how you can impart
engineering education without industry exposure. Are our workshops and laboratories really up to industry
standards? Are our professors in any way aligned with the outlook that exists in industries? Am I asking
too many uncomfortable questions?!
Fine. There is actually no use in discussing policy matters here. None of us can do anything about that.
And the people who really can, are blissfully not bothered! There is however one important thing we can
do as teachers. We can rigorously drill practicality into our students.
Take for instance the famous textbook for Physics. This is one of the best books in the market today
and most of our students use it in Class-XII. Some even use it in the 1st semester in engineering colleges
too. Now, there is an example given in that book. While explaining the coefficient of thermal expansion,
the book says, Imagine a meter scale made of steel. If that scale were to be heated up to 20,000oC, the
meter scale would become elongated into a kilometer scale. That is because the coefficient of thermal
expansion of steel comes into work here. I have an objection to this kind of illustrations. We are engineers.
Page 3 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

Ideas by themselves mean nothing to us. Every step of the way, the ideas we deal with have to be real,
practicable. Else, we are not doing engineering; it is no better that the poetry that I mentioned earlier;
fantasizing merely! How can I imagine raising the temperature of that steel meter scale to 20,000oC? Steel
would have lost its integrity as steel much earlier. Beyond 4000oC -5000oC, it would have entered into a
plasma state! What illustration was this, really?
Yet another example, while explaining Ohms Law. That celebrated book says, Imagine a resistance of
1 and a voltage difference of 240V. How much current passes through the resistor? Well, Ohms Law tells
us that = and hence a current of 240amps flows through the resistor. Simple and elegant, it all seems.
But I object to this kind of teaching. This may be alright in pure science, but we create bad engineers by
teaching like this. A current of 240amps through a 1 resistor means a power of 57,600Watts! That is 58
kilowatts! That is 58 times higher than the power and heat generated in our common electric stove with
which we make tea in our kitchen! How can the resistor sustain that kind of heat?! What really is the point
of teaching like this?
I remember, once a student came to me with his answer sheet. He said I had to give him marks for a
thermodynamics problem. It was related to the temperatures and pressures in a petrol engine. He had worked
out all the four temperatures and four pressures diligently. And I hadnt given him any marks. I asked him
if he could tell me why I hadnt given him any marks. He slowly replied that of the eight numbers that he
had calculated, only one was wrong, and that too, the mistake was a silly one; he had misplaced the decimal
point in one of the temperatures; the number should have been 1013.4765oC, and he had written it as
101347.65oC. I told him, Look here; I am sad that you did not develop sufficient introspection to translate
the number you calculated into real life. Do you realize what 101347.65oC means? Do you know of any
material that can sustain temperatures like that? You are designing an IC engine here, and you are getting
a salient temperature of 101347.65oC! And you want me to give you marks for the other seven numbers
which you got right!
Another student had a similar case. He had calculated the volume of a petrol engine to be 86.25m3;
again a case of a misplaced decimal; it should have been 0.8625 m3; rest everything on his paper was correct.
But I didnt give him any marks for the rest of the things either. He too failed in that subject. Imagine, that
fellow did not realize that the engine cylinder he had designed was as big as this room!
4. Inordinate pleasure-seeking:
So, it is really an integrated approach to teaching that I am speaking of here. And then there is that idea
that engineering is fun! What a stupid idea! You know, deep down in their hearts, our students all believe
that they are here in college to have fun. They feel that they are entitled to enjoy. I repeatedly hear students
telling, Bhalo lagchena. What does that even mean? Why should I ensure that he feels joy here? What am
I? A pimp? Pardon me for my language, but that is what it boils down to. Why do we call our colleges as
Shilpamandira or Narula Institute of Technology? Why not call it Ramakrishna Mission Club or Narula Bar
& Restaurant, instead? If one wants enjoyment that is where they go to a club or a delicatessen. How can
someone come to an Engineering College and expect to enjoy? This pernicious habit has to be curbed
immediately. It is eating into the vitals of our students. I had a student once. He reacted very violently when
the drawing instructor scolded him in the class. He ran away from the college and was missing for a few
hours. Later I asked him why he behaved like that. He said, Maharaj, I could have gone in for pure sciences,
but I came to Engineering College because friends had told me that it is very easy to pass technical exams.
But here I find that this is tougher than anything I had imagined. That was too much for me to digest. So I
ran away.

