There is a strange moment in the life of many teachers —

the day they become teachers…

they stop becoming learners.

Not immediately.

Not intentionally.

Not dramatically.

Just slowly.

Quietly.

Conveniently.

Workshops disappear.

Reading reduces.

Upskilling pauses.

Curiosity fades.

Exposure shrinks.

Teaching craft fossilises.

And the profession built on learning

becomes the profession with the weakest learning culture.

This is not an insult.

It is an underbelly.

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Scene 1: The Staff Room Freeze

A young lecturer walks in with a new book on pedagogy.

Excited.

Eager.

Curious.

A senior colleague smiles politely and says,

“Beta, these things are good in theory.

Real life is different.”

Translation:

Stop learning.

Start adjusting.

And slowly,

the younger one adjusts.

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Scene 2: The Dean’s Invisible Budget

An administrator is asked why the college doesn’t invest in teacher development.

He replies without guilt,

“No one asks for it.

And accreditors don’t measure it.”

And there it is —

the silent system design flaw.

Teachers don’t demand learning.

Administrators don’t prioritise learning.

Accreditation doesn’t reward learning.

So nobody learns.

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Scene 3: The Global Parallel — Boston

A Harvard professor admits over coffee,

“I attend conferences because I have grants.

But many of my colleagues haven’t updated their teaching in years.”

Her friend from Mumbai replies,

“Same here.

We have brilliant teachers stuck in 1990s classrooms.”

Different countries.

Same cultural inertia.

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**Why Does Faculty Development Collapse?

The Double Failure**

1. Teachers Stop Learning First

Not because they are incompetent,

but because they are exhausted.

They teach the same subjects year after year.

Routine becomes comfort.

Comfort becomes habit.

Habit becomes identity.

And identity resists change.

Workshops feel unnecessary.

Exposure feels like luxury.

Reading feels like extra work.

The tragic belief sets in:

“I already know enough.”

2. Administrators Don’t Care Because Rankings Don’t Care

Administrators look at the incentives:

NAAC, NBA, NIRF, QS —

none of them link core scoring to:

• teaching craft

• pedagogy updates

• faculty upskilling

• classroom innovation

• learning psychology

• new methods

If workshops don’t add points,

they don’t add priority.

Teachers stop asking because they think nobody cares.

Administrators stop organising because nobody asks.

It’s a perfect loop of benign neglect.

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Scene 4: A Workshop Nobody Attended

A college organises a faculty development session.

Out of 60 staff members,

only 8 show up.

Three are enthusiastic.

Five were told to attend.

The rest send excuses:

classes, meetings, urgent tasks, family work, seminar overlap.

The organiser shrugs,

“FD is optional anyway.”

Optional development.

Mandatory stagnation.

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Scene 5: The Rare Teacher Who Breaks the Pattern

One professor still reads.

Still explores.

Still attends seminars.

Still follows global trends.

Still reinvents his class.

His colleagues call him:

“Over-enthusiastic.”

“Bookish.”

“Too idealistic.”

“Trying too hard.”

But his students call him:

“Life-changing.”

This lonely excellence is the saddest evidence of all —

not the lack of talent,

but the lack of culture.

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The Emotional Underbelly

A profession that teaches change

fears change the most.

A profession that demands learning

rarely practices learning.

A profession built on curiosity

often kills curiosity the moment job security arrives.

Teachers do not stop learning out of arrogance.

They stop because the system doesn’t reward learning,

doesn’t recognise learning,

doesn’t expect learning,

and doesn’t model learning.

Everyone quietly agrees:

“Why do more when the system doesn’t care?”

And slowly,

the system stops growing

because the teachers do.

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Scene 6: The Japanese Parallel — Tokyo Evening

A senior professor confesses to her colleague,

“I miss learning.

But nobody around me learns anything new anymore.

It feels awkward to be the only one.”

Her colleague nods,

“That’s the problem.

Learning became a private act.

Teaching remains a public performance.”

The room falls silent —

because the truth hurts quietly.

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Underbelly Essence

Faculty development is not missing because teachers are lazy.

It is missing because the ecosystem never demanded it,

never rewarded it,

never celebrated it.

Teachers stopped learning

because the world around them stopped expecting them to.

Administrators don’t push it

because accreditors don’t score it.

And until this incentive design changes,

teachers will remain experts in their subjects

but strangers to their craft.

A profession that teaches the world

must first learn how to teach itself.