Can Lectures be Interesting!?

(Cacophony of noises)
He’s here..
Oh my God! He looks so weird.. He’s coming...
Subconsciously having overheard these statements I slowly raised my head to witness my batch mates rushing to class.(Courtesy ,compulsory 75% attendance).As the class rose to wish Mr Ashok Sarath , I was perplexed for a minute .The only imagery that came to my mind looking at his face was that of the cartoon character Popeye. He was a tall middle aged man in his 40’s with a pot belly and walked in a dazed manner. He was very casually dressed like any other layman too surprised to be found in an MBA institute! He looked like one of those intelligent geeks who passed out of IIM-A! By then my friend,Ms Puja passed a comment “OMG! He’s soo gay! Professor Sunil who followed him introduced us to Mr Ashok as our Integrated Marketing Communication professor who has worked with Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency and so on and so forth. On hearing about his work experience I confirmed that he was one among the cream of the society!
As he wished and addressed the class he stated the ground rules of his class which is as follows
Rule 1 – If I find anyone using a cell phone in class during my class, it will be auctioned.
Rule 2- If I find anyone using laptops during my session ,it will be auctioned and the money will go to the orphanage i choose
Rule 3- If you are not clear with any concept stop me then and there and question me.
With these golden rules he kick-started his class. The first two rules sounded more like a corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity to me than mere disciplinary rules! But as I went through his class I realized that it was a different experience in itself than the mundane lecture that happens! I was truly impressed with a few things namely
• The way he started and maneuvered through the class
• The Macbook that he flaunted
• The usage of language
• His attitude towards the subject
• The kind of in-depth knowledge that he possessed due to his industry experience

I always thought teaching was a very prosaic job. Usually the worst of the lot who never found a job anywhere else ended up in this profession. Otherwise it was the middle aged people with some work experience who wanted a well paid leisurely job! But Mr Ashok completely broke my misconceptions about teaching. He did not belong to either of the category and was here doing the job as a result of his passion to impart knowledge. It felt like a jiffy of a second as he completed his 3 hour lecture and said”lets call it a day! Good afternoon!”
With this I conclude that people who want to teach in undergraduate or graduate colleges must compulsorily have nothing less than 10-15 years of industry experience. This in turn would change the way students perceive lectures, lecturers and teaching as a profession.