Page 4 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

You know, once an interesting thing happened with me. I was new in Shilpamandira. About 3 months
were over. One student came to me and said he wanted to talk to me. He said Do you know that no one
likes you? Neither the students nor the teachers like you. I said, Well, I didnt know that. Thanks for
letting me know. Now, why did you come to me? He said, Well, I came to tell you this. I want to know
what you have to say about this. I told him that I would give my view on this momentous issue in the next
days morning assembly, where all students and teachers would be present. The next day, I told them,
Yesterday, so-&-so came to me and told me that no one here is happy with me, neither students nor
teachers. And he wanted to know my view on this. Well, listen to what I have to say: I am not a prostitute
that I have to keep you happy here. I am here to run an Engineering College, and I will do that. Whether
you all will like me for what I am, or not, doesnt matter to me at all. There are some ground rules for
ensuring that you all will turn out to be dependable engineers. I will ensure that those ground rules are stuck
to. Rest of the things can take care of themselves.
5. Student engagement:
The next thing I wish to bring up before you is the effort needed from us to bring in greater studentparticipation in class. They are using a new term these days for this greater student engagement. That is
a very good term. For, that is exactly what it really is engaging students in the classroom. Of course,
sometimes I object to this viewpoint. You see, this is not kindergarten or primary school we are talking of
here. I am here to discuss some engineering ideas with my students. I dont need to take care of the students
interest in the subject. They wanted to become engineers. That is why they come to my class. So, it is their
problem to generate interest in what I am teaching, not mine! But, some other times, I feel the other way
too. Let us accept the fact that engineering is one of the most boring of subjects! Look at English Literature,
or History, or Philosophy, or Anthropology. They are all so appealing. Imagine teaching Literature. It is so
easy to teach because you can always get some students to enact the Drama you are trying to explain. How
am I going to get anyone to enact the happenings inside a steam turbine?! How can I make the students
imagine about Enthalpy changes, when I myself find it difficult to imagine the changes in a real sense?
I believe, against this background, that engineering teaching involves two important things: Onestudents need to be trained in thinking through mathematics; two-the teacher needs to know some basics of
theatrics!
a. Thinking through Mathematics:
The most important mechanisms we deal with in engineering happen beyond the ken of
our senses. Since we have never seen what is happening, it is impossible to imagine it. Imagination
is always based on what we have already seen. If you havent seen something, you cannot imagine
it. If we cant imagine about something, how can we know it? How can we study it? Well,
Mathematics comes in handy here. If we learn the grammar of this language, we can deal with
things we cannot imagine! Yes, I believe that Mathematics is nothing but a language. And the rules
of Mathematics are nothing but its grammar rules. We take a real life situation, such as expansion
of the piston in an IC engine and apply Mathematics to that situation and translate it into =
. An analysis of this equation will result in some numbers, which I can later on translate
back into real life parameters known as temperature and pressure! It is that simple! We need to
initiate our students into this language. The sooner we do it, the better engineers they will turn out
to be.

Page 5 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

b. Role of theatrics in teaching:

