Small wonders

One thing i always love is teaching....and when i am not teaching i find myself preaching.

It didnt take me long to find out that being tagged a good student does not come without great deal of responsibilities..well to start with , in your own house, your younger sibling always wonders if you were in fact a family member or exchanged hands after birth. Your name is constantly quoted by your neighbors as an example , only making the situation worse, your close friend always wonders why after having spent so much time with you she still hasnt improved her grades....and all that leaves you getting nightmares of when all of them will gang up to bring you down...Sometimes you wonder if all this is too high a price to pay for studying well.

Well, studying indeed was my only pass time. for i dont remember having spent much time doing anything else. so text books became more of a solace in my life. Standing first in class brought joy to my parents espl my mother who always had something nice to talk about me to our neighbors. And you know how mothers are...adding their own bits to make their story even more appealing to the listener. Anyways, with the kind of canvassing i was getting, soon my neighbors found out a place where they could send their kids to get some additional enlightment. It started with doubts, help with assignments and I ended up taking long teaching sessions and some times even preaching, counseling and mentoring sessions.....I loved every moment of it and i am certain my mother must have felt the proudest of all! Though i loved teaching one thing i was sure was that i wouldnt become a teacher....all my mothers coaxing went down the drain.

But when i came down to US after marriage on a dependent visa...all the loneliness and the waste of time was getting on to me . So i finally decided to volunteer as a teacher at a school here.

The very first day i went to class i was hardly my self. Suddenly i had this “responsible” attitude as i entered my class.The class did'nt rise as i anticipated when the “teacher” entered which actually put me at ease. I started out with reading out to kids who had missed their previous classes....well i forgot to mention. i handled the 4th and the 5th graders. It was not at all a herculean task. My students were all very quick to think. I still remember during the maths class when they were being taught "figures" one student stood up at the end of the class and asked why they had odd and difficult names like quadrilateral, octagon, pentagon etc.. when one can just call them a four sided figure or five sided figure.

Those few days, i realised that they had taught me probably more than what i had taught them. I discovered the child in me again...and life was never the same after that...i felt more happier and satisfied.

But all good things do come to an end. Soon there was not much of work to do and my help was not required there anymore. They promised however that they would call me as soon as something came up....thats when it suddenly hit me that i was just a volunteer. anyways i didnt hear them for a week after that...and i almost gave up hope..when on a sunday night i got a call at 8 asking me if i was free and could volunteer again the following week. i readily accepted. But what she told me after that completely swept me off my feet. She told that almost every kid in the class had missed me and enquired my absence. Some wanted to know if i had gone back to India and that they were so sad that they couldnt even bid me a farewell. I was too happy to react. "Good night and see you over tommorow" was what i heard before the line went off.

I couldnt sleep that night. I was left with a feeling i cannot quite explain...and the next day i was swarmed with tiny tots for a very long time each competing with other to tell me how much they missed me.

I've been a teacher for a few days in my life, and one class bestowed an enormous adulation on me that i will never ever forget.....They call teaching a noble profession and that day i really knew what it meant to stand behind a table.I do not know if i could measure up to being called a “teacher“but i am proud of having been one,albeit only a few days,the recognition some gave me never fails to warm my heart-it is the biggest honour i have ever gotten by far.
And i have never looked at my teachers the same again!

There are some really great teachers,mostly we have forgotten to appreciate or even recognise. though they will forever stay in our memories.

I wonder why some teachers resort to corporal punishment and other humiliating punitive measures in Indian schools. Some children are moulded with kindness, some are hammered ...the same people who make some also break some.

I have been fortunate to have some great teachers, my mom being the very first ....My salutes to all of them!!