By Gaurav Kashyap on August 23, 2013
After meeting with the members of the Spoorthi Foundation yesterday, we thought of gaining the experience of teaching the students of the school. It was planned that a friend and I would be teaching English either to the sixth or seventh standard students. Although it was basic English, the tricky part was that a significant portion of it had to be taught in Kannada, which I can honestly say is not my strongest suit. To make things even more complicated, I had never taught a group of students before. After watching yesterday’s class by Soujanya, Roopa, Lavanya and Sahana, I realized that it wasn’t the easiest group of students I had to teach either. For some reason, I didn’t prepare anything much for the class yesterday evening or today morning. The class was supposed to be at 2:00 PM and we were supposed to be at Manasagangothri Educational Institution by 1:15 PM to talk to the HM, but we made it there by 1:30 PM. We spoke to Santosh and it was decided that I would be teaching the seventh standard. We were also warned that they were a difficult class to handle and they needed some disciplining. I thought to myself, me and disciplining?!
My friend and I entered the class and by now we were already used to their loud greeting of “Good Afternoon Sir/Miss”. They were pleased that someone other than their teachers was taking their class. Well, who isn’t? We started by teaching articles and while friend taught and wrote on the board, I was doing rounds checking if they had written down everything correctly. The fact that they were eager to learn made our job a tad easier. For once, I thought I would leave my funny self and be a little strict, a ‘Dear Diary’ moment for myself. We were later accompanied by another friend and with his help we were able to somehow bring the class into some sort of decorum. While my friend was teaching, I did add in some points of my wisdom, but mainly I stuck to a little writing on the board, doing rounds and occasionally threatening the troublemakers. By no time it was 3:45 PM and we had only finished articles and plurals by then. But still, we walked out with our heads held high and feeling proud that we imparted some knowledge. All the children said goodbye to us and were very eager to see us again. The fact that they liked and enjoyed having us made me happy. Even though teaching has never been an option or liking to me, the small experience at this school has made me realize the importance of sharing and imparting knowledge to others. It also makes me think of the millions of children who are deprived of education and how much it would help the nation if everyone took time off their busy lives and teach these children.
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