We also need to know the basics of theatrics. Some of you may be surprised when I say
this. But I have been applying this principle all through my present lecture too! If we speak in a
drone, or in a monotone, you can be sure our students will go into a sleep. So, we need to learn how
to modulate our voices so that the listeners minds is always kept activated. There must be some
element of Drama in our voice, even when we teach engineering or interesting things will happen.
Once I caught one student sleeping in my class. It was the dreaded 5th period, right after lunch! And
he was sitting right in the first bench. I woke him up and asked him why he was sleeping. He said,
What to do, Maharaj! Your voice is so sweet. As I kept on listening to it, I was lulled into a sleep.
All the boys started laughing. I didnt leave him so easily. I countered him, Liar! See the rest of
the class. Others are not sleeping! He said, Oh! That is because none of them are listening to you!
Another technique I constantly use to get students involved in my class is to create
hypothetical situation and ask them one by one to comment. When one student says something, I
ask some other fellow to build on that first boys comment. Very soon, you have a lively discussion
going on in the class. You need to be alert to moderate between the answers and very soon, you
will be dealing with new ideas and concepts, which would have been a pain to teach otherwise in
a pedantic manner.
6. Enthusiasm in our job:
Of course, this issue of generating interest in our classes is something much deeper than just voice
modulation. It has to deal with our own enthusiasm in the job we do (i.e. teaching), our own love for the
subject. Students are sensitive beings. They clearly feel the love we have for the subject. They clearly catch
the enthusiasm we bring to the class room. So, deeper analysis of this situation tells us that we really cant
complain about a dull class with dull boys. Perhaps, if we ourselves were able to manifest a little more life
in our teaching, maybe this very class, these very boys would have responded differently.
How do we increase our own enthusiasm in the job we do? Or, can we really increase it? Listen to a
story. You all know about John F Kennedy, the famous American President. Sometime in the 1960s, JFK,
as he was popularly known then, announced that NASA would put a man on the moon. That was the goal
he gave them. Now, the reasons he gave them that incredible goal might have been suspect. Some say he
was facing too much heat from the Communists settling in Cuba and he wished to draw the nations
attention elsewhere. Whatever it might be, this was the goal he gave them. Once he was visiting NASAs
office in Houston, Texas. When he was walking down the corridor, he met a man. That man was the janitor,
whose job was to clean the toilets and corridors of NASA. He shook hands with that janitor and asked him
what he did in NASA. That janitor replied, Mr. President, I am putting a man on the moon. He didnt feel
I am an insignificant toilet cleaner in NASA. Instead he was able to identify himself with the mission of
the organization.
Notice how this janitor got so much more meaning in his menial job merely by identifying with the
larger goal of his organization. So also, we engineering teachers must always keep bright before our eyes
what it is that we are doing here in the classrooms and labs and workshops. We are building the Nation.
That is the ultimate result of the boring job we are doing here! Imagine, if the goal is something so romantic,
will our job seem boring anymore? Our trouble is, we often lose sight of this ultimate goal, and get caught
in the thick of thin things, as Steven R Covey says. So, linking the job we do with the larger goals of life
immediately gives great enthusiasm for us to do that small job really well.

Page 6 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

There was one very Revered Swamiji in our Mission by the name of Swami Ranganathanandaji. He
was fond of saying, Do the job of a clerk, but not with a clerks mind; do it with the mind of the President
of India! Imagine what this simple statement actually means. A clerk is a petty functionary. No work of
any real significance ever comes to him. He has to merely prepare some papers as instructed by his bosses.
But is that really the entire scope of his work? What he does is actually a vital part of some extremely
important decision that may affect thousands and millions of people! Now, the President of India actually
thinks like that whatever he decides will affect millions. Let us say, the President decided something like
bringing a change in the way our National History is taught in our schools and colleges. That decision gets
percolated down to his Secretariat, then down further until it reaches a clerk, who then starts putting together
papers for getting that decision made into an Order. Why should this clerk think this is a small, insignificant
job? Why cant he exercise his imagination and see the larger perspective? If he does that, immediately he
realizes the immense scope of his menial job.
7. Teaching a Service activity:
The last point I wish to raise is the idea of our job being a Service activity. Teaching is a service. I
use the word service in the sense of a doctors work being a service. We dont manufacture anything. But
we do add value. We take unfinished human beings and drill them into meaningful persons. You know,
when I used to work in our School in Along, Arunachal Pradesh, I once did an interesting experiment. In
the year 2009, we opened up our higher classes like Class-7, Class-8 & Class-9 for new admissions. So we
had new students admitted in these classes. Their application forms had their photos. They stayed in our
School till they passed Class-XII. Before they left our School, I would call them to my office and show
them their photo when they joined. There used to be a marked difference in their demeanor. This was
happening all along, but I started pointing it out to them as a concrete deliverable for the students and their
guardians to understand. Education does that to people. They become qualitatively better in so many ways.
The question we need to ask ourselves regularly is this: Am I doing justice to my students? Students
are here to learn. They need to pick up some vital skills for handling the engineering world tomorrow. Am
I imparting those skills to them? More importantly, do I myself know what those skills are? How good am
I in those skills? You know, I once found out that our Machine Shop Instructor had no clue what was the
minimum diameter job that could be machined on a particular lathe in our workshop. I then found out that
he also had no clue how to cut an Edison thread using one of our lathes. I asked him, Accha, tell me one
thing; boys who come here, dont they ask you about these things? How do you handle them? The answer
he gave me was epic. He said, No problem. I tell them these things are not needed for their exams. This
is how this fellow was covering up his own ignorance! I hope you all understand what I mean by doing
justice to our students.
One last aspect of this point. I wish to highlight the fact that teachers in engineering colleges are paid.
Why? What does that money relate to? We generally think it is for coming to college daily, holding classes,
doing various activities in college, etc. Do you know what some people think about us? Our main job is not
teaching. Our main job is thinking! Can you imagine that? The main job of a teacher is thinking!
The problem is that educators in India are not even understood in an Indian context of being in the
Creative Class. I will read out to you a wonderful article that appeared in the recent issue of Business World1
in this connection:
Over a decade and a half ago, I sat in Richard Florida's kitchen at his house in Pittsburgh, looking at
lists of occupational titles and deciding who was and wasn't in the Creative Class. We were both faculty at
1

Business World: 30th June 2016 issue: Guest Column by Kevin Stolarick: Educators not in Indias Creative class.
Page 7 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

Carnegie Mellon University, and I was working with Richard on what would become his best-selling book,
The Rise of the Creative Class. So, it was an important and formative discussion.
We ended up with a pretty simple rubric: Are they being paid to think? The goal was to find a way to
identify and categorize those individuals who were generating the lion's share of regional economic growth
and development - the innovators - the disruptors - the entrepreneurs (even when they worked for a
corporation). It wasn't just about education level and human capital. Peter Drucker had called them
knowledge workers, Robert Reich symbolic processors. It was those individuals who weren't just being
creative - they were being paid to be creative - being paid to think.
As we went through the list, the decisions were (and still are) pretty obvious - technology workers;
artists and designers; doctors, nurses, and medical professionals; scientists and researchers; judges;
lawyers; financial and management professionals. Then, we got to educators. They had to be included,
right? After all, both of us fell into that category, and we were clearly creative. As were so many of our friends
and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and other universities. And, most university faculty weren't just teaching
- they were also world-class researchers - even more clearly creative. So, we had absolutely no qualms about
including educators on the list of Creative Class occupations.
I was recently helping to identify the Creative Class from a list of occupations from the Indian Statistics
Bureau. Similar categories - similar results. But, then I stumbled. Educators? Educators?? Of course, they
have to be included. They were included on the original list. They have been included on every list of
occupations that I've used to identify the Creative Class from the US to Canada to Australia to the European
Union to Turkey to China to Singapore to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to everywhere else around
the world. So, of course, educators should be included in India's Creative Class. Or, should they? I paused
because rather than stick to a predetermined, routine definition based solely on a list of occupations, I
always return to the original rubric being paid to think. Identifying the Creative Class is not just about
listing a pre-selected elite group of workers (techies anyone?) - Its about finding those people whose job
can create (either directly or indirectly) the conditions that lead to extraordinary growth in today's economy.
Sticking to that approach and knowing what I know about the state of the educational system in India, I
couldn't bring myself to include educators in India's Creative Class.
Granted, most of my knowledge is around the post-secondary (university and college) system, but if I
can't even find the makings of an Indian Creative Class there, what hope is there for the lower levels of
education? First, it's hard enough to meet the first criteria of being paid. Relative to university faculty
around the world, pay levels for Indian university professors is at the high end when compared to internal
national income levels. But, the academic market is truly global so internal relative income numbers are
pointless. The competition for academic talent is global and the salaries must be commensurate if you want
that talent. It's not by chance that all of India's most famous professors are NRIs. Unfortunately, you get
what you pay for. And, when you're not paying a lot.
International rankings and global comparisons just reinforce the point that India's education system is
underperforming with research publications, output, and impact at near negligible levels. Understand, I am
not blaming the actual educators. It is the system and programs that result in these jobs being ones that
can't really be classified as creative. And, as a result, the jobs themselves end up being generally well-suited
for and attracting individuals that fit that kind of job. There are, of course, amazing exceptions - but they
are just that -- exceptions. If you are smart, driven and want to be a university professor, you study abroad
and then get a job abroad. Or, you skip academics entirely and pursue a job in the tech sector because that's
where the money and prestige lie.
Herr Doctor Professor has about as much standing in Germany as a large tech company MD in
India (if not more). While a university professor in India has about as much standing as a taxi driver in
Germany. I cannot include taxi drivers in the Creative Class in Germany nor can I include educators in the
Creative Class in India.

Page 8 of 9

Ethics of teaching in an Engg College

And, that's the rub. The problem isn't that educators in India shouldn't be included in the Creative
Class. The problem is that educators in India are not even understood in an Indian context of being in the
Creative Class. If educators were seen and treated (and paid) as the innovators - the disruptors - the
entrepreneurs generating amazing returns for the Indian economy, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Having the expectations would help to generate the results. Instead, the taxi drivers are doing little beyond
making sure your children make it to their next destination for as few bucks as possible.

******************

Page 9 of 9